BITUMEN AND PUMICE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 302, 13 March 1928, Page 8

BITUMEN AND PUMICE

EXPERIMENT ON TAUPO ROADS A new method of treating pumice roads is being tried out by the Main Highways Board near Taupo. This consists in treating the pumice with a light asphaltic oil, the resultant surface after traffic has ironed it out being practically aT bituminous pavement. How the surface will wear has, of course, yet to be determined, but Mr. A. Tyndall, engineer to the Main Highways Board, who has just returned from supervising the work, states that the experiment looks distinctly promising. A section of roadway about 1,000 feet long has been treated, the work occupying three days. . The section is situated about two miles out from the Terraces Hotel on the Taupo-Napier Road. The method adopted was to tear up the road surface and then to spray it with an asphaltic road oil of about the same consistency as thin tar, nine-tenths of a gallon to the square yard is being applied. The loose sprayed surface is then thoroughly

mixed up by running disc harrows over it. Next comes another spraying of road oil, the same quantity being used as before. Another discing follows, and then a power grader is used to work the mixed material in windrows to the side of the road. Finally, the grader spreads the now thoroughly mixed pumice and oil in a layer about two inches thick over the read, and it is left for traffic to iron out. When first laid this surface is of a brown colour, but as traffic runs over it it presents a black appearance, and is* compacted into a bituminous pavement about 1£ inches thick. Mr. Tyndall states that a lorry laden with rails, representing a gross weight of seven tons, ran over the section just treated and only compressed the surface a quarter of an inch.

The work is on the same lines as tried out last year on sand and sandclay roads in California and New Mexico. If the experiment is a success it may revolutionise road conditions in the pumice areas in the interior of the North Island. Stone for road-making is scarce in these parts, but if a durable surface can be created by the application of road oil direct to the pumice itself, it will be possible to havo good, hard-surfaced highways right through the pumice country at comparatively small expense. W. R. MORRIS PROMISES TO PRODUCE CAR WE WANT T am going back to England to do my level damndest to produce the car you want, and to send it to you as soon as possible,’ announced Mr. W. R. Morris, amidst the vociferous cheers of members of the Morris Sales Organisation of New South Wales, whom ho entertained at dinner at the Hotel Australia recently. “I realise what I am up against,” he continued, ‘but it takes a devil of a lot to spt my tail down. ‘lt is said of our competitors that they have all the money in the world; but all the money in the world will not compare—in the end —with all the brains in the world. “I have made a lot of money, myself; but, if it comes to that, anybody can hav.e it. I did not come out here to gather more money, but to help gather together the remnants of the Old Country, and to tell you that soon wo will be back to the position we had 50 years ago, when we taught the whole world engineering. “Even now our biggest competitors come to Britain to buy the best steel in the world.”