 Shopping for new ideas, for maintenance, engineering, communication, equipment, administration, training, safety. If you are, then welcome to the Idea Store, a store whose stock and trade is imagination. Time-consuming, labor-intensive, and not very popular. Does that sum up traffic control? This edition of the Idea Store will offer some tips on the subject. Let's start with costly and begin with the equipment. A standard 30 by 30 sign, $35. A standard sign frame, $40. Total, $75. Where and when do signs get damaged beyond repair? Strangely enough, not as often on the highway as when they are being selected. The sign is folded, can't read the message, open the wrong sign, back on the truck. Here are a couple of possible solutions. Back here, take these out. Your number one notch, that's the first one you put up, that's the work area ahead, right? Okay, you come to the second notch here, that'll be a fragment ahead. Your three-notch right here, that's be prepared to stop. Or you can write the sign type on the outside of the sign itself. Either way, should reduce the wear and tear on your signs and your replacement costs. And for the sign stands, how about a simple rack you can put on your truck? For both of these ideas, many thanks to Clearfield County, Pennsylvania. How about the $20 cones? They get blown over or tipped over and then run over. This little device is a collar made from old fire hose filled with sand joined into a ring. And it fits just nicely and keeps the cones from tipping over. Time, it takes time to set up your traffic control properly. However, you may save some time as well as get better results if all of your work crews are familiar with the concept and rules of traffic control. Handbooks such as this one are available at little or no cost from many state transportation agencies or your T-square center. They contain good basic rules that, once your people are familiar with them, will save you time and still deliver a safe, professional traffic control scheme. The motor grader, arguably the most versatile piece of highway equipment. Used for many purposes, used a lot. And the blades need to be changed a lot. Looking for an easy way? Blade changing on a motor grader has never been considered a job that operators look forward to doing. However, there is an easy way to change blades on an articulated motor grader. To change blades on this kind of machine, you start by turning the front wheels to the right. Then unlock the pin in the lateral shift and reposition it to the extreme left hole and lock it. Move the circle and blade shift to the left as you rotate the mold board so it is facing out away from the machine. With the circle in the raised position, the operator cannot comfortably see the relationship between the blade and the front tire. For this reason, you need a helper to ensure that you do not hit the tires, the frame, nor the ground during this move. The mold board should be parallel to the motor grader and at a height that will be comfortable to work on standing up. Now remove the bolts holding the blades to the mold board. The blade should stay in place even with the bolts removed. Lay the bolts and nuts on the mold board and remove the old blades. Scrape or sweep any material off the mold board. Place the new blades on the mold board and tighten all bolts. Move the mold board back to the operating position. If you are changing a blade where there is traffic, you may want to work on the right side rather than the left. To do this, simply turn the wheels to the left. Position the lateral shift pin in the extreme right hole and move the circle and blade shift as you rotate the mold board to the right instead of the left. This procedure works great on 14-foot and 16-foot mold boards, but is tricky when using an 18-foot mold board. Changing time should be 15 minutes or less. This idea was submitted by Ed Wooten Sr., Assistant Director of Nebraska Technology Transfer Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 33rd and Haldred Streets, Lincoln, Nebraska, 6863-0929. You can phone Ed at area code 402-472-2844. Aggregate costs money. The purpose of this idea is to get a rough dollar estimate of how much aggregate is lost off the toe of the motor grater blade when picking up the windrow or under normal operations as you move the aggregate toward the shoulder. Carry an empty 3-pound coffee can in the cab of your machine. When you want to check aggregate loss as a matter of routine or when you observe aggregates spilling off the toe of the blade, stop the grater and take the coffee can with you. Mark off approximately one foot. Your boot length will do all right. Use your hands to scoop up all the loose aggregate off the edge of the shoulder and the foreslope of the ditch. Put this material into the coffee can and weigh it when you get back to the shop. Be sure to deduct the weight of the can. This will give the weight of the material lost per foot of operations. Multiply this by 5,280 to get the weight loss per mile of travel. Multiply this result by the number of miles traveled while blading to get the total loss for the day's operations. Divide this amount by 2,000 to get the loss in tons instead of pounds. Multiply the number of tons times the cost of aggregate per ton and you have the amount of dollars per day per machine. When you multiply that amount by the number of machine days per year, it is easy to see why it is important to minimize the aggregate loss while maintaining your roads. Maintaining the proper blade angle and pitch will help minimize this loss. This idea like the one before came to us from Ed Wooten Sr. This edition of the Idea Store has three entries for the communications window. In the last edition, we mentioned how many T-square centers use newsletters to keep their customers informed. The Local Transportation Information Center at Iowa State University goes the newsletter one better. They have compiled information on innovative tools and equipment from their area. They have released three of these. The booklets contain pictures, plans and information on many worthwhile ideas. Even using one of them would justify writing for the booklets, which you can do by contacting the Local Transportation Information Center, Iowa State University, Engineering Extension Service, Ames, Iowa, 50011. Here is our second communications item. Winter is over and spring is here. There is a temptation to forget winter and its problems. But remember the phone calls and letters you got about your winter service? Skip Benzetti, highway superintendent in Orange Town, New York, found that he and his department handled hundreds of calls from citizens during snowstorms. It was a time-consuming task to handle the volume of complaints and questions. Since most callers asked the same kinds of questions about snow removal, Skip prepared a flyer that addressed the basic items. The flyer was distributed throughout the community in the early fall before the first snowfall. As a result, the community was better informed about snow removal policies and the complaints went down sharply. The winter information flyer went so well, Skip added one on junk pickup. By junk, he meant those large unwanted items such as furniture, appliances, water heaters, etc. Both brochures were a success and the publication costs were more than made up by saved administration time. Translation, fewer phone calls. You can obtain more information by dropping Skip a line. Skip Benzetti, town of Orange Town Highway Department, Route 303, Orangeburg, New York, 10962. Now for the last of our communication ideas, and this one sure is different. This one is about communicating with beavers. Beavers are found in many parts of the country and the little rascals are known for building their own swimming pools. Often they do this across a road culvert, saving them a lot of work but creating lots of work for road crews. Say hello to the better beaver bafflers built to banish the bothersome beaver. Place a three by three foot white flag fastened at the top between two poles. Any place you see a beaver beginning to build a dam or any place a dam was removed. The beaver will leave and never come back. The size, color, and motion of the flag seem to be important. Why it works is your guess, but it does. This one came to the idea store from Nuggets and Nibbles from Cornell Local Road Newsletter, who got it from Dana Ingram of Oregon who got it from the Alaska Technology Transfer Center and now you've got it. That's why we put it in the communication window. Obviously an idea store needs ideas. Here's how to get your idea on the program. Tell us who you are. Better yet, send us a picture. Give us a good description of what your idea is. Show us the where at the locale of the idea is important. Why was the idea done? For reasons of safety, cost benefits, etc. How do you do it? Show us step by step. Provide plans, pictures, whatever you think we might need to understand what it is you want us to understand. Send your idea to your Technology Transfer Center for evaluation. Thanks for shopping at the idea store. Until next time, remember an idea never shared is an idea never appreciated.