Poor man (ok, cheap sob) wants a land plane grader/scraper

deezler · Nov 17, 2020

Hey folks. Seeking some TBN wisdom on a land plane.

We built our house in 2015 and ended up with around a 1000' of gravel driveway. I put in most of the driveway base myself by hauling many a dump trailer load of 2-3" crushed concrete, and getting deliveries of similar sized limestone. Since then we've thinly top coated it all a few times with 3/4"-minus, but I prefer CLEAN stone to that with fines in it. Yes, it moves around some, but looks real nice, never pot-holes, and most importantly (to me), never sprays or splashes my vehicles with muddy water.

I usually re-work the gravel a few times per year with my basic rear 6' blade, and manage to do an ok job smoothing it out and re-shaping my crown. But my rear blade can only pull straight when reversed for gentler action (it doesn't have holes for angles in reverse, oy). And the 6' blade doesn't fully cover my tractor tire tracks at full angle. So a new 7' scraper blade is also on the future wish list, but for now I am thinking of how to BEST maintain my gravel driveway. A land-plane seems like the single best tool for this type of work. I think I will go 6' wide to match my tractor (30 HP, ~3600 lbs) and be able to fully cover my driveway width in two passes.

They seem like a simple implement, just a few basic pieces of steel, so I hit the googler and find out.... they START at around a $1000 ?!? And good ones are closer to $2000? oof. I don't have $1000+ to drop right now, at least without some major consternation by the wife. I wish I had a welder and some welding knowledge so that I could try to build one myself, but that's not in the cards right now.

So here's my current thinking. Buy the cheapest 6' land plane I can find. For all my searching, that clearly seems to be the ATV grader made by dirt dog.

Dirt Dog Manufacturing >> ATV Equipment - RGV

Cabellas ATV Road Grader

Cabellas has gift cards on sale for 10% off right now, meaning I could stock up on gift cards, wait until xmas, and buy myself a nice present of a 6' scraper for just ~$555. But of course, this model doesn't have a 3-pt hitch frame. Next brainstorm: just buy a 3-pt carry all (typically available on craigslist every now and then for cheap, theres one for $75 right now) and bolt this ATV scraper onto it.

At just under 400 lbs, it's a bit light. I would probably find a way to add 100-200 more lbs of weights to it also, to ensure a decent bite.

Any thoughts? Hope this doesn't sound too stupid. Yes, I would rather have a heavy duty, purpose built land plane, but if it means waiting until I have $1500 to throw around, it may never happen.

Here's a section of my driveway right after it received a nice layer of 3/4" clean limestone.

My tractor: Yes I have this 6' box blade on hand too, but I have found it a very poor driveway tool. It just picks up and scrapes off all the gravel, or leaves washboards if I try to feather it.

ruffdog · Nov 17, 2020

Do you have access to a long heavy duty wood skid? Depending how you angle them as you drag them, you can move gravel laterally. Experiment with added weight to dig more front/back. Also, change the attachment point to the tractor to pull up or straight.

fried1765 · Nov 17, 2020

deezler said:
Hey folks. Seeking some TBN wisdom on a land plane.

We built our house in 2015 and ended up with around a 1000' of gravel driveway. I put in most of the driveway base myself by hauling many a dump trailer load of 2-3" crushed concrete, and getting deliveries of similar sized limestone. Since then we've thinly top coated it all a few times with 3/4"-minus, but I prefer CLEAN stone to that with fines in it. Yes, it moves around some, but looks real nice, never pot-holes, and most importantly (to me), never sprays or splashes my vehicles with muddy water.

I usually re-work the gravel a few times per year with my basic rear 6' blade, and manage to do an ok job smoothing it out and re-shaping my crown. But my rear blade can only pull straight when reversed for gentler action (it doesn't have holes for angles in reverse, oy). And the 6' blade doesn't fully cover my tractor tire tracks at full angle. So a new 7' scraper blade is also on the future wish list, but for now I am thinking of how to BEST maintain my gravel driveway. A land-plane seems like the single best tool for this type of work. I think I will go 6' wide to match my tractor (30 HP, ~3600 lbs) and be able to fully cover my driveway width in two passes.

They seem like a simple implement, just a few basic pieces of steel, so I hit the googler and find out.... they START at around a $1000 ?!? And good ones are closer to $2000? oof. I don't have $1000+ to drop right now, at least without some major consternation by the wife. I wish I had a welder and some welding knowledge so that I could try to build one myself, but that's not in the cards right now.

So here's my current thinking. Buy the cheapest 6' land plane I can find. For all my searching, that clearly seems to be the ATV grader made by dirt dog.

