How to make road ditches

[idaho04]

I need to make better ditches along the roads around my place so the water runoff does not take my roads every spring. What are the best tools for it? Is there an implement for a tractor? (I do have a snow plow, box scraper, backhoe.)

 

[Birdhunter1]

Using a backhoe you can make a ditch along the edge of your roads but for the water to flow in the ditch the road needs to be sloped to the ditch.

Often what happens is the ditch isn't big enough or there isn't enough slope or there is enough slope but the ditch is full of leaves or dirt/sediment.
A ditch is no good if water doesn't get to it and can't flow through it.

 

[hudr]

If it is a long road, I would use a single or two bottom plow. To get my 1/4 mile driveway in shape across a pasture, I disced where I wanted the road then used a 3 bottom plow to "throw" the dirt to the middle of the road, effectively pulling a ditch. After that I smoothed it w/ the boxblade, spread my gravel and smoothed some more w/ the boxblade. I still wish I had a pull type blade w/ hydraulic tilt to crown it though. My 10' wheeled boxblade works great but you end up w/ a basically flat suface that doesn't shed water well enough. I can usually get the county to blade it w/ a maintainer a couple times a year then I just handle the touch up.

 

[3RRL]

idaho04,
You can tilt the heck out of your boxblade and cut gutters in your road. That's what I did and they came out real good. There were a few threads with posts explaning this.

 

[3RRL]

Here's a pic of a cut gutter using the boxblade.

 

[Dallas_Lilly]

I agree, tilt the box blade and cut with it, if you lower the two right ripper shanks you can cut pretty deep. This is where a top and tilt comes in real handy, otherwise you can crank that manual tilt allot.

 

[1948berg]

Rotating ditch cleaner!
http://home.online.no/~mkas/bilderd.htm
There are four series of pictures

 

[JoeinTX]

3RRL made it simple for you......

I would suggest a conventional angle blade, but since you don't have one, tilt and angle your BB as much as possible and crown your roads.

No special equipment needed for this, just bear down and move some dirt...

 

[Highbeam]

I've also done some box blade tilted ditch digging. The problem is the boxblade is still square to the tractor so you won't be able to windrow the ditch diggings to the crown like you would with a 6 way dozer. In other words, you will have an end haul built up in the box. Maybe with very dry fluffy soil the material will fall out beside the ditch. It is OK to have an end haul it just means more trips to get the ditch deep enough.

I was amazed at how far the box blade would tip but remember that since your wheels set in the ditch that each pass will get the ditch deeper and you don't need to tilt it to the max. I actually prefer a pull behind ditcher since the dozer runs down into the ditch and you have to untilt the blade before your ditch goes to china.