Single disk gang to pull dirt

Gord Baker · Mar 25, 2022

After loosening the berm with disc or whatever, off set a rear scraper blade or Box Scraper to pull the soil back onto the road. Dirt does non make a good road, Remove the other berm by whatever means economical and make a ditch on the low side if feasable.
I just saw the pic. Do you need a 2 lane 'road'? Overkill.

MHarryE · Mar 25, 2022

I had a King Kutter heavy duty box frame 3 point hitch tandem disk. I think it would have worked well on that to remove both fronts and leave both rears. Leaving a single rear like you suggest might work but I'd feel much more confident in both rears so it would balance. Your roads are wide enough that you should be able to run down each side pulling it in toward the center. Another wild possibility - Shoup has almost any length gang axle you can think of. Possibly replace the right rear with a longer axle and extra blade. I know it will put extra load on that bearing. My largest disk (25') has bolt on extension disks 2 inches smaller in diameter than the regular blades. Sounds like something that would have worked well for you if done from the start.

Little Red Tractor · Mar 26, 2022

I have a crushed stone roadway about a thousand feet long with a slightly differnt problem; but a possibly similar solution. I used a pretty heave rear rake, angled to pull the edges inward, depositing the stone toward the center. I then flattend that out a bit with the rake leveled off and turned backwards. This gave me a bit of a crown at the center and helped a bit with drainage. Hope it helps.
Sounds like the idea of a back-blade would accomplish the same thing, but maybe be a bit more work.

npalen · Mar 26, 2022

The landscape rake has it's place even for grading. It can do an excellent job of pulling gravel out of vegetation along the sides of the area.

LD1 · Mar 26, 2022

The problem with a gang is that each disc will move dirt. It doesn't work as well as you would think for what you want to do.

So the discs riding on the high spot will indeed pull dirt in toward the center.....but so will all the other discs....so the areas that are low....will still be low. It will take several passes to get the result I think you want.

I agree that a rear blade with angle and offset would be a far better tool

jyoutz · Mar 26, 2022

DeadTurtleCreek said:
View attachment 738751
Here’s an example of one of my “roads”. Many would consider it a shooting lane through the trees. But most of these lanes are used to access other parts of the farm and get a good bit of traffic. The part in this pic is in good shape but other parts stay wet and rutted. We built up and graveled our main access road but that’s not feasible on 7-8 miles of trails. I’m trying to solve/improve this issue with a few passes of a disk or something similar so that they can be passable again and make future yearly maintenance quicker and easier. A disk that would give them a slight crown to help shed water would be the ideal implement.

Even if you aren’t going to gravel the road, a grader can cut ditches and shape/crown the road so it drains. Then maintenance with a tractor and rear blade is easy.

DeadTurtleCreek · Mar 29, 2022

I tried out tilting the rear gangs downward on my bigger disk this weekend. The angle of tilt was great, but the tongue on the disk is spring loaded causing the front gangs to level out as soon as pressure is put on the rear gangs. Looks like tilting will not work for me because of that. That was on a ~14' old case with the wings cut off.

I have a 7' drawbar pulled really old deere disk I may take the front right and rear left gangs off of making the two remaining gangs cup to the same direction and see how that goes. Taking those gangs off isn't a major job so it doesn't hurt to try. If that doesn't work I will finish the fab work on the old 6' 3pt disk to remove the front gangs and place a longer bar to space out the rear gangs.

Assuming I can get the roads dry enough for major machinery access, a road grader would certainly be the way to go. But I don't know anyone nearby who will hire one out and don't think anyone in their right mind would subject their machinery to all the mud and branches that would beat up their machine pretty bad. The picture I shared is a pretty tame location. That and we have too many projects for this summer and hiring a road grader is at the bottom of the budget list.

JethroB · Mar 30, 2022

How about a small dozer with a six way blade to cut and pull to the middle? Probably some good sized roots along your edges if like mine. A fellow cleaned up my fire breaks years ago with one, a JD 450 I think. Back dragged to smooth. He does work cheap so somewhat affordable for me.

JethroB · Mar 30, 2022

The state forestry service re-cut some of my firebreaks yesterday with a small dozer pulling a HEAVY harrow. Now for me to go bouncing back over them to smooth out.

JethroB · Mar 30, 2022

Gord Baker said:
After loosening the berm with disc or whatever, off set a rear scraper blade or Box Scraper to pull the soil back onto the road. Dirt does non make a good road, Remove the other berm by whatever means economical and make a ditch on the low side if feasable.
I just saw the pic. Do you need a 2 lane 'road'? Overkill.

For me, if I don’t make them wide I’d be trimming or pushing back brush Every year instead of 5-6 years. Privet & vines grow quick. Frequent burning helps a lot too.

DeadTurtleCreek · Mar 30, 2022

JethroB said:
How about a small dozer with a six way blade to cut and pull to the middle? Probably some good sized roots along your edges if like mine. A fellow cleaned up my fire breaks years ago with one, a JD 450 I think. Back dragged to smooth. He does work cheap so somewhat affordable for me.

A dozer would be great in the really bad spots even if it took a little longer. We actually have an old Case 450b that is being looked at right now. I will use that if we can get it going again, but don't have a lot of confidence in that option.

Those pics looks great, not too different from my roads. Just add more water/mud. Burning isn't an option since this is flood ground and in conservation easement. Some of these roads we had widened a few years ago to about 30' but others are very small 12-14' wide. We bought a LaneShark about 4-5 years ago and that has been a real difference maker for keeping these roads from closing in on us. Now I just have to fix the ruts somehow

npalen · Mar 30, 2022

DeadTurtleCreek said:
I tried out tilting the rear gangs downward on my bigger disk this weekend. The angle of tilt was great, but the tongue on the disk is spring loaded causing the front gangs to level out as soon as pressure is put on the rear gangs. Looks like tilting will not work for me because of that. That was on a ~14' old case with the wings cut off.

I have a 7' drawbar pulled really old deere disk I may take the front right and rear left gangs off of making the two remaining gangs cup to the same direction and see how that goes. Taking those gangs off isn't a major job so it doesn't hurt to try. If that doesn't work I will finish the fab work on the old 6' 3pt disk to remove the front gangs and place a longer bar to space out the rear gangs.

Assuming I can get the roads dry enough for major machinery access, a road grader would certainly be the way to go. But I don't know anyone nearby who will hire one out and don't think anyone in their right mind would subject their machinery to all the mud and branches that would beat up their machine pretty bad. The picture I shared is a pretty tame location. That and we have too many projects for this summer and hiring a road grader is at the bottom of the budget list.

The fore/aft leveling springs on a disc can normally be adjusted to tilt the frame either direction front or rear. Tightening the spring that holds up the front should tilt the frame to the rear and prevent it from leveling.
I agree that other equipment would work better than a disc but what we use usually depends on what we have on hand.

SandburRanch · Mar 30, 2022

You may be attempting to modify a Disk to a Oneway , or a single bottom plow with a modified hitch might position it to make a ditch and pull dirt toward the center of the drive . Once that dirt ridge is made a steel framed Drag ( Split log drag is an example ) with an angled blade would finish the task to the center then flatten it with most any drag .