Box Blade and Banked Curves + some

[coachgeo]

Planning to rent a box blade Sat and seeking some advice.

. Banked curve needs repair. What should be the high side (outside of curve) via drainage is the low side. After repair I plan to put in a guide to make it drain differently as suggested by things I've read on road maintainance (Belt Diversion Pg 41 of http://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/pdf/11771802.pdf ) Looking for suggestions on how to best use the box to reset the bank to what it should be for later belt diversion sited above.

. Gravel is massively impacted everywhere. Basically it is Two Track gravel in some parts and just packed gravel with bad pot holes in others. Assume I'll have to just box it, rebox it, and box over and over all day long. Open to suggestions.

. worst pot holes are where the gravel meets the road. Where cars stop. Braking points over and over, then rain fills the brake spot. Car brakes same area in wetness and moves stuff out of previous brake stop pot hole over and over till spot is now big pot holes. Again looking for suggestions.

I'll have a back blade available too.

Think the rentable box blade is a 4 footer but might be 5.

Tractor is L225

 

[ShaunRH]

If you don't know the actual flow volume of water running down the roads, I would think it would be kind of a trial and error situation. If the water flows over your bank, it's too short or too shallow. If you make it too deep, you narrow the channel and the water accelerates creating an erosion problem.

I would think the better solution would be wide, relatively shallow ditches on the low sides of the road and if the low side crosses over the road, I'd put in a culvert under the road and redirect rather than the belt option, which would be a pain to maintain.( See page 68 for a natural height culvert) If you still have an erosion problem, you can add gravel to the ditches but they silt in faster so you'll always be scraping them out and running just the gravel back in. (BTW, on page 82 they show a form of road crossing that can be done in gravel or inexpensive rock and still allow the water to flow under/over the road.)

That's an interesting manual. Wonder how long it's going to be before the Feds make it law...

 

[cerlawson]

To better understand your situation, I think a few pictures would help. If you can place a level board somewhere in the photo, so we know what is horizontal.
Shots along the centerline will be useful.

You may find the angled rear blade (with some weight on it) may be needed once you loosen gravel withe the teeth of the box. Then the blade can run some of the loosened gravel sideways to create your banking. Asking the box to do that will take a lot more time.

 

[coachgeo]

additional notes.

. Curve is on slight downhill slope.

. taking pics..... dont have a camera, phone camera is worthless.

. Neighbor paved a section of this graveled easement infront of his house so water drains off that down the curve. Pavement ends feet away from where curve begins.

. How/why it began to errode on the high side Im not sure. Over time a burm rose on the outside of the bank and my guess is this was part of the issue.... it allowed water run off, to follow that burm?

.Or for all I know it was never banked and it just looks like it might have been at one point?

. Plan to put a ditch on low side to catch what runs down the belt.

. Don't have money for nice colverts and stuff. Tractor broke me as it is. Belt is EXPENSIVE too.

. Easment is maintained by no one and is the only access to my home. Easment is on a property soon to be sold which scares me shitless. Land lock lawsuits are now lost more often than won from what I've read. If the owner of home for sell that has easment decides to close it.... but that is OT for now.

 

[ShaunRH]

Well, you can always undo the erosion and watch it daily to formulate a plan so you can see exactly how the water erodes the surface. That document you provided is actually pretty good in modern saving techniques but horrible for the brute force approach. It sounds like you might need some more brute force (aka "Armoring" ).

Culverts can be made cheaper than you think. 4" tubes of ABS drain line can be made into traffic acceptable culverts for under $100. You can also make a concrete swale for the road crossing with just some bags of concrete and foundation mats. You need to go at least 4" of concrete deep for cars and light trucks, heavier requires 6".

Sorry, but that belt fix looks like all kinds of a mess to keep up and catching it with a farm implement is a possibility if you use them. It's also ugly!

I wouldn't worry about the easement, most States recognize right of easement through sale, it just needs to be brought to light when the land is sold that your easement exists. Where you get the suits is when the easement isn't disclosed, so make sure his realtor has a copy of the easement and signs that he received it. Once you have that in hand, any suit will lose as you did your due diligence to disclose and notify.

 

[coachgeo]

thanx for your input.

Any suggestions on box tilt etc for the first middle and last sessions of boxing it? First passes will be hardest. This stuff is mega compacted. It's not been touched in a decade or two.

 

[gpreuss]

Since you are renting, consider a grader blade rather than a box blade. The blades (2) are angled, and only about 5-6" tall, so the gravel can roll over them. And the box sides are about 4' long, so they tend to level out bumps and dips.
I use a rear blade with a gauge wheel, that acts like a road grader with the blade suspended between the 3ph and gauge wheel. Works great! For the angle involved in crowning the drive, I just adjust the 3ph lift arms, whichever blade you are using.

