Great North Road Calcined Bauxite – Early 2026

JFC employed RSL to lay the High Friction surfacing in mid-January 2026 on Great North Road, Henderson. The surface started failing within 2 days, with large drifts of Calcined Bauxite chippings, dislodged from the surface by car tyres, forming drifts over the road.

It turns out that the container load of Bauxite that had arrived from China 2 weeks earlier was damp. It is not possible to tell whether bauxite is damp by looking at it, but later testing revealed around 3% moisture content.

Over the following 3 weeks we ground off the bauxite, watercut the ground surface and re-laid it. The cost to us was $85,000. Initially it looked as if insurance might pay for the failure, and if not we could go to the Chinese supplier. Months later it became obvious that both options were dead horses.

How the Bauxite became wet will forever be a mystery, but we now have a moisture meter to check future shipments.