Blading a road and making divots

[Zephrant]

My road needs a ditch on the up-hill side, to prevent run-off from washing over the road. I'd also like to smooth out some bumps and depressions.

The tools I have at hand are a JD2210, and a 6' blade. So I went out yesterday to see what kind of damage I could do. I don't yet have a box blade.

When I'm driving along the front wheels will drop in to a depression, and the blade will lift, leaving a mound. Then the back wheels drop in and the blade scoops out a divot. By the time I'm done, I've taken one hole and turned it in to two, plus added a mound! What can I do to reduce that effect?

 

[3RRL]

You could try flipping the blade around 180 degrees and push backwards like a bull dozer.
Be very careful with that because you could pretzel your drag links (like I did) if they are not very beefy. You should only push loose dirt if that is the case.

Driving forward over bumps and humps your tires follow those bumps like you found out. Pushing dirt in reverse like that will do this. First find a high spot you want to cut down to fill a low spot. Push dirt off the top of the high spot. Pretty soon, your tires are now on level flat ground since they are now riding on the flat surface you just created. Your blade will then remain steady and not dip up and down so much. Once you have the area pretty much leveled out, you can drag the blade forward again without having to drive over those humps and bumps.

Like I said, be careful pushing in reverse.
If the high spots are hard, try to loosen them up first, or take a very small cut at a time. You don't want to bend your drag links! I welded a "T" reinforcement on the bottom of my drag links to make them very strong. That was after I bent them.
Rob-

 

[rdbrumfield]

It takes several passes to get it right. as you blade the road the holes will fill and your humps will diminish. On the last pass, back blading works well. Even with a road grader you will have small divots if the front tire drops in a hole. as the holes fill things will level out. have patience.

 

[Zephrant]

Thanks for the tips- I tried pushing the dirt with the blade flipped when I was down at the switch-back, and it did seam to go smoother, but the blade seamed to lift easer and floated a lot. I doubt my links are very tough though, it is a pretty small tractor. I tied in to some big roots, and even some rocks that yanked me to a dead stop, even when I was going very slow. But if I stayed out of the ditch with it, I'd probably be OK.

I went back out today to have some more fun in the mud. Yesterday I was trying to use the blade to carve out the ditch as I drove down the road. That mostly just put mud on my gravel for me, and left a pretty rough ditch as the blade bounced over rocks.

Results from yesterday:


So I decided that I'd scrape out the ditch a bite at a time by backing up and dropping the blade, then use the loader to scoop up the dirt and cart it away. That made a nice rounded ditch but took a lot of forwards/backwards. Also quite the pain to pickup the mud/dirt and throw it over the edge of the road.



Then I made some passes with the blade, but ended up cutting though the gravel to the dirt underneath in a few places- hope that doesn't make mud puddles before the road restrictions come off and I can get some gravel up here...

 

[dex3361]

I have run into the same thing in the past and I got around it by replacing the top link with a chain. Then when you drop the blade let a little slack in the chain while you pull the gravel and if the front of the tractor dropss down the chain will allow the blade to float instead of making divots in the road. It worked for me until I got the recent tractor with Top and Tilt and the valve for the top link cylinder has a float position.

 

[dangerdoc]

My road needs a ditch on the up-hill side, to prevent run-off from washing over the road. I'd also like to smooth out some bumps and depressions.

The tools I have at hand are a JD2210, and a 6' blade. So I went out yesterday to see what kind of damage I could do. I don't yet have a box blade.

When I'm driving along the front wheels will drop in to a depression, and the blade will lift, leaving a mound. Then the back wheels drop in and the blade scoops out a divot. By the time I'm done, I've taken one hole and turned it in to two, plus added a mound! What can I do to reduce that effect?

What has worked for me is to make several passes with the cutting directed forward and the blade set at a 30 degree angle. This will allows you to cut in and get your drainage right. Then turn your blade with the cutting edge directed backwards and set the blade to a zero degree angle. This will spread out your loose gravel and fill in the dips. Once you have the drainage right and the the dips are mostly gone, blade about once a month with the cutting edge pointed rearward, this will remove the remaining dips as the the rock and fines get compacted. After every thing is set, blade a couple of times a year with the blade pointed backwards to bring the rock back to the top.

