Grading to a nice level

[Alex_Mendoza]

Hi Guy's
I am about to start a "little" project so my wife says.
I will be grading an area about 120 x 55 ft. for a small riding ring for the wife and daughter. The question I have is what have you gentlemen used (tool or method) to get a nice flat area, your eyes can deceive you and I really want the wife to be happy with her riding arena. I have a JD 4115 FEL and box, the slope does not appear to be that bad maybe 4 to 5 feet drop in the with of 55 ft.
If any of you have had a similar project I would sincerely ! appreciate your input.
I thank You ! in advance.

Alex Mendoza

 

[RonL]

Alex

It's becoming common on grading jobs to set a laser receiver on the grading blade. Some of the larger machines automatically adjust the blade. You could attach a pole with a laser receiver to your box blade and manually adjust it as you go along. Laser levels are becoming cheap.

RonL

 

[JJT]

120X55x2.5ft/27ft/yard = 600+ yards of material, sounds like you need a D6 dozer, not a compact tractor. Yes you could do the work with a compact, but your time has to be worth something, heck you could do the work with a shovel and a wheelbarrow.....

I'd contract out the heavy lifting and do the finish work with the compact.

 

[Casimir]

Alex:

I just completed a similar project - 120 Meters by 20 meters - a full-sized dressage arena. The area was wooded, so we hired a track-hoe to do the initial clearing. Biggest problem was getting all the roots out of the top layer and the occaisional tap root that stayed and had to be dug out. Our soil conditions were pretty good -- mostly sandy loam, so it worked pretty well with the box blade after the roots were gone.

Depending on your soil conditions, you should be able to handle it with your box blade. You will get a lot of practice and seat time. Hiring a dozer to do the initial leveling will cut your time and work down with the box blade.

Remember - you want about a 1% slope (about 1 foot in 100) to provide drainage. Also, a good base of gravel or stone dust will help with drainage and keep the area from getting too muddy when it rains (it does rain in San Diego, sometimes). Depending on your situation, you might even consider installing a french drain to carry off excess water quickly.

There is a book available on Arena Construction that was helpful to me - don't have the title handy, but you could probably find it with a search on the Internet.

Good luck. Feel free to send me a PM if you want more information or photos to see what I did. As with any project, my second one would be better if I ever do a second one. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[CTyler]

I have used several methods depending on the tools I had available at the time. A string and line level works fine. A transit and grade stakes works well. A rotating laser works pretty slick, my latest toy...err tool. Whats nice about the laser is the remote control so it makes it a one person job. I use the laser and story pole for the most part. If you dont have a story pole just mark a 2x4 etc.. in 1/4" increments or whatever you desire/need.

 

[SteveBenson]

>Remember - you want about a 1% slope (about 1 foot in 100) to provide drainage. Also, a good base of gravel or stone dust will help with drainage and keep the area from getting too muddy when it rains (it does rain in San Diego, sometimes). Depending on your situation, you might even consider installing a french drain to carry off excess water quickly.

All excellent advice. We had our excavating contractor build a 120'x240' riding arena last year. He stripped off the topsoil (about a foot of it), graded to a 1% grade, brought in a 1' of bank run gravel, 6" of stone dust on top of that, then topped with 4-5" of clay mixed with stonedust. That was about 150 truck loads of material and he bought all the topsoil from us. He used a D6.

 

[gerard]

ditto on the dozer. We did an 80 x 200 and it took a D6 size dozer 8+ hours. No way I'd have tackled it with a compact. Right tool for the right job. (I did spread all the sand with the compact though). I'd get a dozer to rough it out, then if you want to do the finish work with your compact you can. You'll have a lot of raking to get all the rocks out before you bring in your footing. I got plent of seat time on that. (+a lot manual rake time since I don't have a rockhound /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif)

 

[Alex_Mendoza]

Thanks for the input guy's, I just may have somebody do the dozer for the major grade work and then finish it up with the 4115. I sincerely appreciate your time and input!!

Alex

 

[have_blue]

I would use a disk plow and FEL. Simply plow the high side and fluff up the dirt, scoop it and move it to the low side.

It sounds really easy, because you won't have to haul the dirt far. Sounds like a 2 or 3 day project, plus several sessions of finshing. Do it by eye, lleaving about 6-8" of slope on the 55' width. Let it rain on it and it will settle. Fill the low places as they appear.