paccorti
Gold Member
- Joined
- May 21, 2000
- Messages
- 481
- Tractor
- TC35D with 16LA Loader
It takes more than cold rain and the threat of a major snowstorm to keep me out of the tractor seat. All the construction traffic has really torn up the gravel road into our community. In particular the tire tracks are deeply sunk in moist areas of the road.
Well despite the cold rain (and no cab just coveralls) I set off to see how well I could fix up the road. My goals were modest. I was prepared to try fixing things for five minutes and "give up" if the rain was too much. Implement of choice, a TC35D with 6' FEL and nothing else.
Technique. Here is what I tried. First with FEL on float and bucked rolled a lot (say 45 degree angle to ground) I found that I could take maybe 1/2 inch off the crown per backdrag pass (crown was too high). My other problem was that I needed to pull gravel from the shoulders of the road back into the tire track area. What worked well but slow was to backdrag the gravel into the tire track area (by driving across the width of the road). This all FEL technique worked well for me. The road is not perfect but much improved. I also tried scooping gravel on the front pass and filling the ruts. That worked well for areas that needed a lot of fill.
Initially I thought I wanted a boxblade with scarifiers to fix up the road. I figured the scarifiers would pull up some gravel and the blade would help with grading. Now I'm thinking that a rear blade would be more useful. In particular with angle adjustment I could move gravel from the shoulder back to the road without all the driving around. I guess a boxblade could do this too but perhaps not as well. I've read the 8 million posts on gravel road maintenance. Perhaps there is not too much more to say, just wanted to relate my experience.
At the moment my implement "du jour" is a 7' Land Pride series 35 rear blade with a guage wheel. Anybody know what one of these puppies costs? At least I could use it for snow removal.
Peter
Well despite the cold rain (and no cab just coveralls) I set off to see how well I could fix up the road. My goals were modest. I was prepared to try fixing things for five minutes and "give up" if the rain was too much. Implement of choice, a TC35D with 6' FEL and nothing else.
Technique. Here is what I tried. First with FEL on float and bucked rolled a lot (say 45 degree angle to ground) I found that I could take maybe 1/2 inch off the crown per backdrag pass (crown was too high). My other problem was that I needed to pull gravel from the shoulders of the road back into the tire track area. What worked well but slow was to backdrag the gravel into the tire track area (by driving across the width of the road). This all FEL technique worked well for me. The road is not perfect but much improved. I also tried scooping gravel on the front pass and filling the ruts. That worked well for areas that needed a lot of fill.
Initially I thought I wanted a boxblade with scarifiers to fix up the road. I figured the scarifiers would pull up some gravel and the blade would help with grading. Now I'm thinking that a rear blade would be more useful. In particular with angle adjustment I could move gravel from the shoulder back to the road without all the driving around. I guess a boxblade could do this too but perhaps not as well. I've read the 8 million posts on gravel road maintenance. Perhaps there is not too much more to say, just wanted to relate my experience.
At the moment my implement "du jour" is a 7' Land Pride series 35 rear blade with a guage wheel. Anybody know what one of these puppies costs? At least I could use it for snow removal.
Peter
