The Unimog delivers the finishing touches for new asphalt surfaces.

Unimog ensures a clear track.

The asphalt milling machine cannot remove all the milled material from the road. Alexander Kilian easily sweeps coarse dirt off the road himself with his 2.40-m-wide Schmidt broom. Nevertheless, it is still necessary for a special sweeper to vacuum up the last dust. And then he has free rein: he moves along in second and third gear, at a maximum speed of 30, carrying 3,000 l of bitumen emulsion piggyback in the Schäfer Technik body. The emulsion covers around 9,000 m².

Precision work at the roadside.

With that, he can roughly prepare a two-lane, 1-km-long carriageway for his colleagues, who will then arrive with the asphalt paver. Also on board is 1,200 l of water. Under the tank: two C-hose couplings. “In case I have to remove a small area of dust myself.” The spray bar at the rear, which he controls from the cab via the control unit, can extend up to 4.60 m wide. He treats this spray nozzle unit with kid gloves: “It’s so expensive that you can buy half a house for that money.”

Depending on the tender and customer requirements, Alexander Kilian sprays either the C40, C60 or C65 on the carriageway with his Unimog U 427 – and, for example, on the edges of bridge transitions with a spray gun. “The agent really has to be applied very carefully everywhere so that the connections hold perfectly,” says the employee of the Glöckle construction company from Schweinfurt in Lower Franconia. The family-owned company employs 500 people and is one of the largest employers in the industry in the extensive region.

Flexible solution for the future.

The Unimog has been in use here for decades. A Unimog U 1400 is used as another flexible and fast supporter for the Glöckle team on their construction sites. “Depending on the thickness of the asphalt layer to be installed, a different binder must be used,” Alexander Kilian explains. “C65 is quite new on the market and is primarily used for very thin substrates. This works with an asphalt thickness of around 1 cm.”

A very sticky affair. And then it’s almost time: the finished paved carriageway can be opened to traffic. Alexander Kilian is quite proud of himself and his colleagues: “We can tell our grandchildren that, many years ago, we built the road we’re driving on.”