 

[MagKarl]

Since you're renting and don't have time to learn for yourself, I'd suggest you do some reading on TBN for BB threads and watch some Youtube videos.

 

[coachgeo]

Since you're renting and don't have time to learn for yourself, I'd suggest you do some reading on TBN for BB threads and watch some Youtube videos.

Great suggestions...... and have done that. should have mentioned that previously. Guess Im looking for conformation in understanding what I've read/seen and possibly a hint toward something Ive not seen.

One thing I've not seen/read is anything about super compacted gravel. Lots about general usage guides, some about dirt w/grass and loose to semi loose gravel but nothing about gravel that is so compact that at quick glance you might think it was paved gravel at some point. It's not; pot hole layers show that but man where there is no pot holes... this stuff is PACKED.

Maybe Im over planning??

 

[CaveCreekRay]

If I am missing something, I apologize...

From your descriptions, you will want to grade horizontal to a slope and change the slope to stop/control erosion. A standard box will only frustrate you because the box is always matching the plane of the rear axles. You need an articulated box that tilts relative to the rear axle. I am thinking you can't rent those. A blade you can set to an angle will probably be a better choice for your application.

In AZ we usually only get rain in big doses. As a result, we deal with erosion issues constantly. We use larger rock material (we call it "rip-rap") to slow the water down to prevent erosion. Most of AZ is granite so getting 5 inch and smaller rip-rap to control erosion is easy and relatively inexpensive. You can wander around with your tractor and collect rocks if they are available in your neighborhood.

The idea is to direct runoff into the rip-rap so that it moves slowly without scouring the dirt away. Damming up water will eventually force it over the dam if it rains enough and then you lose your front yard because a load of water is going to carry away your dirt as it inevitably accelerates. Even a 4" drain from Homey 'Po ($9 per 10') will carry a lot of water away without doing damage. You can double them up too.

If you place rock around the entrance of the pipe to slow the water down, you'll see less dirt and more water going in the pipe. Same with the exit, slow the water down and let it spread out with a bed of obstacles (river rock, rip-rap, railroad ties, etc) -and you'll see less erosion.

Good luck...

 

[coachgeo]

Well crap. The neighbor that owns the land with the easement is having their estate sell today (Fri) and tomorrow so the path is full of cars. I work Sundays. Will have to wait for another weekend.. hopefully before ground is too frozen.

 

[coachgeo]

Well got some done today. Think I did fairly well for a newbie. Lower 2/3rds went well. It's mostly hard packed gravel. The 1/3 that is directly infront of my house not so good yet. Lot of dirt in with little gravel. Thus it seems am making more of a mess than improving things. One of the problems is the ground is so hard and the distances not long that the box really never fills so Im mostly just moving early from one spot to another. Having to make piles then find the magic box height to re-spread pile where needed most.

 

[ShaunRH]

Well, box blades take some time to learn. There is more technique than regular grader blades as you are actually hauling soil from one location to another. Hydraulic top links add to the equation and really make it interesting.

If you can learn to feather the box at the end of the run, you are most of the way to learning 'the magic height' equation. So that's timing and lift speed. It's really the hardest thing to master, at least it is for me. If I get careless or lazy it takes me far longer to clean up the mess I've made!

What I find is, that when I'm working in soil conditions I'm unsure of, I set aside a good half hour to an hour to experiment with the blade setup and make a lot of practice runs. Eventually, I find the right combination for what I'm trying to do. I mark things on the adjustment links with a sharpie so I can go back if I had an adjustment that worked better previously.

BtW, the box blade is not always in axis with the rear axle, it can be tilted and with the right lower link adjusters, it can also be angled, but generally this in not what a box blade is used for as you aren't trying to 'roll off' the soil on the edge but smooth out the highs and fill in the lows.

 

[coachgeo]

Well end results seem to be "ok". Road is better than it was. I did leave some bumps where the box lifted too fast and deposited too much material in one place. The Fast Slow knob is locked and this thing is FAST to lift and drop so feathering was sorta impossible and couldn't get the height right to "back box" these spots out. So hey...... lemonade out of lemons......... I installed "speed bumps".. that's my story and Im sticking to it

Overall.... Im sorta pleased.

 

[ipz2222]

lower eng speeds will slow the up movement. Kroil sprayed on the down knob and left several days may break it loose.

 

[Corney]

Simple and cheap method to smooth out them speed bumps might be a simple drag? I found an old section of rail and drag that around. Would work better before it gets packed down.

My landscaping drag is a chunk of channel iron with some chain link fence dragging behind. Smooths out top soil making seeding easy.

Never had a blade box but wish I would have for final grading. Years ago I ran grader and the old guy that taught me always said to have the blade full of material rolling to fill in low spots.

Just got a Kubota did most of my 2 acres of yard grading with a 51 Ford 8N with a blade on the back and my makeshift drags. I did have access to a skid steer to move dirt and gravel around.