new box blade user with some questions

[Coyote machine]

Your box blade will work much better, like a real grader, if you add a T-N-T kit to your hydraulics. This would allow you to fine tune and angle the BB from the seat. I'd contact Brian at Fit Rite Hydraulics, he's an expert at using BB's and such, and I believe he has some videos to assist in learning the art of BBing. He's also an approved advertiser here on TBN, and has helped me and countless others with this type of issues with BB's.
The low spots will need fill, possibly new material vs. dragging stuff from other places in your existing road. No sense moving material around more than necessary.
Buying additional equipment may or may not be useful to your road fixes; but making your existing BB work to its full potential will likely be better spent monies, IMHO.
If you contact Brian, tell him Coyote Machine sent you....:thumbsup:
Good luck with your road. Post some pictures here and people will be able to better help solve the problems too.

 

[Texasmark]

motor grader, examples can be found at machinerytrader.com

motor graders = the blade sets a long distance between the wheels of the machine. the longer this distance, the less in change of grade will happen once you go over the road a couple times pending on how much material needs to be moved.

a 3pt hitch rear blade, is basically same blade on a motor grader. but the "distance" is not there. and generally there are no "gauge wheels" or like sticking out further back behind the blade. poor mans motor grader. but for most folks a 3pt hitch rear blade is good enough.

a 3pt hitch grader scraper / land plane. is more of a "sifting device" were it allows larger rocks to come to the surface, and lets the smaller rocks and dirt go down.

Tractor Attachments And Skid Steer Attachments For Any Tractor Or Skid Steer = good spot for newbies to check out various implements in how to set them up and use them.

drag harrow, chain drag harrown, chain link fence, H or I piece of steel, chunk of telephone pole, these all have been used to "smooth" things out.

TNT (top and tilt) for 3pt hitch. = replace top link turnbuckle and/or 1 or both side link turnbuckles with a hydraulic cylinder. a TNT setup will let you on the fly from seat of tractor adjust 3pt hitch hydraulically, so you can fine tune everything nice and quickly.

a 3pt hitch does not offer "down pressure" the only pressure holding an implement down is the weight of the implement itself. and your only real control without TNT, is by purely controlling the raising and lowering of the 3pt hitch. and then your manual adjustments of the turn buckles on the 3pt hitch.

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i would advise making sure you have your "check chains" and your sway bar/chains for the 3pt hitch.

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to note it. 3pt hitches are awesome at pulling stuff, all day long non stop.
BUT if you have an implement draging on the ground or digging into the ground. and you go to turn, you can bend up the 3pt hitch.
ALSO if you go in reverse with 3pt hitch implement in the ground, you can also mess up your 3pt hitch.

while 3pt hitches are strong and can take a beating. you need to make judgment calls along the way. when turning and how much you turn and/or going in reverse.

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with everything above said... google...
forestry roads

there is 5 or so descent sites out there, that cover different grades, crowning of roads, ditches, culverts, and like that most folks can directly apply to their dirt and/or gravel driveways, and roads throughout there property.

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NOTE: there is "to dry" and "to wet"

to wet is easy, you making ruts and making pot holes.
to dry is easy, road is like concrete and everything is skip hoping across the road.

a good rain will make road wet. but as it drys out you got a chance to get out there to reshape the driveway/road. generally atleast for me. i am making an "impression" with my tires on the dirt road. i am not making ruts. but the dirt / gravel is physically moving some. this is time i normally like to deal with dirt/gravel. no dust storms, all implements tend to dig in easily. and i can move a lot of dirt/gravel easily.

the issue with above is "it is still to wet" for like finishing touches. but it is a good time, to load up as much weight as you can. and go 1 tire width at a time, and drive up and down the road, compacting everything. and then go back over it at a different angle to compact it a bit more 1 tire width at a time. you need a couple or more angles of attack in compacting. so the soil and rocks all begin interlocking together and in essence forming a solid hard pan on the surface of the road.

when the road drys out a bit more. it is more time for finishing touches.

