road grader/crowner ideas

[Renze]

hello,

Before manure spreading season starts, i want to smooth out the road to save my back, and machinery during the many trips to the field.
What works best ? just a drag level, an angle scraper blade or perhaps a single plough share to plough up the edge of the road and create some sort of a shallow ditch on the side, and then finish the grade with the drag ?

The county dept. just never times the work right, they allways grade right before heavy rainfall or extreme drought, so the loose soil either turns into a mud puddle or a desert. In the most critical period, during spring work, you never see them and the road stays in the rough winter shape untill the spring work is done and nobody needs it anymore.

Renze

 

[schmism]

depends on what your trying to smoth out.

a drag may work to move some gavel around, but if you need to cut some serious ruts or holes out then your gonna need a rear blade.

a box blade can be pressed into use but with its inablity to angle and windrow material for a second smothing pass, its not exactly the right tool.

 

[mocassincreekranch]

I use a 7ft heavy duty grader blade to repair my road. Can adjust angle,tilt and offset blade. This does a great job. Then I finish this out with an old dissasembled metal gondola attched to chain to put a smooth finish on the road.

 

[R W]

A good 3PH or pull type grader would be OK, a front mounted blade blade that has angle & tilt will do a good job (can be finnished with your drag level).
A trailing scoop is also OK (have the bucket full of dirt).

 

[bucmeister]

A 3PH back blade like the "Bionic Blade" or the "Duragrader" would likely work best to do what it sounds like you want. With both blades set at the same angle they tend to pull the material from the edge of your pass to the middle. Around here all the blades are set so that you drive along the right edge of the road, the material builds up in front of the blades till it spills over giving you a "crown" in the middle of the road. The one guy I know that has one swears by it saying it is the best thing he has found for a tractor owner. This guy is a contractor and a former county supervisor so his experience base gives me confidence in his assessment. I have seen one high end version that had the ability to change the angle on the blades from one side to the other via tractor hydraulics. One variation I saw had a fixed pivot on one side with a slot on the other that allowed you to set the blades straight or a couple of angles just by pulling a bolt and resetting it. Of course if you are not trying to create a "crown" and only intend to get it as level as possible then a longer "land plane" type drag with a zig-zag blade setup will serve that purpose, but they do best as a drawbar axle lifted type attachment to isolate it from the rocking of the tractor and span over the highs and lows to truely shave it all down level.

At least that is my theory.

 

[ToadHill]

I use a york rake to crown and smooth out my road. At has done a beautiful job for me.

 

[Renze]

hmm i think i need to buy some meters of angle iron from my neighbor, who has a whole bunch of 100x100x10mm angle irons he bought when they were replacing the steel electricity main cable poles he has on his land.

I think i need to fix some of these under a 45 degree angle and then just make my Zetor roar for an hour or 2....

 

[bucmeister]

Renze, Have you seen the picture at the end of page 2 of this thread? This very clearly shows the type unit I was talking about.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/build-yourself/94816-scraper-grader-plans.html

 

[Renze]

I'll let you know how it turns out, right now the holes in the dirt road to our field is still ponding... So it's too wet to spread manure as well....
Besides, i am working on another project for the next of the week.

 

[Tig]

Bucmeister, do you know if the duragrader blades protrude below the level of the side plates? I'd like to build something like that but I have never had a chance to examine one.