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- Thread starter D2Cat
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I’m seeing more tracks on farm equipment every year. Makes sense. One wet fall a few years ago they were the only ones that could access the corn fields for harvest. Even had tracks on the wagon. We’ve come a long way from the Farmall doing two or three rows at a time.
It's interesting that many folks think running a tracked machine on the dam when building a pond will compact the material tightly. Just the opposite is true. The surface area of the tracks spread out the weight much better then machines with tires. Wide tracks are used on heavy crawlers on ice for that reason.
Yup I tried to explain that to a contractor that was "compacting the floor on my pole building,, he couldnt understand because it looked so nice. After we had a come to Jesus talk he brought in a tamper and 3 more tri axles of fill,,,
^^^^^
While it is true a tracked vehicle/machine exerts less pressure per square inch...that doesn't mean it isn't a viable method to compact soil. What matters is IF the amount of pressure is sufficient for the job at hand.
Where earthen dam building is involved it might very well be quicker/easier/better to use the large footprint of tracks to compact the soil evenly. You don't try to compact layers (depth) of soil greater than the machine is capable of. If you do...that is operator error. Just saying that 'tracks' are perfectly fine for many applications.