Block Party / Retaining Wall Construction

The blocks and stone arrived Thursday, and the reality of having to build these retaining walls sets in. They arrived on two separate trucks, with the first bringing the stone.

The second truck brought four pallets of Allan Block retaining wall blocks. The truck had this nifty "piggy back" fork lift that attached to the back of the truck. Using the lift mechanism, it could easily lower itself to the ground, and lift it self back up after the delivery was complete.

The work crew arrived Friday night to enjoy the PS3 and get a good nights rest before a full day of work Saturday. The band, "MBJ Rock Armada", melted faces all across America.
It was a wet start on Saturday. After waking the troops at 8am for breakfast, we were immediately welcomed with a downpour as we surveyed the work site. The gold star goes to Micah for suggesting we erect a tarp over the work area. We finally got to work around 11am, after a return trip to the Depot for the jumbo tarp.
Micah and Bill discuss the excavation.
How many men does it take to start a plate compactor? I rented it from Home Depot since the block manufacturer recommended using it to compact the stone base.
Not only was it difficult to control, it really wasn't worth the $80 investment. A hand tamper seemed to do a sufficient job without the hassle of lugging around a heavy piece of equipment. The plate compactor seemed to be more suited for a larger patio project. Here Jackson helps rescue Micah from a runaway plate compactor.
The first block is placed!
Jackson backfills the blocks with stone and rakes it smooth. The first course of block is buried and has 6" of compacted stone for its footing.
In order to place the stones on a radius, the back "wings" are knocked off easily with a hammer and chisel.
Jenna lends a hand with the tamper.
As the workday came to a close, we were greeted with a rainbow. Although the camera couldn't actually capture the rainbow for some reason, this is an accurate artist's re-enactment.
Yes, they are holding it level! Thanks to Micah, Jackson, Brian, Jenna, and of course my wife Cendy for all their hard work.
The work crew was treated to a barbeque Meat-fest for their hard day's work. The menu included baby back ribs, marinated flank steak, salmon with habanero-lime butter, Asian grilled chicken, corn on the cob and zucchini - all cooked on the grill. I'm a big fan of Allrecipes.com, and the reviews were favorable for most of the menu. Two thumbs up for the ribs and steak. Those recipes are keepers.

The following day, sore backs and all, we continued work on the walls. For the third course, I decided to dowel-in the wall into the concrete foundation. A two-foot #4 rebar rests comfortably in some notches I created in the first two blocks. Some construction adhesive holds the bar in place. The landscape fabric is used to prevent silt from seeping through the seam between the house and first block.
The block joints need to be staggered from course to course, so this creates odd-length blocks at the start of the wall. I couldn't find a suitable saw blade, so instead I drilled some perforations with a masonry bit and hammer drill. With a few whacks of the hammer and chisel, the block splits relatively easily. However, after doing this twice, both blocks fractured. To fix this problem, we switched to synchronized hammering. I would use a hammer and chisel on the front face, while Cendy would strike the back face simultaneously. By splitting both faces at the same time, it reduces the stress on the block side walls. As expected, the piece split using the simultaneous splitting technique and did not break after being handled or placed.

I use a hoe to backfill behind the fourth course. The wall curve takes shape! It definitely was a tricky turn, but Cendy and I figured it out.Here's the progress at the end of Sunday. One more course, and this section of wall is complete.