Seeders Driveway Maintenance - Box Scraper?

[crazyal]

I dropped photobucket as well. While I never got ads the people who I shared the pictures with got bombarded with them. Then the site got very slow. I would have paid for the serive (as long as it was reasonable) as long as other people viewing my pictures didn't have to deal with the ads but they said no. That was the final straw.

 

[Soldier415]

Okay, I've just read over this entire thread and it seems nearly unanimous that a Land Plane / Grader is the tool I need. So that's what I'm going to get. Specifically I've just ordered a Land Pride GS-25 in 72" width. My Kubota M7060 has almost exactly 6' tire width and my driveway (2 miles) is very narrow, so an 84" would just spill gravel off the sides. Thanks for all the input and help. I'll post some before and after photos once I get the tool in the shed and on my tractor.

If your driveway is that narrow it may not be an issue. Mine is 10' wide so I went with the 5' LPGS so that I would not remove the crown every time I touched up the driveway.

LPGS works great for routine maintenance. Just be advised it will not pull material in from the sides to the center.

 

[Rara Avis]

Late to the game...This is what I use for Driveway maintenance...

 

[JeffroL]

Late to the game...This is what I use for Driveway maintenance...

That's a nice looking tool!! Expensive though, I checked their pricing. I think for my purposes the Land Plane is going to perform as well. There is no finishing rake on it, but I think (hope) it'll do just fine. I'll post some before / after photos when I start working the road. I sprayed all the grass last weekend, so it'll be toasty and dead before resurface the drive.

 

[Soldier415]

That's a nice looking tool!! Expensive though, I checked their pricing. I think for my purposes the Land Plane is going to perform as well. There is no finishing rake on it, but I think (hope) it'll do just fine. I'll post some before / after photos when I start working the road. I sprayed all the grass last weekend, so it'll be toasty and dead before resurface the drive.

For my finishing passes I adjust the top link so that the front blade is off the ground and so is the front of the rear blade then go slow. Gives a nice even finish and smooths out all the spots where material dropped over the top of the rear blade.

 

[JeffroL]

For my finishing passes I adjust the top link so that the front blade is off the ground and so is the front of the rear blade then go slow. Gives a nice even finish and smooths out all the spots where material dropped over the top of the rear blade.

Great idea. So in effect you are tamping down the road surface with the last pass?

 

[Soldier415]

Great idea. So in effect you are tamping down the road surface with the last pass?

Yes.

The main problem I have with the LPGS is that excess material spills over the back of the second blade unevenly leaving small piles everywhere that if not smoothed before packing down would make the surface bumpy and uneven.

By using this method it scrapes all the high spots from those piles and forces the gravel under the blade instead of over and is pressed down into the fines that have already dropped earlier.

The LPGS tends to leave gravel on top and fines underneath (at least on my driveway which is 3/4" crusher run). I didn't like this at first, but it actually ends up working because after smoothing when you pack it down with truck tires it presses the gravel down into the fines which then lock around it. When refinishing with a box blade most of the fines were on top of the gravel so they blew away as dust.

For reference, yesterday I refinished our dooryard (parking area for those not in NE ). Here is a picture of it halfway through the final smoothing passes (area on left is finished)

 

[JeffroL]

Yes.

The main problem I have with the LPGS is that excess material spills over the back of the second blade unevenly leaving small piles everywhere that if not smoothed before packing down would make the surface bumpy and uneven.

By using this method it scrapes all the high spots from those piles and forces the gravel under the blade instead of over and is pressed down into the fines that have already dropped earlier.

The LPGS tends to leave gravel on top and fines underneath (at least on my driveway which is 3/4" crusher run). I didn't like this at first, but it actually ends up working because after smoothing when you pack it down with truck tires it presses the gravel down into the fines which then lock around it. When refinishing with a box blade most of the fines were on top of the gravel so they blew away as dust.