 

[zzvyb6]

The key ingredients to smoothing a road are getting material loose, blade width, blade angle, blade float, and patience.

You need to get loose material to work with. A rototiller works REALLY well for this. Do the best you can with your blade to rake a lot of gravel to the center of the road first. Use a chain for a top link, concrete blocks or iron weights to make it dig, a lot of angle (45 degrees) and set the lower links all the way down to make the blade scalp the road. If you are handy, make some blade "feet" out of wood to then set the blade slightly off the roadway. (The way skid shoes hold a snow plow blade off the road). Then comb the sides of the road to make it have a crown and finally set the blade angle to zero to top off the center portion. Its not a single step deal, but lots of incremental passes to get it right. Then pack it down with a lawn roller or drive on it slowly to compress the stone down.

 

[spruce Deere]

O.k Gonzaga, Use your loader bucket to clean and form the ditch. A blade will work but a bucket you have down presure and can carry dirt and junk off and away from the road. The main thing is there a colvert or somewhere for the water to not run back over the road downhill from this spot. To smooth a road up with holes and divits I Blade driveways same as a county grader does county roads. A couple passes down both sides angling the spoils to the center of the road. Then I straddle the pile of loosened gravel in the middle of the road and spread the gravel evenly. The first few times, pulling the blade pointed forward to cut down the pile evenly. Last few trips turn the blade 180 deg. and pull the blade pointed backwards, this avoids making divits and acts in more of a smoothing action, insted of the blade cutting in the fresh, loose gravel. I dont use skid shoes on my blade for this. Only time I really use'em is plowing snow. Theres my two cents....

 

[teg]

"...What can I do to reduce that effect?..."

What works for me... Go slow, and make many tiny adjustments up and down as you go. Easier to do it slowly a couple of times to get it near level. What I see is that your road looks pretty flat (which should be easy to get to a final grade). I'm sure that's not the "trouble" spot.

If there are spots that dip more (needs to be cut out a lot), work just one hill at a time. Angled the blade to cut the hill forward to scape off the top, you'll created a pile of dirt that you can smooth out in front and/or push a little dirt back over the hill to smooth out the front side. Lots of forward and backing up... HST helps a great deal with this. I may make 3 or four adjustments in a 3-4 foot run... yes, again, very slowly. Your blade is pretty sharp or is it worn out and doesn't slice very well???

As for the ditch, angled and use the point to scrape it out. Wish I had a photo of my friends' Tuffline blade which you can offset out to the side and angle it like a son of a gun... you drive down the flat road and the blade cuts a nice ditch.


This is one of two roads I made through the woods... To be honest, it doesn't show what you are asking...
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/projects/123229-before-after-photos-road-building.html

After reading what I wrote, I don't see why you could not drive the whole road and cut the tops down it one direction, then turn around and work it in the other direction, making adjustments at each hill.

 

[dangerdoc]

The key ingredients to smoothing a road are getting material loose, blade width, blade angle, blade float, and patience.

You need to get loose material to work with. A rototiller works REALLY well for this. Do the best you can with your blade to rake a lot of gravel to the center of the road first. Use a chain for a top link, concrete blocks or iron weights to make it dig, a lot of angle (45 degrees) and set the lower links all the way down to make the blade scalp the road. If you are handy, make some blade "feet" out of wood to then set the blade slightly off the roadway. (The way skid shoes hold a snow plow blade off the road). Then comb the sides of the road to make it have a crown and finally set the blade angle to zero to top off the center portion. Its not a single step deal, but lots of incremental passes to get it right. Then pack it down with a lawn roller or drive on it slowly to compress the stone down.

A tractor with down pressure on the 3 pt makes a huge difference. I couldn't understand why my new Kubota couldn't cut like my old Farmall for the longest time.

 

[Zephrant]

I just walked the road again, and it is still pretty rough. Looks like I need to work on the ditch more and get that looking better (I'll try the bucket as suggested).

