Monthly Archives: February 2015

Collecting stone

You can’t beat the look of natural stone walls, they can look great in any garden.  Many people ask us where we get our stone from and how we get it.

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Stone laying out in the open paddock.

Much of the stone used for stone walls is sourced from farms on the outskirts of Whangarei.  Being mainly of the red/brownish basalt type, it came from volcanic eruptions in the area around 10,000 years ago.

Stone piled under trees.

Stone piled under trees.

We use our 4 x 4 Tatonka Truck to get into inaccessible areas, and the crane and tipping mechanisms on the truck to make the job of collecting stone so much easier.

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Selecting stone.

We hand select the stone, placing it into the metal bin as we go.  We generally collect a wide selection of different sized stone. If there is a particularly large slab of stone, we place a strop around the stone and pull it out using the crane to  place it onto the back of the Tatonka truck.  Once the bin is full of stone, it is craned onto the back of the Tatonka truck.

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Arctic truck and trailer unit.

To get a good supply of stone back to Auckland, we use a large arctic truck and trailer unit. This enables us to bring back 30 tonne of stone per trip.  To transfer the stone from the back of the Tatonka truck onto the truck and trailer unit, we naturally use mechanical means!

 

 

Tipping stone off the back of the Tatonka truck into the bin is the easiest way to load the bin.  By simply changing the positioning of the chains on the bin, we can load and unload quite efficiently. Nobody wants to pick up and load the same piece of stone twice if they can possibly help it!

Dave on hand controls.

We like to keep a good supply of stone in our yard at 369 Paremoremo Rd, so that when it comes to building a stone wall we have a really good selection of stone. It makes the job much easier and far more enjoyable.

And…the end product…

Stone wall

Stone retainer wall.