Better Roads November 2014 31
Applications & Innovations
team used a close proximity grinder built by the company.
"It's a hydraulically powered 2-foot curb-and-gutter
grinder," Stoltenberg explains. "The head is mounted off
to the side, so it is able to grind at angles and hug road
curves." Use of this grinder achieved cuts within 1 inch of
vertical surfaces.
Terry Kraemer, president of Diamond Surface Inc., notes
that some of the bridges were also entrances to tunnels and
the tunnels were narrower than the bridges. "This added
another element of diffi culty to the grinding process,"
Kraemer says.
For each bridge, the grinding process took two days (in-
cluding prep work). J.V. Bailey Co., Inc. then spent several
weeks cleaning and staining the wood facings of the bridg-
es as well as performing minor repairs on spalled areas of
the bridge surfaces. One timber bridge spanning a drainage
area was completely removed and replaced with a culvert
system and one-lane road.
To maintain the historic fl avor of the route, "even con-
crete used on the bridges is stamped with wood grain and
painted brown," Stoltenberg says. Bridge cleaning efforts
entailed stripping and repainting these sections of concrete.
An unseasonably cold spring caused temperatures to re-
main too low to place the chip seal until June, but by June
13, this fi nal surface had been applied on each of the four
pigtail bridges. The road was then opened to traffi c and re-
mained open through mid-August to accommodate crowds
associated with the annual motorcycle rally, Sturgis
(sturgismotorcyclerally.com), one of the largest motorcycle rallies
in the world. The fact that early repair work had remained
on schedule allowed not only for unrestricted road travel
during the tourist season, but permitted the DOT to move
forward in the early fall with additional repairs and mainte-
nance of associated roadways.
At the onset of the job, it was unknown whether the
bridge decks could be ground according to the stringent
specifi cations. But "the end result was one that all parties
were pleased with and we learned that – with the proper
amount of fi nesse and excellent operators – most anything
can be ground," Kraemer says.
Article and photos courtesy of the International Grooving & Grinding Associa-
tion (igga.net)
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Email: info@mobilebarriers.com
www.mobilebarriers.com
®
Working on the narrow Iron Mountain Road in South Dakota, two grinder
operators were required to control the accuracy of the grinding process.
Project team members
Prime Contractor: J.V. Bailey Co., Inc.
Grinding Contractor: Diamond Surface, Inc.
Materials Supplier: Washington Rock Quarries
Materials Supplier: Poly-Carb
