Trimble Business Center

Our company is thinking about getting a stringless curb machine and asked if I can make the models. I know our mainline paver needs a corridor, but what does the curb machine need? Linework, surface, etc...? Just curious what the community has to say as I begin looking for solutions.

I've never worked around a stringless curb machine but I can't imagine it would need anything more than a 3D line to work. Not sure if the mold can tilt on its own but for all that work I've done the mold is always at a consistent cross-slope meaning you should only need a 3D line.

Wirtgen seems to like a 3D line (chords around curves) to control elevation and the same curb line in 2D polyline to handle curves.  Power curber likes a horizontal and vertical alignment in Landxml format.  Be careful to As-Built inlets as they are usually off and require a transiton +/- 25' to 50' in the field.  Skill set of the operator is critical when concrete trucks line up.  Do a lot of practice runs first.  The 2 contractors I work with in Richmond Va. struggled in the beginning but are now very successful and would not go back to stringlines

For GOMACO

I do a flat surface at Face of Curb Pavement Grade 2' back offset 10' front offset of face of curb. You will also need a 2d linestring for alignment. If you have a open/closed gutter to do then you'll need slope on the surface. Pretty simple but a lot of little quirks for Trimble/Gomaco setup.

Here is a best practices document written by our Curb and Gutter machine team - hope that this is helpful

Alan

UPDATE:

We ended up purchasing a new Power Curber 5700-C with the machine control capabilities. Setting up the model turned out to be fairly simple. Only one elevated line is needed. For us, we use the top back of curb. Select and horizontally offset that line both left and right to make a surface wider than the machine with 0 vertical offset. Non elevated lines can be used to create the .svl as usual. We have played with it quite a bit and are still working out the kinks.

Thank you to everyone that replied to the original post. It was great to have ideas ready going into the process. Feel free to ask any questions as I know the process I listed above is short and to the point.