CDOT: Memorial page 5

T h e C o t o p a x i a n P r e s s

CDOT related news in Cotopaxi, Colorado. Region 2, Section 4, Patrol 60

Region 2 Memorial Project

Page5

With water running over the rock, and a diamond blade in the saw, I cut slots in the bottom granite stone about 1/2 inch or so apart.

March 13, 2008

Then I took a hammer and knocked out the rock between the cut slots. Like you would do in a piece of wood!

This took a couple of days, as Ferrin had to use the saw to work on a bridge joint on the other side of Pueblo.

March 13

This process was continued until there was a "flat" recessed area to set the top granite rock in.

Next, I drilled three holes in the bottom of the top granite rock using the 3/4 inch SDS Max bit. The drill is sticking out of a hole just drilled in the photo below. Later I will grout in brass rods in these holes. The brass rods will protrude out of the rock about 6 inches.

March 19 New Volvo loader! Sweet self lubricating system on this unit.

Then I'll drill holes in the bottom rock and fill them with grout when it's time to put it all together. The protruding brass rod of the top rock will be inserted into the holes in the bottom rock. I used a hand-sinker drill and about a 1 1/2 inch bit for the bottom rock holes. The larger holes allow for a little "fudge" room.

Next, I flip the rock over (that sounds easier than it was).

Then I leveled up the bottom stone/recessed slot and set the top stone to check it's fit.

March 19

Not too shabby!

Because the bottom rock was not of an even thickness, I was initially going to use the "small" granite block (that I brought from my home) to level up the memorial. After using the old quarry technique to break rock utilizing pins & feathers and removing a protruding point on the opposite end of the bottom of the bottom granite stone, the gap on the narrow end (the near end in the above photo) was greatly reduced. So therefore I no longer needed the small block to shim it up to obtain level. I ended up using much smaller granite stones to level up the memorial.

(I later ended up using the block from home as a base to set some rose quartz on as part of the memorial.)

Next day, a new drip line for the plants on the north side of the Engineering building.

This would have dried up the area around the memorial, as the planters were on the way out.

That is, there would have been no more saturated ground around the memorial slab. As the ground is clay, this is important.

My concern was/is the wet ground freezing and swelling with temperature changes, and thus moving the memorial via frost heave.

March 20

Unfortunately, I had to add a maze of drip lines for Stella's add-ons.

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