Tennis red clay extraordinary refurbishing
Estimated time: 6/8 hours
Time to restart playing: 24 hours after maintenance
Court conditions: hard surface / clay scarcity / holes and raised lines
Quantity of clay on the playground: uneven throughout the whole court, need of extra clay additions. Suitable the use of a compactor roller (no gear or motorized)
White lines: they must be disassembled as well as the net and reassembled after resurfacing job (only when the clay will be dry anough)
Season: type of maintenance to be carried out once a year, preferably in spring or at the end of the season before any indoor coverage
Application: Indoor and Outdoor
Important:
it is recommended to carry out maintenance of this kind only if you have the experience and the equipments to be able to restore the playground back in ideal conditions once it has been grinded deeply. The risk is overgrinding the clay layers without being able to bring it back to smooth and flat conditions, letting a wrong amount of clay. Use Venus for that extraordinary kind of maintenance only if you are expert sport surfaces maintenance operator!
Preliminary measures:
- drill some zone of the court, 3/4 cm deep holes, in 8 random positions in the playground to check if any stones have emerged or immediatly under the first layer of clay surface
- if the lines are disconnected, compact them with an heavy roller. In necessary dismount white stripes if they are damaged or in bad conditions or out of line and not well compacted on the court surface. (not cross the stripes without lifting the machine!)
- use Venus adjusting tickness action for a minimum depth to break the surface crust layer before starting grinding deeply.
After a first surface milling, evaluate whether to add clay and mill it in a second pass to mix it with the original one
Venus will first be adjusted with an average depth and an average speed of the rotor, only in a second step will it be possible to cross the longitudinal milling lines with a further grinding effect in the opposite direction with a Venus adjustment at maximum depth (level 3 or 4 of the depth indicator) and an almost maximum engine rotation speed (take care to not let the machine run too fast, in case slow down the engine speed lever.
After grinding as you wish, start planning the clay with a straightedge to distribute the clay evenly over the entire playground before using a roller compactor.
After a first roll, wet the court clay abundantly and let the soil dry for 3 or 4 hours (preferably make this job late orning so to let the playground dry under the warmer sun).
Roll more firmly before installing the white stripes
Dust with a little quantity if fine clay to recover the ideal grain size on the surface for a perfect controlled gliding by the players.
Cross the field in two crossed directions with a net and let the field dry for one or more hours before playing tennis.
Machine adjustment:
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.png "depth adjustment: position n.° 3")
.png "speed control: push the engine speed control on a medium level")
Final operations:
any difficulties in restoring an ideal state of the playground when intervening heavily with Venus in several passes can be mitigated by stopping at an intermediate level of excavation, however always before seeing stones emerge from the last clay layer (never let the Venus blades collide against the small gravel boulders under the clay lyer.
Complete resurfacing of a clay court using Venus and Paoloni Rinoroll compactor roller
total refurbishing of a tennis clay court before Davis Cup event in Pesaro (Italy 2016)