Busting a boulder

[kkcomp]

Not tree related but any suggestions on busting up big boulders?

[thecfarm]

Depends on how hard it is.
The  I have are all hard. Not sledgehammer material.
There are some you tube on drilling and cracking them that way.
Feather and wedges will do it.
I have some that I can not move with my 40hp tractor. Theses are 4-5-6 feet across.
I have looked into this, but have not bought anything yet.
I was going to rent a drill and drill the holes then do the splitting when done.

[Old Greenhorn]

have you looked into Dexpan?

[kkcomp]

Thanks for the suggestions. Done the drilling and Dexpan and even wedges and feathers. These suckers are hard and about 8 feet. My construction size backhoe can't even lift them. I don't want to have to get a jackhammer :( 

[tule peak timber]

I move mine (granite) with drills and a hammer. The last one took 30 days to cut down 6 feet and maybe 8 feet wide to get the back of the shop in. I have more pics somewhere of the ordeal. I will be using the expanding material next time in front of the shop expansion as manually breaking rock works, but it is really hard work. I used to do irrigation lines the same way-straight through- but started just going around boulders with fittings lately. Our granite varies from hard to glass-like in sizes up to 20-30 foot nuggets. Paid plenty for pros to bang away with hydraulic rock hammers, Cats, Bobcats, etc. All they do is run up bills if they don't know what they are doing! We snapped a 12 foot oak slab into two pieces today, along a pre-determined fracture line. Piece of cake, . Gotta learn to read the rock just like you do wood or hire someone who actually knows what they are doing!   

[kkcomp]

I move mine (granite) with drills and a hammer. The last one took 30 days to cut down 6 feet and maybe 8 feet wide to get the back of the shop in. I have more pics somewhere of the ordeal. I will be using the expanding material next time in front of the shop expansion as manually breaking rock works, but it is really hard work. I used to do irrigation lines the same way-straight through- but started just going around boulders with fittings lately. Our granite varies from hard to glass-like in sizes up to 20-30 foot nuggets. Paid plenty for pros to bang away with hydraulic rock hammers, Cats, Bobcats, etc. All they do is run up bills if they don't know what they are doing! We snapped a 12 foot oak slab into two pieces today, along a pre-determined fracture line. Piece of cake, . Gotta learn to read the rock just like you do wood or hire someone who actually knows what they are doing!  

Hire somebody? What and miss all this fun

[Southside]

How close is it to items sensitive to over pressure and shock waves? "Things that Make You go BOOM" would have been a Top 40 hit had the other version not come out sooner. 

[Peter Drouin]

I used to just dig a big hole next to the rock and roll it in. So to have 2 or 3 feet of dirt over it. Then have all that extra dirt to spread.

[thecfarm]

I have people suggest I bury too.    Just found more that way!!!
Then I have to fill the hole up and I go someplace else to dig and found more rocks.
When I had my land logged the guy made a mess of the road to the back field. Brough in his excavator and leveled it out. I had him dig in a spot for me so I could get some dirt, many  were found.
When the foundation was dug for the house, there was a few  there too.!!!!!!
Had to bring in the blasting guys for the bedroom. He mentioned about moving the foundation a little, but as I said, 4 feet away could be another big  .
I wanted the house a certain way for the view too.

[Don P]

We had one job where I moved the house further and further down the hill trying to get off the rock. We ended up blasting anyway. The crew said it was the hardest DanG limestone they had ever shot. The engineer said it was about 5 minutes shy of being marble  . We were building next door a year or two later and Ifound some of our shot rock, oops. Then a few years later we were building on the hill across from that one. The surface was covered in sandstone, they wanted a basement and I warned them of what we had run into across the way. We pushed the surface rocks away and never hit another one. 

On the last "hey let's put a foundation under an existing house" job, the rock was starting to get harder than the jackhammer and demo hammer so I plumbed the skidsteer for running a rock hammer but it got back into manageable by then so I've never tried it. I may rent one and head over to the cliff at some point just to see how it does. That granite is tied right to the hubs I think.  Dexpan does work well on that hard rock, the softer stuff just absorbs the expansion without much damage. It works even better if you can find a young man to run the drill!

[barbender]

 Tule, your comment about reading the material reminded me of a story that I often get a chuckle from. A buddy told me how his Dad, who has always lacked patience and has a bit if a hair trigger, was training with a stone mason. 

 The mason would hold a rock, and study it for a minute. Then give it a quick crack with his hammer and it would neatly fall in two. 

 So then his Dad would look at his rock for a bit. Give it a hit with the hammer. Then another. And another and another. He'd lose his cool and give the rock a good beating, but the rock was no worse for wear. He found that stone masonry wasn't the career for him😂

 This Dad was also famous for his chainsaw throwing skills😂

[KEC]

My neighbor says that he has broken up rocks by building a fire around them. They will heat up uneavenly and the stress will crack them. Marshmallows are optional.

[Don P]

I did fires and water on the ~pickup sized one mostly buried behind the barn. We won about 20 years later when it broke into small enough pieces to move.

[thecfarm]

I have heard my Father say that about fire. 
Takes a lot of wood to do it.