Air Spade?

[John Paul Sanborn]

I've used a different home made "air drill" the "spade " name is registered after all. (Andy from Concept wants it writen AIR-SPADE (R) or useing the code for the R whatever it is) The actual AIR-SPADE (R) and the aluminum Air Knife (wich i own).

The comparison work we did showed the A-S to be maybe 25% better in compacted or very moist soils. many dont see that to be worth $1175.

The A-K people also have a huge cannon thinggy that works 5 times faster.

One thing you can try on your Air-Drill is paly with the reducsers on the tip to see if you cna get any more efficiency.

Maybe a series of reducers so that the air is gradually restricted.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

If you want to move more dirt, use that compressor and open up the size of the nozzle.

 

[Keener]

I did experiment a bit with the outlet size and going larger did allow more airflow and moved more topsoil more quickly.
The main drawback with my attempt was that once the looser soil was gone the hard stuff was just too hard to move.
Regardless of the orifice size the hardpan was being removed very slowly unless I used the tip of the pipe to pick away at it as well.
It may be that it was just to hard and glued together to be moved by any amount of air.
Now if you could get the same volume at say 500 to 600 psi I think you could cut concrete, the compressor I used seemed to be set at 150psi and dropped to 110 with the tool operating.

 

[arborvor]

It's also a great tool for doing trenches in a lighting protection system. Especially when you have 27 to do in 100+ ft pines. As we did at Augusta National G.C. last week.

 

[Keener]

How deep and what kind of soil?
Also how much time per foot of trench, roughly?

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

The type of soil is a factor, but how moist it is seems to make even more difference.

I'm curious about going down over two feet. The roots you have up there must be very different than those we have in my neck of the woods. Here the roots are mostly growing near the surface, about 95% in the top 12". Going down more than about 8" becomes a very inefficient.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

The ultimate form of soil aeration is mesic landscaping. Using plants that naturaly root deep. Sure it takes 5 years or so, but you get an 8 fold or better increase in an areas water handling capability.

I read a soil profile study that found tree roots 12 feet down in areas with old prarie maintained.

the thought is that this is a secondary root system for times of drought, when the upper layers crack and deeper soils get more air. The absorbative roots are ephemeral, where the woody roots go dormant during the wet cycles.

 

[Keener]

JPS, it would be of interest to know the species that can root to that depth. My guess is that very few trees would have that ability.
Mike, the roots here are probably not much different but I was trying to see if we would hit bedrock if we decided to bore under the trees for the utilities.
Expensive to get the line bore set up and hit rock halfway through.