I've been working on resurveying a roughly 177 acre lot originally surveyed in 1877 when a 4,300 acre original land grant was subdivided. The last time that the lot I'm working on was resurveyed was 1938. That surveyor set fairly substantial monuments, 1-1/4" x 48" iron pipes that he left up about 12 inches so that they wouldn't be a challenge to find.
The pipe at the SW corner of the lot was found by a piece of farm machinery that bent and broke off the top 16 inches of it. What we found buried in the field was a stub in the ground with a severely bent top and the broken-off top section. The broken section also had a driven end that had obviously been pounded to death with a sledge in 1938 when the pipe was set.
Neither the bent up bottom section in the ground nor the broken top section would have been suitable for resetting at the corner. What I did was to take a hack saw and amputate the bent and mangled ends. I then replaced the section that had been in ground more or less plumb and drove a 48 in. #5 bar through it, slipping the top section of the pipe over it and finishing it off by affixing a 2 inch aluminum cap to the bar.
I reset the pipe 5 inches below grade, which isn't below plow depth but should keep it from getting hit by the shredder. So what is now in place is a monument that preserves the identity of the 1938 iron pipe while adding an exact reference point to the mushroomed top. I liked the result.
The brush line is on the pasture fence about 200 ft. South of the corner
Note the stamping "FD IRON PIPE" :>
Is it an optical illusion or the disk/cap is really slightly off from the actual centre of the pipe?
> Is it an optical illusion or the disk/cap is really slightly off from the actual centre of the pipe?
The top of the pipe was badly deformed by driving, splitting and starting to "blossom" into petals of pipe wall, some of which later broke off. I think you're looking at the asymmetrically shaped top. The stem of the aluminum cap was nearly a press fit into the inside diameter of the pipe, i.e. the cap was centered on the inside diameter of the pipe.
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> The top of the pipe was badly deformed by driving, splitting and starting to "blossom" into petals of pipe wall, some of which later broke off.
Is there a tutorial somewhere on how to stop the pipe from 'blossoming' too much?
A number of times the ground was harder than expected and our pipes became too petalised, and of course by the time it is already too late to do anything..
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> > The top of the pipe was badly deformed by driving, splitting and starting to "blossom" into petals of pipe wall, some of which later broke off.
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> Is there a tutorial somewhere on how to stop the pipe from 'blossoming' too much?
> A number of times the ground was harder than expected and our pipes became too petalised, and of course by the time it is already too late to do anything..
Well, one strategy is to make a pilot hole for the pipe with some harder steel tool and then withdraw that to set the pipe in the hole thus made.
Another very good tool to have is a drive cap for pipe that can be laid over the top end of the pipe as it is hammered. Various companies sell those.
BTW here is a photo with some guidelines added that suggest that the punchmark on the cap may be missing the center by about 1.5mm. That would, of course, be too far out of tolerance for New Hampshire surveyors not to want to mark new bearing trees, but is more than acceptable in Texas. :>
> Another very good tool to have is a drive cap for pipe that can be laid over the top end of the pipe as it is hammered. Various companies sell those.
Not in Malaysia I don't think, never came across one before..got any picture with perhaps, dimension? probably have to fabricate one ourselves. Thks
> Not in Malaysia I don't think, never came across one before..got any picture with perhaps, dimension? probably have to fabricate one ourselves. Thks
Here's a link to the SurvKap catalogue with examples of what they call pipe sizers that simultaneously protect the top of the pipe and keep the inside diameter full size.
http://www.surv-kap.com/index.php/tools-accessories/pipe-sizers.html
> Here's a link to the SurvKap catalogue with examples of what they call pipe sizers that simultaneously protect the top of the pipe and keep the inside diameter full size.
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>> http://www.surv-kap.com/index.php/tools-accessories/pipe-sizers.htmlbr >
Thanks, we may fabricate a few..
one more thing, do you know how much 'slack' for the caps or is it a tight fit?? I would imagine it cannot be too tight or too loose, what is the actual cap diameter for say 1 inch pipe? TIA
In your sketch, the vertical lines (which are supposed to represent the outer wall of the iron pipe) don't appear parallel. It looks fudged.
Also, next time bring an iron so the flagging does not look too wrinkled.
1938 Pipe Rehabilitation> Drive Cap?
I've found that a hub works fine, might sting your hands a little but it's at least in the bag (usually) and you don't have to carry another piece of small equipment around.
I have a photo somewhere of a similar situation. I had my employee do the hack saw part 🙂 It was a 1 inch pipe that I cut off and then I stuck a 3/4" rebar in it with an aluminum cap with FD IP stamped on it. I cemented the rebar into the pipe with Rockite. I donated the last of my personal box of Rockite to the State for that little project. I left it up about a foot but it's next to a fence corner.
Spelling it out IRON PIPE is better.
The cut off portion of the pipe is sitting on my employee's desk.
I have a pipe driver I got from Lo Ink that works well. It'll drive a 1 inch or 3/4" pipe.
For rebar you get a rebar driver. Be sure to pound the burrs and ribs down on the top of the rebar before using the driver or it can get stuck on there. The rebar driver makes the top of the rebar sort of beveled so the cap goes on better.
And if you use a pipe driver don't use it on a threaded end. The threads collapse and the driver can get stuck in there. The hardware store guys kind of look at you funny when you tell them you want the 20 foot stick cut into 2 foot lengths and no you don't want it threaded.
The last big private project I had I used rebar because it's just simpler and cheaper to go to a rebar place and get a bundle of rebars cut to length.
> In your sketch, the vertical lines (which are supposed to represent the outer wall of the iron pipe) don't appear parallel. It looks fudged.
LOL! I trust that you know that perspective and camera lenses mean that parallel lines won't ordinarily be parallel in the projection onto the camera's plate.
I like the iron the flagging comment, I never thought of that but it's a good point.
In all of Kents posts I do not belive I've seen any signs of civilization (i.e. house, a car, PEOPLE)..
> one more thing, do you know how much 'slack' for the caps or is it a tight fit?? I would imagine it cannot be too tight or too loose, what is the actual cap diameter for say 1 inch pipe? TIA
The aluminum rebar caps I use are the model SK-108-2F made by Surv-Kap.
The stem of that cap was 1.5mm smaller in diameter than a 1.25" i.d. steel pipe. We recovered several of the 1938 surveyor's pipes on that project. One I affixed an aluminum cap to without the rebar by wrapping the stem with plastic to take up the additional 1.5mm and make a compressible spacer. The cap was a tight drive fit.
> In all of Kents posts I do not belive I've seen any signs of civilization (i.e. house, a car, PEOPLE)..
Well, the only sort of a car you'd be apt to see in a pasture full of mesquite trees would be one driven by some Yankee tourists whose GPS navigation gadget had told them to "turn right" a few too many times. :>
Here is a bit of civilization on the horizon for the Easterners who get tense when they get too far from some graffiti.
1938 Pipe Rehabilitation> Drive Cap?
> I've found that a hub works fine, might sting your hands a little but it's at least in the bag (usually) and you don't have to carry another piece of small equipment around.
I suppose if the soil is some loose Cape-Cod-type soil, that might work. In a stiff black gravelly clay soil as exists at that site, it would be a great way to smash a bunch of pine hubs into toothpicks.
I'm with Kent why survey if you're always around town?
Looking for stone
found stone
reservoir topo
but we do get nosy neighbors
