Driveway grading

[johnjk]

Did some driveway work this past weekend with my B3200 and the box blade. My intent was to do it on Saturday, but when I went to pick it with my quick disconnect, I found that the lower pins on the box blade were about an inch too short. Due to a mandatory trip to a craft show, I had to postpone my trip to Rural King for some longer pins until Sunday afternoon. Once the longer pins were installed. I was able to pick the box blade and start grading.

This was my first time using the box blade so I spent a lot of time learning what worked and what didn't. I removed the tines before starting since I didn't want to rip down in to the lower levels of gravel. The first few tries, I had issues with the box blade digging in deeper than I wanted. I was able to resolve this by adjusting the pitch of the blade with the top link. The next thing was to adjust the depth so I was just scraping the top inch or so and not digging deep. Once I hit this, I was able to make it up and down the entire drive without stopping. To get the build up on the edges, I tilted the blade so it pulled the material in toward the center of the drive. It worked great for shaving off the high spots and filling in the low. No issues with bogging the tractor down. I kept it in 4WD, low gear and the RPM's right around 2000. The ballast I added to the tires a few weeks back really helped me from sitting and spinning.

I'd like to get back out there and go over a few spots that need touched up. we had a bit of rain last night so it will be interesting to see if anything settled out and where my low spots are now.

I really need to get a few loads of a smaller stone dropped to help fill and smooth out the surface even more. I think I'll get through winter and a couple freeze thaw cycles before I take this on though..

 

[skeets]

john if you need stone to lock things together, I talked to the guys at the yard before I got stone and the told me that 2A modified would be my best bet 2A sized stone with lots of pea and fines mixed in and it finished off pretty good. Used the back blade to pull it where I needed and then rolled it with a DYI roller made out of a hunk of 12 inch pipe and filled with creat. It locked up real nice, that is if I would stop using my blade to dig it it up in the winter,,lol

 

[dandeman]

I was able to resolve this by adjusting the pitch of the blade with the top link. The next thing was to adjust the depth so I was just scraping the top inch or so and not digging deep. Once I hit this, I was able to make it up and down the entire drive without stopping. To get the build up on the edges, I tilted the blade so it pulled the material in toward the center of the drive. It worked great for shaving off the high spots and filling in the low. winter and a couple freeze thaw cycles before I take this on though..

Yep.. that's the same blade setup I've found works the best for me also..

Preventing water from pooling in the roadway by keeping a good crown on the road grade really helps prevent areas from weakening and sinking further down into low spots when the road has been soaked by rain.

One other tool I've learned to use that is the best yet in keeping the road uniform and minimizing the requirement for blade work.. is the vehicles I drive on the road.. I always place the tires on the high longitudinal ridges adjacent to the ruts in the road especially when wet, as once the roadbed is soaked by water, it is subject to hydraulic movment.. e.g. when weight is applied on a high spot, when it compesses down, it also raises adjoining soil.

On the other hand driving repeatedly in the same ruts only make them deeper, allows more water to collect in the rut and further weakens the road in that area.

 

[johnjk]

Thanks for the tip on the stone. If we don't get snow, I may get a few loads dumped in January to spread out. It seems that the edges are my issue right now with stone squishing out and up so running the tractor and cars up on those edges helps force it back down and in. It was pretty wet when they initially put in my drive and having construction equipment tear it up just forced a bunch of the #4's up to the surface so I've been fighting movement all summer. They topped it with #2's and not a lot of dust/smalls. I've also identified an area where I need to dig out and put a culvert in to get the water across the drive. We got over 3' the Saturday before Thanksgiving and I have quite the swamp being held by the berm of the drive. The dogs are good with it, but I need to get it drained off.