Things built, torn down and other projects.(Pictures)

#2,127
#2,127
IMG_1331.JPG20150602_165737.jpg

OK, all you VN engineers, Rube Goldbergs, oak tree mechanics, garage tinkerers, and outside-the-box savants; here is a problem that needs a solution.

I need a lot of rip rap at my shoreline. I can get a company with a barge to deliver and place rip rap on both sides of my dock, but they cannot place any rip rap between the dock and the shore owing to the various details of the dock, like the upper deck and stairs.. Of course, this is the area that needs the most attention as the ever-increasing number of wave boats has eaten away the shoreline there more than anywhere else.

My dock sits about 120 feet away from my house and about 50 feet below the house. See pictures.

I need to get about 8 to 10 tons of 4”-8” rip rap from the driveway at the house down to the dock. As an emergency measure, Ms. Danl and I carried 1.5 tons of rock, by hand, down the 100 steps to the dock which I hope is enough to hold the worst parts until I can come up with a better solution. I ain't carrying 10 more tons of rock down those stairs. There is no way to get an ATV or any other vehicle down the hill to the dock. It's just too damned steep . The ground on the slope is not smooth or straight as there are a couple of humps and dips that preclude the use of some wheeled vehicle, like a wagon, from being lowered on a rope or some such. I have tried, with no success at all, to hire manual laborers to haul the rock in buckets or crates down to the dock.

So I need a 2 person system that will:

Carry 50 to 75 pounds of rock per cycle
Person 1 will fill buckets at the top and initiate the device going down
Person 2 will unload the bucket at the bottom and reload an empty bucket and initiate the device going up
Cycle down, stop, and cycle back up in about 3 minutes
Not cost a brazillion dollars.
Not require manual hand cranking to go up or down.
Requires manual start and stop at both ends.

I am thinking about rigging up a zip line from a huge oak tree at the top of the hill to some kind of yet-to-be-designed-or-installed gizmo on the top deck of the dock. The largest drawback to such a system, that I can think of, is how to slow the payload down at the bottom of the hill. The slope is 30 degrees, so there is a lot of acceleration involved. That 50 pound payload would be hauling ass at the bottom.

I know that there are 12:1 counterbalance pulley devices available for about $250 to retrieve the empty bucket/crate payload once emptied at the bottom.

Any and all ideas are welcomed!
 
#2,133
#2,133
I'd decide how much is was worth to me, go to the bank and get the cash. Go to home depot and tell one of the Mexicans standing out in the parking lot that I had hard job to get done and × amount of $$ to get that job done.

Then I'd go get a case of Corona for a bonus.
 
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#2,135
#2,135
Behr said:
I'd decide how much is was worth to me, go to the bank and get the cash. Go to home depot and tell one of the Mexicans standing out in the parking lot that I had hard job to get done and × amount of $$ to get that job done.

Then I'd go get a case of Corona for a bonus.
Click to expand...

I literally did go to Home Depot and talked to three different amigos about the job. Told them what the job was and they wanted no part of it at $20/hour plus cervezas. I couldn't believe it.
 
#2,143
#2,143
@Danl, having placed 10.28 tons of rip rap along a creek bank (regularly flushed with storm water) by hand, you have my sympathy for the task before you. That was at a former residence. The next residence, I placed by hand 5 tons of rip rap along the bank of a dry creek that was a storm water channel. I’m not smart enough to avoid property without open storm water channels. At my current residence, I hired a contractor to create a concrete flume to receive storm water from the neighboring property and pipe the rest.
 
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