For reference, yesterday I refinished our dooryard (parking area for those not in NE ). Here is a picture of it halfway through the final smoothing passes (area on left is finished)

Thank you. That is extremely helpful advice. I'll pay some before, during, and after photos.

When doing the initial runs over a very old driveway with lots of gravel but also now covered in grass, how would you adjust the scarifiers? Deep? How about the angle of attack on the two blades?

 

[Soldier415]

Thank you. That is extremely helpful advice. I'll pay some before, during, and after photos.

When doing the initial runs over a very old driveway with lots of gravel but also now covered in grass, how would you adjust the scarifiers? Deep? How about the angle of attack on the two blades?

For scarifier depth it all depends. How deep is the top layer of road material before hitting the larger rock base? Is it just gravel or is it a crusher run type material with fines? How compacted is it?

For my dooryard it was packed hard almost like concrete. But, the top layer is only about 4 inches before hitting the 4-6" stone. I put the shanks down to the 2nd to last hole and shortened the top link so the angle of the teeth was pointing down for a more aggressive bite and to get them to sink in.

Did passes where I overlapped each previous path with half the width of the implement until I had it all loosened up.

Then I pulled the shanks all the way of and adjusted top link to the LPGS was flat/flush with the ground and started marking passes starting at the far side to the near side where the picture was taken from doing a full implement width at a time. Was left with pile of material at the end so turned around and started the next run from near to far pulling all the excess material.

Once all the low spots were filled I then switched to the finishing pass set up with front blade and front of rear blade off the ground. They key with that for me was to go slow so that the material you caught with the blade would fall in front of the blade instead of flowing over the top.

This is the first time I have used the top n tilt i had installed and after doing it manually and with T&T...I can only tell you that if doing driveway maintenance regularly, the top n tilt is worth every penny

 

[JeffroL]

Thanks for all the advice folks. While I ordered a Land Pride 2572, I actually wound up with a 1572 because of multiple screw ups by the distributer. But I'm actually pleased because the 1572 fits my grandpa's old Deutz D4006, which has sadly been sitting unused for the last 1.5 years. After lubrication, filter changes, fresh diesel and a jump start, she's now a fully dedicated road maintenance machine. That old Deutz just won't quit. My grandpa would be proud (he passed in 2014).



Anyways, I quickly went to work and figured out pretty quickly that setting up the machine right is tricky. The right top link length was the first trick to get even engagement on most terrain between the two cutting blades. Then it was getting the right angle to eliminate the unnecessary high crown, but still put a slight crown in the road and recover gravel from the sides. Then it was getting the scarifiers adjusted right. Where I wound up was dropping the scarifiers all the way down where there were potholes and managing the depth with my 3-point. I went too deep in one spot and dredged up some large flat rocks and red clay - no doubt the original road bed. After repairing that I learned the right depth for the driveway and didn't have that problem again. By overlapping runs back and forth with the scarifiers I was able to tear every pothole out of my driveway. It worked very well.

The only issue I experienced was the sod. The old driveway crown was 100% grass and effectively sod. I sprayed it with roundup prior to working on it, but it still clumps up as sod when ripped with the scarifiers. Those sod chunks clogged up the grader impacting gravel flow over the blades. I had to stop and unclog it once, but the learned to keep the implement from digging so deep to prevent clogging.

All in all I'm happy with the unit. It made short work of a few spots in the driveway where there were significant potholes. I managed to regrade about a half mile of driveway in 3-4 hours this afternoon. Where I took the time to do 7-8 passes (pothole areas) the driveway is near perfect. Here's a few before and after shots of one area that was heavily overgrown with grass. Before the roundup it was actually hard to distinguish between the driveway and the surrounding field.

Before shot - again looks better than it was because of the roundup.


After about 6 passes with the land grader


Shot down the driveway for a small stretch. Note the clods of sod. I suppose I could rake those up and toss them by hand. It would look a lot better. But dang it if that doesn't seem like a lot of work!


All in all I'm pleased with my results.

-Jeff