John, are you spreading the gravel with the bucket and then dragging with the bb, or ???? I'm getting ready to go through this and know that you know the best methods. Thanks in advance for any help.
No problem at all...I'm always ready to answer questions t help out. That's what makes this forum a great place! I tend to ramble, so try to keep up.
If the trucks have access, I prefer to pull from spaced-out piles since it's faster. If I know I'll have time to spread between trucks, I also prefer to start at the entrance and work my way back. This way, the trucks back in over the spread material and get it compacted nicely. Unfortunately, access doesn't always allow this method.
In the photos above, you'll notice that I'm working my way up the hill and each load has to be dumped in the same location. For me, this happens more often than not. My first load arrived just as I did, so I had to do a quick grade and crown on the first 60-70 feet of the drive while determining where I wanted to water to go. In the third photo I'm pulling from the pile down the center to establish a heavy (overly thick) crown. I only go heavy on the crown at the beginning of the drive. More on this later. If you do it this way, you won't have to make any adjustments to the box blade tilt. I also like to make the entrance as perfect as possible with the first load. Each additional load dumped in this spot will pack it down.
Notice that in the fourth and fifth photos I'm not overly concerned with getting my edges perfect. Close, but not perfect. There's a reason for this. Firstly, I wanted to pull the second load from the pile to speed things up and because of the tight access...put off having to turn around and grab bucket loads. Secondly, when you're pulling a second load over the first you're trying not to build up the thickness on gravel where you've already established grade. If you're too close to your final edge, some material will spill out the sides of the box blade and leave the edges too high. This either results in sloppy edges or the width of the drive will start to grow.
It is possible to pull a third load over the first and second, but there's too much room for error, too much thickness to deal with, or at the least additional dress-up work so I don't bother. Time to turn around and use the bucket. The method depends on the width of the road and width of the bucket. My bucket is 6' and this drive is 10' so depositing the material with an overlap results in a nice (slightly oversize) crown. If the drive is wider, I'll deposit material in the center first just like I did with the box blade pulling from the pile to establish a crown.
There are two ways to deposit the material with the bucket. The first is to dump and use the cutting edge vertically to lay out the material slightly thicker than the finished grade. This is the method that usually has to be used when building a gravel drive with a skid steer because the loader arm stops usually don't allow the heel of the bucket to go low enough with a standard depth bucket. This is one of the many reasons a tractor is superior to a SS or CTL for gravel. I'll get more in-depth on the subject in another post. Here's an operator using this method
John Deere 210 LE Skiploader placing and grading limestone - YouTube. Since he chose this method it's obvious that he's used to spreading material with track loaders or dozers. We're tractor guys, so let's do it the easy way!
Besides having a bucket at one end and box blade at the other, there is another feature that makes a tractor handy for for gravel spreading, which leads me to the second method of depositing material. The loader can drop below the bottom of the tires while the bucket remains flat. This method uses the heel of the bucket to back-drag and grade the deposited gravel. Most equipment operators will say that back-dragging is somehow "cheating" and using this method isn't really grading. I say BS! Back-dragging with the bucket edge will pull the larger stones to the top of the grade. Back-dragging with the bucket heel is faster and actually mixes the stone and fines. Maybe those critical operators are paid hourly and don't care, but I'm all about doing a better job in a shorter amount of time. To lay material in with this method drive forward (or backward) depositing material by shaking the bucket. It doesn't matter if the material is too high here and too low there, as long as there's enough material. Now drop the FEL down with the bucket very slightly curled and back-drag the new material into the already graded material. It will fill the holes as you back up. The material rolls off the heel of the bucket and mixes nicely kinda like it does when using the box blade. Since more "curl" equals more material pulled, slight changes in the angle of the bucket are key. As you drag onto the previously deposited material roll the bucket flat then slightly onto the cutting edge to smooth.
At this point I use the oversized crown material to make the grade as perfect as possible and fill in edges. I'll use the excess material from the heavy crown I left from the first load and 2-4 bucket loads of material from the last load at the entrance for the final drag. The final drag is done slowly from the entrance to the end of the drive to make the edges straight. The heavy crown I left will also be used. Since I've been compacting the drive by driving back and forth to pickup bucket loads, it's pretty hard by now and harder to screw up. If the drive is especially long, I'll take bucket loads down the drive and deposit them at intervals to fix up the edges.
