Tips For working with clay

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Tips For working with clay
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flag beatifix
O+
Posted: Dec 27, 2014 at 19:22 Quote
Hey All,

Firstly I just wanted to say a massive thanks for the huge knowledge base here and everyone's contributions ( wish I could contribute more, but am a little green at this stage). We are currently building a load of trails and DJ in Thailand, and the wealth of information and experience is outstanding. It has definitely made life a whole lot easier.

So I have a specific question that hopefully you ca all provide some advice on.

We are building a dirt jump lot close to Bangkok city and are having some troubles getting it all together. Our main issue at the moment is the dirt we are working with...Clay.. The super heavy when wet and cracked when dry stuff.

We would really appreciate any tips from seasoned diggers to how to work with clay so far we kind of are looking at three options;
1. Work with it when it's really wet (although it drys and cracks pretty soon thereafter
2. Mix in some lime of something similar to help change the construct of the dirt itself
3. Use a better quality soil as a topsoil for shaping etc

Any advice would be really awesome we are pretty stuck to the point where we are just thinking about using wood and pallets to create jumps (which I would prefer to avoid if possible)

Cheers guys and gals,

B
flag bigburd
Posted: Dec 29, 2014 at 3:40 Quote
Maybe try a few test pits and find some gold dirt/sand to cap the jumps with ?

It can be brushed into the cracks and watered for repairs to cracks.

Might be worth setting up some thing to collect rain water too so you can have easy access to water to give the jumps a wet down in the mornings to help prevent cracking.
flag scrippsranchDJ
Posted: Dec 31, 2014 at 2:21 Quote
For clay its best to dig big chunks and stack them on top of each other, kind of puzzle piecing the outside together. If the clay is too sticky and sticks to the shovel when you hit it, we found splashing a little water on the surface and slapping the shovel downward across the surface will create a slick enough layer that the shovel won't stick, however the water doesn't absorb in deep enough to sacrifice the structure of the clay. Try to use the least amount of water to limit the drying time. As bigburd said, the best thing for cracks is to brush fine dirt into them.


Add chunks.
Need to make the lip bigger again
Pack in the lumps.
Almost done building this lip bigger.
Get the shape perfected and then brush in the cracks.
Finished the lip.
Shred!
photo
flag beatifix
O+
Posted: Jan 5, 2015 at 3:20 Quote
Oh awesome! Thanks so much for the info guys. @scrippsranchDJ those jumps look saweet! Hopefully we can get something even remotely close to that!

Cheers again and please everyone else, feel free to add, your brainhole knowledge is highly enocouraged!

This is us https://www.facebook.com/bkkpod ...there's a few more pics to go up and a couple of vids. We got a LONG way to go, but definitely are helped by the feedback!
flag jaha222
Posted: Jan 15, 2015 at 8:55 Quote
if its kinda soft clay which is what i have at my spot we mix it in with this brown dirt there as it seems to pack really well, just try mixing dirts i there are different types near you
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