NOTE: the compacting thing, may require doing it a couple times, (waiting for it to rain and drying out some then 1 tire width at a time at different angles). for a good solid compaction to happen. but until this happens. folks need to "slow it down" and try to stay off of it as much as possible when it is to wet, and making any sort of ruts.
other words. you do not have the huge heavy machinery county and state department of transportation has. so you nickle and dime it. and that is the compaction thing doing 1 tire width at a time.

Nice report. Main purpose of the MG similarity was in the ability to slant the blade to dig up the shoulders and build the crest something the box can't do. You can tilt your lift arms with the alignment box, but you can't move material sideways was the intent of my reply.

Actually once the "grade" is established, I like to use the FEL tucked in several degrees (not using float mode), driving forward into the material for the last runs. That way the tractor tires are on smooth ground and the result is smoother.

 

[brown40]

I never could get the box to really move material laterally/create an effective crown. I ended up buying a rear blade--it is the proper tool for moving stuff left to right. The land plane is the love child of rear and box blade, so if your spending $$$ to create a crown, no land plane can redistribute like the original, and rear blades are way cheaper.
You can watch material move along a straight blade and get redeposited on the far side. The box simply gathers and fills, and lets out what you allow (and where) with your draft and tilt angle. Wet and dry fill and move completely differently, and any organics/sod/sticks bung up everything from simply moving where your draft and tilt should drop it. With a rear blade, they just tend to tumble and roll their way to the crown
It's hard to keep the leading edge of your box blade blending into the ditch without ending up in it. If you can offset it enough and get the angle right it will tend to move to the crown across the cutting edge, but once it begins to fill, there's not a lot of lateral shifting. It is the perfect tool for filling large low areas on grade, but stealing from the roadbed may just create other problems.
My success seemed to depend on nailing the draft control after rear tires have dipped into your depression. When that full box leaves road grade, your accuracy with the draft (and how sticky and clumped the substrate is) determines the amount dumped. Feathering the box up, then up again as your front tires begin to climb out of the depression, then down as your rear tires rise out of the depression, then to grade when the box leading edge gets there. Getting used to compensating for the draft changes your tires cause--with the actual draft control--as the tractor moves takes practice.
You may have success with adding extra material to your low areas, then backdragging with the FEL on float. Remember--it only looks flat until its compacted as much as the area around it. Better to leave it a little proud, then see what traffic and time do.
Only the weight of the box/blade/implement is at work on your tractor, so only that much can be done. I found standing it on the back blade (long toplink) and using a higher range at the end made for a nicer finish on mine.

 

[sandman2234]

I maintained a road here in Florida for a while, a dirt road... very little gravel, lots of sand. I could do it with a box blade but once I got my hands on a land-plane, I haven't used the box blade again.
The land-plane does move dirt from side to side, and does add a crown to the road, as long as you are familiar with the correct operation of it.
David from jax

 

[teg]

...The two low spots that I'm talking about are pretty large areas....definitely not pot holes! Probably around 8' x 10'. Am I supposed to just raise the box blade up to approximately the height that I want....

You can raise up the box blade to deposit what it's load but personally, I think you need to deposit (trailer load or several bucket loads) of crusher run in this area. Raise the elevation up above the rest of the area so water runs off.

 

[Texasmark]

I maintained a road here in Florida for a while, a dirt road... very little gravel, lots of sand. I could do it with a box blade but once I got my hands on a land-plane, I haven't used the box blade again.
The land-plane does move dirt from side to side, and does add a crown to the road, as long as you are familiar with the correct operation of it.
David from jax

I watched a guy use one once; the guy that delivered the gravel and owned the materials company. Flat drive no crown. You did it you ought to know. If I had one I'd have to learn how to make it walk the gravel up hill from the shoulder and understand the mechanism in it that made that happen.

In thinking about it yes you can. If you start in the shoulder and rather than aiming straight ahead, you turned toward the center of the road slightly, and lifted your box/plane as you came toward the center you could repeat that process over and over as you went down the road and eventually build a crown. My next to the last blade was about $200. The last one was a gift. Pretty cheap. It's been years since I put in a road so I'd have to relearn how I used to do it.