Driveway SCRAPER or Driveway GRADER ?

   / Driveway SCRAPER or Driveway GRADER ? #1  

IC Smoke

Silver Member
Joined
May 9, 2007
Messages
192
Location
PITTSFORD, MI
Tractor
Kubota B2400, ZD28, BX24
Hey gang, I know the whole drievway scraper discussion has been leveled off quite a bit :laughing: BUT I havent seen anyone suggest something like the Agritek scraper. I have a few driveways and two small parking lots that would need leveled. My personal driveway doesnt pothole but with the rain I get a little washout in certain places. BUT I do have two driveways that tend to pothole get a little uneven. I typically will crown the driveways by angling my 3pt scraper blade to the center then grab a higher gear with the blade straight across and let the blade ride up. It does a pretty good job but it tends to not crown out far enough to get the water off the drive.

I like the landpride driveway grader but I dont like that the spill off is both on the one side, and that is where I like the Agritek style driveway scraper. They are both priced about the same only but the Agritek is 72", 96" and the LandPride is 72",84", 96"

ds_scrapers.jpg

gs25_main.jpg




Agritek Industries | Michigan Manufacturing - DS Driveway Scrapers

GS25 Series Grading Scrapers | Land Pride
 
   / Driveway SCRAPER or Driveway GRADER ? #2  
I haven't used the DS series Agritek scaper so can't comment on it. I have put plenty of hours on the skid style LPGB and have built two of them with straight blade designs. If you are working driveways for most of your use the angled blades with spillage on one side only would be an advantage imo. If you were using this for smoothing out large areas such as lawns and pastures then the straight blade works better imo. I use mine for the latter purpose, will be working a lawn over today with mine. Some of the LPGB's have adjustable height and angle for the blades giving you a choice for different conditions and use, the Landpride with scarifier teeth looks pretty good and would be my preference of the two you pictured.
 
   / Driveway SCRAPER or Driveway GRADER ?
  • Thread Starter
#3  
Im just not sure about the material spilling to one side. Id rather pull it and everything be smooth. The road I live on has some pretty serious washboards as well. I just emailed agritek about the ripper blades to see what they look like.
 
   / Driveway SCRAPER or Driveway GRADER ? #4  
I just obtained a Land Pride GS2584. My driveway is a mile long, gravel and the only prior work done on it, in its thirty years, is filling potholes. It took me 6.5 hours to grade it back to the way it originally looked. I don't have any type of landscape rake so I spent another four hours chucking big rock. I priced a six inch layer of crushed stone on the entire driveway and a grading scraper looked pretty good - h@ll, a dozen grading scrapers would have looked good. It is smooth, pothole free, crowned and with no ruts. I finally gave up trying - after thirty years - to maintain the driveway in the summer with my back blade. I couldn't gain the necessary skill and I don't really think back blades are meant for gravel driveway maintenance.
 
   / Driveway SCRAPER or Driveway GRADER ? #5  
Im just not sure about the material spilling to one side. Id rather pull it and everything be smooth. The road I live on has some pretty serious washboards as well. I just emailed agritek about the ripper blades to see what they look like.

It has been my experience that the side ways material movement that so many talk about is at best minimal. If one actually watches the material go up and over each blade, it travels side ways, at most 1" and I actually doubt that it is that much. Here is a pic with the grader loaded up with about a yard of material and you can see that not all that much is left. ;)
 

Attachments

  • PC290001.JPG
    PC290001.JPG
    388.7 KB · Views: 4,320
  • PC290002.JPG
    PC290002.JPG
    404.4 KB · Views: 7,859
  • PC290005.JPG
    PC290005.JPG
    406.9 KB · Views: 5,382
  • PC290006.JPG
    PC290006.JPG
    398.3 KB · Views: 1,008
   / Driveway SCRAPER or Driveway GRADER ? #6  
Regarding angled vs. straight blades, i can see what Brian means about it not really moving the material all that far. However, do you think an angled blade would slice through the ground easier than straight blades would? Theoretically this seems to be the case, but practically, I wonder if it really makes any difference from one to another. :confused:

A LPGB is on my shortlist of implements to build.
 
   / Driveway SCRAPER or Driveway GRADER ? #7  
I can't address the Agritek scraper, but it looks like it would work fine for spreading loose material. I've got a Land Pride Grading Scraper, and really like it. So do my neighbors!

I'm not too proud to tell you that I got frustrated with using my box blade and rear blade to maintain my driveways. But the LPGS was easy to work with from the start. It didn't take long to shape up the divots and small potholes.

I also discovered something interesting this winter. My weight box was blocked in when I hooked up the snow blade, so I just hooked up to the LPGS, figuring it would work as well or better than the weight box. Turns out it also worked well enough to push snow back and even spread out snow piles instead of turning the tractor around to use the snow blade. Then I found out that it worked great to cut down the snow and ice ruts on my neighbor's drive from when he had to leave before I could get over to clear his driveway. Slick! In the future, I'll leave the weight box off and just use the LPGS when I put on the snow blade.
 
   / Driveway SCRAPER or Driveway GRADER ? #8  
My 900' driveway is mostly all gravel, sand to 3/4" in size. What attachment is the best to fill in potholes and regrade ?
 
   / Driveway SCRAPER or Driveway GRADER ? #9  
If you have potholes then you would really benefit from the ripping shanks on some grading scrapers. I ended up with a BEFCO GS, it was cheaper than the Woods or Land Pride and I could order it on-line and have it shipped right to the house. It's also heaver, a good thing.

I'm not sure if the angled blades are needed. The nice thing about them is they do move the gravel to the side. It comes in handy on level drives. You can drive on one side of the drive, turn around at the end, and then go back down the other side moving the gravel from the edges to the center. When it comes to moving gravel back up a slope it's not so helpful.
 
   / Driveway SCRAPER or Driveway GRADER ? #10  
Regarding angled vs. straight blades, i can see what Brian means about it not really moving the material all that far. However, do you think an angled blade would slice through the ground easier than straight blades would? Theoretically this seems to be the case, but practically, I wonder if it really makes any difference from one to another. :confused:

A LPGB is on my shortlist of implements to build.

In theory the angled blades "should" work better for cutting out wash boarding. If they actually do or not, I can not say for sure. :confused3: All that I can say is that both of my LPGBs have angled blades, my 5 footer has about 170lbs per foot width of cutting weight and my 7 footer is 200lbs per foot. Mine are simple, non adjustable anything implements that work excellent and have shown little to no wear. :cool:

I honestly don't see the AGRITEK grader holding up to heavy use. I may be wrong, but I doubt that they would hold up to my use. ;)
 
 
 
Top