Cleaning Painted Benchmarks?

[+Budney]

Hello,

 

I read the thread on cleaning benchmarks, but nobody commented on my situation. I believe I found a benchmark which is set into the curb of a road--but I can't tell, because it's badly obscured by layers of road paint! You can see it if you look up KX1552.

 

I'd like to remove the paint and expose the (suspected) benchmark while posing minimal risk to the mark itself. Any suggestions?

 

Thanks!

Len.

[+OzzieSan]

Well if I was a bettin man I'd say you found it. As far as cleaning the paint off ya got me there.

 

As for the coordinates being off there are a couple reasons for it.

 

1. It is a verticle control (elevation)

 

2. The datasheet says...

 

"The horizontal coordinates were scaled from a topographic map and have an estimated accuracy of +/- 6 seconds."

 

That will get you in the ballpark but most often will not allow your GPSr to lead you to it.

 

At least thats how I understand it to be.

[+Dawgies]

Contact the owner of the curb. Either city street department or county or state highway department and ask their input, or at least advise them that you're going to do it. They may has a suggestion and / or the best chemical / solution for doing it. In fact, it's possible they'll volunteer to clean it for you.

 

This is what I'd do anyway....

 

Best of luck!

 

~Honest Value Never Fails~

[+Dawgies]

Contact the owner of the curb. Either city street department or county or state highway department and ask their input, or at least advise them that you're going to do it. They may has a suggestion and / or the best chemical / solution for doing it. In fact, it's possible they'll volunteer to clean it for you.

 

This is what I'd do anyway....

 

Best of luck!

 

~Honest Value Never Fails~

[wmas1960]

I would go with the suggestion of contacting the agency that is responsible for the maintenance of the curb. They would know what the composition of the paint is and if there is anything that can safely remove it. I would be afraid that road paint is more perminant than your average paint because it has to wear under the demands of traffic etc. You might also contact the agency that placed the benchmark. NGS(?) DOD(?). You might also contact the state, county or municipal/city, survey department. They may have the contact with the agency responsible for the benchmark. I would leave this one to some official authority to clean up. It is their responsibility and you probably wouldn't want to be responsible if something went wrong.

[scubagecko]

I'd like to remove the paint and expose the (suspected) benchmark while posing minimal risk to the mark itself. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Len.

 

Well, if you want to try doing it yourself I'm certain that turpentine wouldn't hurt anything made of brass. Or any non-caustic solvent by that matter. If you can expose some brass then the solvent can slip underneath the layers. If there is new paint over really old paint then the really old paint has to be awfully weakly attached to the brass by now and would just need the solvent to loosen it so it can be peeled away. I found a benchmark from 1959 that is not listed on the site and it has a layer of yellow paint over it but scraping with my fingernails removed a little bit. Fortunately the benchmark is easy to read. Do most benchmarks NOT have the elevation listed on the benchmark itself? This one doesn't have it that we can see but the eTrex Venture gives the elevation so that isn't really a problem. I came to the forum to find out how you go about reporting a benchmark not listed on the site. I'll go post that separately now.

[survey tech]

You are right, most benchmarks do not have the elevation stamped on them. Unfortunately, many that do have it are incorrect. This is do to on-going technological improvements in the calculation and adjustment of the elevations. For this reason, many years ago it was realized that stamping the elevation on the marker was unwise.