Subject: Re[2]: Shop Floors

From: Robert Ehrenberger at mcctrp2 <[email-masked]>
Date: 25 Sep 96 15:45:00 EDT

New Text Item:  Re: Shop Floors

Jack,

The stuff they used on the road was just old oil. Be careful where you
get the oil. Remember Times Beach.

Bob Ehrenberger

______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: Shop Floors
Author:  [email-masked] (jack yates) @ INTERNET at NOTEMAIL
Date:    9/25/96 2:27 PM

[email-masked] wrote:
>
> John,
>   The guys at a living history museum just North of Omaha Nebraska
> sprinkle calcium carbonate (chalk dust) on their dirt floor to keep the
> dust down.  It seems to absorbe moisture out of the air, and acts a
> little like a binder to keep the dirt from becoming powder underfoot,
and
> billowing into the air.  Applied a little at a time...kind of as
needed,
> the buildup over several years has turned the floor into a poorman's
> concrete, but it's still more resiliant than concrete, and remains
> non-flamable and dust free (reasonably)
>   Bob
....Uhuh...when I was a kid, I lived on a dirt road, the town used to spread 
that stuff on the rioad in the summer to keep the dust down, you could see the 
road turn wet within a few hours; Mom would yell at us for tracking in mud when 
it hadn't rained in weeks....it settled the dust and

in a few days solidified the road....
Jack

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From: jack yates <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 18:35:24 -0700

Huh?  What? that white flaky stuff that they scattered out on the road 
with the salt-spreader was *oil*?....

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From: Michael Spencer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 96 00:22:34 EDT

1> ...sprinkle calcium carbonate (chalk dust) on their dirt floor to
1> keep the...

2> The stuff they used on the road was just old oil.

3> ...the town used to spread that stuff on the rioad in the summer to
3> keep the dust down...

Some places used old oil on dirt roads. Not to hot for your well or
the trout brook. They don't do that here no more. Probably against the
law.

Other places used calcium chloride. A teaspoonful will turn into a
puddle in the open air unless the relative humidity is approximately
zero.  You don't want to put it on your Cheerios but it's not
particularly dangerous. They still do that here, spraying on a water
solution.  Works real good. Leaves the dirt surface kinda icky to the
touch for a couple of hours. Not noticeable after that except that the
opaque dust cloud behind my pickup disappears when I hit a treated patch.

Commercial agricultural limestone (a natural mixture of calcium and
magnesium carbonates) seems pretty fine but is coarse and dense enough
that it doesn't make airborne dust real easy. It might well mix with the
dirt on a floor and eventually kind of set up into earth cement. What
do they use in coal mines to keep the dust down?  

- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer
[email-masked]
URL: http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/mspencer/home.html
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