GOMACO World Index --- GOMACO World 29.1 - February 2001

 

Large Or Small - The New Generation Handles Them All

 

Commander III

A new Wal-Mart store was recently completed in the city of Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. Along with the construction of the new store, new roadway, curb and gutter, parking lot, and sidewalk had to be installed.

Burcon Slipform Inc., based out of Kelowna and Kamloops, British Columbia, was subcontractor for the curb and gutter and the sidewalk part of the project.

"The Wal-Mart project was 11,483 feet (3500 m) of upright curb and gutter, 32,293 square feet (3000 m2) of sidewalk and 11,841 square feet (1100 m2) of exposed and broomed concrete capping inside the median islands," Mike Green, owner/operator of Burcon Slipform, said. "All the sidewalk is 6.6 feet (two meters) wide, four inches (100 mm) thick, and was poured monolithically to the curb and gutter."

Burcon used their new generation Commander III to slipform their portion of the project.

The monolithic curb and gutter/sidewalk was slipformed over a crushed gravel subbase using a concrete mix design with a 4641 psi (32 mpa) and a one inch (25 mm) slump.

Control joints were cut every 9.8 feet (three meters) through the curb and the sidewalk. A transverse broom finish was applied to the sidewalk with a longitudinal broom finish applied to the curb and gutter.

"The new generation performed fantastic," Green said. "We've had tremendous success with the power of it."

A slow British Columbia economy has affected Burcon's production. The projects that are available are smaller subdivisions and parking lots.

"The nature of the work and the size of the jobs this year, because of the slow-down in the British Columbia economy, hasn't allowed the machine to perform at its highest peak," Green said. "We have had production days in excess of 130 cubic yards (100 m3) of concrete in an eight hour shift."

The smaller, tighter projects were a perfect testing ground for the Commander III's features, especially the sideshifting, vertical-lifting trimmerhead and mold, the faster travel speeds, and larger tracks.

"Tie-ins have become more efficient because we can trim up to the existing curb, lift up the trimmerhead and then pour right up to it," Green said. "We're also able to pour much closer to obstacles now because of the way the mold is mounted to the machine."

 

 

Commander III

Commander III

 

 

Roy Diederich, operations partner for Burcon, said, "The sideshift in both the trimmerhead and mold has to be one of the best features for sure. It makes it very versatile to lift up over obstacles and even in the setup of the machine. When you're doing tie-ins and you're sideshifted, you keep your front track away from the existing curb you're tying into and you can walk right up to the object and lift off.

"We're also enjoying the bigger, self-tensioning tracks," Diederich continued.

All of GOMACO's curb and gutter machines feature hydraulic track tensioning. This feature is fully automatic and hydraulically locks in on machine start-up to maintain a steady tension on the track chain.

"Another helpful feature is the increased travel speed," Diederich said. "Quite often on our jobs there's some walking from one end of the job to the other to pick up a new or different run of curb. We can drive the machine the block and a half to pick it up instead of loading the machine up. It helps quite a bit."

Burcon Slipform has always turned to GOMACO for their slipforming needs.

"We're avid, loyal customers," Diederich said. "We're really pleased with our new generation machine and have had no disappointments at all."

"We have a good relationship with Hugh Porter, our GOMACO distributor from Lone Pine Equipment," Green said. "He's done very well with us and we're very pleased with our new machine."

Editor's Note: All pictures are from a different job site in Kelowna. No pictures were available from the Wal-Mart project at press time.

 

 

Commander III

 

 

 

 

GOMACO World Index

Subscribe to Receive GOMACO World Magazine