Hi All,

James Here,

In our upcoming Dirt Time episode on the Willow Creek Project, we go through a lot of different slope and streambank stabilization techniques (we’ll post a list soon).  But one of the cooler techniques we cover is Slope Nailing – or Soil Nail Launching.

For those of you who don’t know, Soil Nail Launching is a slope stabilization technique wherein steel rods are shot into the slope, providing structure for the slope to stabilize itself around.  That’s a pretty loose description, for more information, definitely check out:  www.SoilNailLauncher.com

Now, from what I understand, in the past slope nailing was somewhat of an involved process that dealt with drilling, grouting, and had multiple steps….kind of complicated. 

That is, until Morsky Industrial Services, out of Saskatchewan, brought a way-cool machine  to the site that shoots the rods (with great force) directly into the hillside.  No muss, no fuss.

You can check out a little more about the Soil Nailing Machine machine here.

In the finished video (due out soon) we talk quite a bit about it.  But here is a quick little video showing what I’m talking about…

That is apparently one of only FOUR machines in the world! (currently)

The edit is just about done.  I’m actually headed back to the site soon to get some ‘after’ footage.  So there will be tonnes of updates on this site in the near future.

Keep checking back!  …Or better yet, subscribe to our RSS Feed.

-James