Quicksand Fans

Good day friends,

So a couple of years ago, I was able to build a mud bath using a stock tank. It does the job: not as pleasant to be in as thick, suctioning, deep clay, but nice for a dip. Still, there's the issue of buoyancy, and I'd really like to get under it.

So I have an idea to build a pouring system, above and to the side of the tank. A significant portion of the mud would be shoveled or pumped into the pour tank, and through a lightweight door built into the tank wall, would open to drop the mud back into the bath tank (and atop me).

I know there's a few safety considerations with something like this. For instance, making sure I'm not crushed by several hundred pounds of mud hitting me all at once, the mechanisms don't break and fall on me, breathing, etc etc. I'm interested to see if anyone has tried or knows of someone who's done something like this, and can give me some technical details.

1. Is it feasible to build a standing structure that can hold and gradually release a thousand pounds of mud?

2. What quantity and flow rate would be safe to have dropping on me from, say a 1 foot height from four nozzles?

3. Are there any pumps that are suitable for this purpose?


These are the questions I know to ask; I'm sure there's more. Don't want to David Carradine myself by not thinking of some variable.

Besides having had two heated mudbaths in my house some years ago, I've had direct experience similar to what you're proposing to build, however, not in a mudbath but at a quarry mudpit. This particular quarry was constantly dredging its mud ponds and dropping a huge bucket load of clay over the hill it had created by doing this such that where the mud dropped was out of view of the operator. I liked to wait for the bucket to drop the mud and get into the stream of heavy mud rushing down a channel.

One time there was a large deep small area of mud it was dropping mud into. I positioned myself in the mud taking care that the mud would not drop on me. To my surprise the mud dropping created a higher mud wave than I expected and forced mud into my nose and mouth and it was a close call being able to recover and escape before the next bucket load would have arrived over me.

So, what I can tell you is that you are going about this wrong, you don't know you don't want to do this until you do it. You could construct something and gradually work up the volume of mud to determine the maximum safe weight but you won't know what was the maximum until you exceed it and roll the dice to see if you get to profit in the future from that knowledge.

What you do want to obtain is a concrete pump as that will solve two problems. First, it will allow you to keep you mud tank thicker as it will pump it. Second, you will find that by carefully positioning the output, you will get pretty much the effect you are looking for.

If you'd like more assistance, you might want to message me.

mudxdresser wrote:One time there was a large deep small area of mud it was dropping mud into. I positioned myself in the mud taking care that the mud would not drop on me. To my surprise the mud dropping created a higher mud wave than I expected and forced mud into my nose and mouth and it as a close call being able to recover and escape before the next bucket load would have arrived over me.

I'm consistently astounded by the experiences I read about on this board. That sounds like it was hot as hell, right up to the point where it almost killed you.

Regarding the concrete pump though, could you give me an example of what to use? I think I'm entering the wrong search term or something.

And I haven't even mentioned the time I sank in mud covered by a layer of alkali water in Mandeville, Jamaica and got chemical burns!

Am not familiar with what is available with respect to concrete pumps currently, you'll have to start with some sort of industrial supply company. You might be able to get some pointers from a concrete company that does concrete pumping in addition to just pouring it out of their trucks.

What I can tell you is that these are probably diaphragm pumps and that I've see a number of relatively small portable ones in use at quarries to pump slurry mud over the years. They have diameters of something like 6"-8" and can pump a LOT of mud.

Note that with all pumps, the main consideration is pump head, that is, the volume and weight of fluid that the pump can lift a certain distance. That is going to help you ultimately as you should be able to design something that will not require more than maybe a 6ft or so lift.

Can we see pictures of your system?