I don't have down-force on my 3ph, so I think it just floats all the time. One thing I'm not sure on yet is where to adjust the angle of the blade. If I set it to cut shallow, I can't even lift it off the ground- not enough clearance with this big blade. So I mostly leave it so the support arm is horizontal to the ground.

From what you guys say, it looks like I need to make a few more passes to drag material to the center, then a pass to spread it back out again with the blade backwards. I'll give that a try too.

Getting the material loose is a little tough- I take it that there is where I really need rippers?

Teg- The blade is new, so I guess that means sharp?

My 3PH goes up pretty fast- full down to full up in not much more than a second. I've got it set to float down slow, but it makes it hard to fine tune- I usually bump it up then have to float it back down to move it a little. I can tell that TNT with dual link cylinders is in my future...

Thanks for all the tips- I've read them at least five times. I'll get some time tomorrow to try them out, and will report back again.

 

[Johndeere3720]

My grandpa has a 2210. I pull my little blade behind it and I learned to put the ajuster in the 3 point (located on right side and twists to angle or level implement) at a angle downwards, put 2 suitcase weights+ in the opposite side so they wont slide off the blade. andle your blade to where the blade is closer to the right tire than the left tire and try it out. That should pull the materials out of the ditch your making and create a level ditch for rain water to stay off the road. Try it out.

 

[mlevendo]

I built my 3/8 mile driveway with only a rear blade. I have a larger tractor though (MF 180 60HP Diesel). The blade was only rated for 45HP and I did have to bring it to the machine shop for repairs a couple times when I would catch large rocks that I ended up diging out by had and dragging away. My situation was a bit differnet though. I had no established road. I rotated the blade so it would push the material from the ditch area to build up the area the road would be on. I would use the 3 point arm adjustment to dip the tip down into the ground a bit so it would dig up some material and push it to the raod. It was a pretty long process and I got a lot of seat time. Most the material is sand with some patches of rock. I created a 12 foot wide ditch on one side which was an easement for the underground electric line to be run to where our house was going to be. The other side the ditch is maybe 5 feet wide. The photo is showing the 12 foot wide ditch on the which is on the left side of where the road woad be.

 

[mlevendo]

If you want to maintain a gravel driveway with a rear blade you need to take the same approach as the counties do with the big road graders. It is best to wait until after a rain. The gravel and fines will mix together better. They angle the blade so it moved the material to the center of the road where it leaves a windrow. Then they make another run with the blade angled so it will smooth that material out as it pushes it back out were it came from. They will repeat this process for both sides. They will also re-establish the crown down the center of the road.
Here is a picture of my driveway now. I planted some pature mix grasses in the ditches and on the slopes. I had just gone over the driveway with my Land Pride grading scraper. This impelement makes maintaining a gravel driveway a piece of cake. It even works best if the driveway is dry so I don't have to wait until after a rain. I just drop the implement down on the driveway and drag it along, no need to keep adjusting the 3 point. It helps maintain the center crown and it brings all the gravel back to the surface. I just drive down and back on the driveway. I just stay on the right side of the driveway and it build the crown back up. It's a huge time saver and is pretty much fool proof.

 

[carpenter383]

If your tractor has draft control you can smooth dirt and gravel like a pro! Just take a few min to play with the draft settings and you won't even have to look behind you while grading! The blade will be relatively unaffected by the tractor going through dips, before you know it all those dips will dissapear!
A good starting point is to lower the blade to the ground, then raise the draft lever slowly until the lift arms just start to take the slack out of the pins and go from there.
If you don't have draft control, then disregard this post. LOL

 

[mlevendo]

I believe on most CUTs draft is not available or may just be an option. If the blade is set perendicular to the the road and the direction the tractor is traveling in will begin to accent the humps and dips the tractor travels over as you are blading. You'll end up with rolling bumps. Running with the blade angled (like the big road graders do) will better shave the high spots and fill the holes. If you create a windrow in the center of the drive you can go back as spread it out. The loose material from the windrow will spread out much more smooth and even. The Land Pride grading scraper I use does this all without leaving windrows to clean up. It shaves the high spots, fills the low spots, re-establishes the center crown, and brings the gravel to the surface without having to worry about the 3 pt adjustment as you are blading.