Dirt Dog Manufacturing >> ATV Equipment - RGV

Cabellas ATV Road Grader

Cabellas has gift cards on sale for 10% off right now, meaning I could stock up on gift cards, wait until xmas, and buy myself a nice present of a 6' scraper for just ~$555. But of course, this model doesn't have a 3-pt hitch frame. Next brainstorm: just buy a 3-pt carry all (typically available on craigslist every now and then for cheap, theres one for $75 right now) and bolt this ATV scraper onto it.

At just under 400 lbs, it's a bit light. I would probably find a way to add 100-200 more lbs of weights to it also, to ensure a decent bite.

Any thoughts? Hope this doesn't sound too stupid. Yes, I would rather have a heavy duty, purpose built land plane, but if it means waiting until I have $1500 to throw around, it may never happen.

Here's a section of my driveway right after it received a nice layer of 3/4" clean limestone.

My tractor: Yes I have this 6' box blade on hand too, but I have found it a very poor driveway tool. It just picks up and scrapes off all the gravel, or leaves washboards if I try to feather it.

Don't do it !!!!

You NEED a conventional design rear blade!
Anything else will be a cheap, inadequate, POS!

The blade for you is:
The Everything Attachments Deluxe 6-Way Scrape blade, to maintain your crown.
You would likely find the 72" version to be very satisfactory, due to it's off-set capability.
Take a look at the EA online demo video.

I have the EA 72" version,.....after first buying an off brand blade, and then an 84" King Kutter blade.
Don't do as I did, or you will also have 2 unused blades sitting around.

The (72") ETA-6-VALUE-SB sells for $939 incl. shipping, and is worth every penny, when compared to whatever else you can find on the market.

Find a way to raise the cash!
You will thank me for the remainder of your grading days.
I should probably work for EA,.... but I do not!

I pull my 72" EA blade with my 32HP Ford 1920, and it does a beautiful job!
Everything Attachments..... 1-866-581-5818

ruffdog · Nov 17, 2020

But the OP said "I don't have $1000+ to drop right now,....."

deezler · Nov 17, 2020

Thanks RuffDog. Yeah I could experiment with a variety of dragged things behind my tractor, but what I am looking for is a guaranteed way to quickly refresh my gravel, ideally in a single pass, leaving perfectly neat edges on the drive. I'll search for a pic of someone else's results using a land plane to illustrate.

Fried, I do have a rear scraper blade as I mentioned ( I know, my posts are always too wordy). It does do a decent job of reworking my gravel, have had good success with it so far, but a land plane could make it that much more efficient. And I do want the EA 6-way blade. I'll probably buy their 7' version for my next tractor, that I hope to upgrade to eventually (Kioti ck3510 if I can swing it next year).

Here's a crappy pic that I found in a quick search of my photos, to show my rear blade. Is juuuuust barely doesn't clear the tires on one side when angled all the way, which really irks me when clearing snow.

powerstroke444e · Nov 17, 2020

I have a 48" landplain by land pride and it does a great job as I don't mess up the crown and I am able to keep up speed most of the time. With teeth down or wrong angle it will stop my tractor b26tlb with 1,200lbs of foam in tires I still can lose traction. Spend the money get the right tool and don't go to big you will regret it.

deezler · Nov 17, 2020

Gordon Gould and MtnViewRanch probably post the most pics of their roads before/after land plane work. This is what I want to achieve, a single or double pass to get a perfectly neat driveway egde and totally uniform gravel distribution.

https://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/340014-land-leveler-post4174652.html#post4174652

430959d1435317505-land-leveler-cornerlpgs1-jpg

The basic rear scraper blade is a wonderful tool in it's own right. But when using it on loose gravel, what happens? It windrows all your material and you can actually have spillage on both ends of the blade. The most frustrating thing I've encountered in working my gravel is accidentally spilling gravel OUT of the driveway into the grass. That sucks. The beauty of a land plane, it would seem, is that the tall sides contain all your material, and the low blades scrape it up but then toss it right over into an even spread. No finessing required, basically. Just drive forward.

ruffdog · Nov 17, 2020

deezler said:
.... what I am looking for is a guaranteed way to quickly refresh my gravel, ideally in a single pass, leaving perfectly neat edges on the drive.

Yes, land planes or land levelers are great tools to control edge spill-over and to create a center crown, but, to do this with one pass? Most videos will show many passes with scarfiers to loosen the gravel, then, many passes to achieve the final grade.

WranglerX · Nov 17, 2020

I manicure my drive way several times a year with a screen harrow.... It is a 8 foot section of 5 foot wide chain link fence folded over in half with a steel bar across fold and chain to attach to tractor and filled with half dozen large (25 pound) rocks.... It you don't let driveway get to bad it's easy to maintain, been doing it this way for almost 12 years.... Still smooth and easy to navigate, but sadly I may have to add more gravel in near future as it is getting pretty beat down.... Best part of all, everything was free to make harrow....

Dale