Hard Porous Pitch Maintenance: 08. Rolling

Rolling would mainly have taken place for four main reasons.

• After larger quantities of top-dressing have been applied.
• After tine-raking/scarification of the surface.
• To firm the surface after frost, especially where surface disturbance has occurred from a severe frost.
• To firm the surface after irrigation. Making sure the surface was neither too wet nor too dry when rolling took place. Roll when the material was moist, with a drier top skin to stop the material from sticking to the tyres of a power unit would have been the ideal situation.

Rolling when the surface was too dry would have resulted in the material crumbling and rapidly degrading into finer particles and dust.

The weight of a tractor operated roller would typically have been in the region of 400kg-500kg for use after major renovation work, scarification, or frost, whilst a SISIS combination frame roller or attachment to the Auto-Trak would have been about 75kg-100kg in weight and used for more routine rolling, which might have been once or twice a week.

The weight of the roller after irrigation would have mostly been the lighter weighted roller.