Kubota KX-121 Tilt Blade Capabilities / Grading Crown into Gravel Road

   / Kubota KX-121 Tilt Blade Capabilities / Grading Crown into Gravel Road #1  

mikefunaro

New member
Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
8
Location
Morris, CT
Hey all--

New here. I live in a part of Connecticut where it seems no one knows how to/has interest in crowning smaller gravel roads to ensure proper drainage. We own about 4 acres on which we have a gravel road that is also a deeded right of way to several other owners.

In years past we have either graded it with a bobcat, or a backhoe loader, or a paving company has passed it over with a huber maintainer. None of this equipment has succeeded in establishing and maintaining a proper crown. The road is steeply sloped in some spots and so the flat road turns into a u shaped road and carries quite a bit of water. We've put in swales in the past but these do too little too late.

I have been trying to rent a rear blade with tilt function but nobody rents them. Someone suggested I rent a KX 121 with the 6 way blade. I feel that between the 6 way blade and a wide ditch cleaning or grading bucket, I should be able to establish a nice crown and also put some ditches on the side of the road and actually get it to drain water off of it before it all accumulates at the bottom.

So...

A. Does the blade on a 121 have the ability to apply a significant amount of downward pressure? Will it have trouble working moderately wet item 4/process gravel?

B. Does the tilt have the ability to go below the plane of the excavator?

C. Does this sound like a reasonable idea?

I can rent a beautiful new one with the ditch cleaning bucket for $250 a day, which seems pretty fair.
 
   / Kubota KX-121 Tilt Blade Capabilities / Grading Crown into Gravel Road #2  
I crown my road and driveway using an 8' rake (sometimes referred to as a 'york rake'). When it is at zero angle(rake parallel to the tractor's rear axle), the hitch is adjusted to be quite low. i.e. there is a downward tild angle as you look forward. Then, when you angle the rake to 45 degrees or so, the same 3 pt hitch angle makes the tines at the outer edge of the driveway dig deeper than the inside edge tines. The net result is a 'crowned' effect. When you rake the edges of the road in each direction and then set the rake for zero angle and go down the center of the road you get a perfect road section. To get downforce sufficient to cut through the mud, and gravel, I put the 6 front tractor weights onto the rake frame.

The 45 degree cut angle also combs the gravel towards the center of the road so that on the last pass down the center, there is plenty of loose gravel to fill the pot holes and ruts that may have formed.

My rake has gauge wheels mounted behind the teeth making for a VERY smooth roadway. The neighbors can once again go 70 mph down the road and washboard it back up when they late brake where a stop sign used to be.
 
   / Kubota KX-121 Tilt Blade Capabilities / Grading Crown into Gravel Road #3  
Although it doesn't look like much angle sometimes, you can adjust a rear blade attached to a tractor to an angle using the adjustments on the right hand 3pt hitch lift link. Each pass using the tiltedd blade will result in more crown. Swinging the blade at an angle to the tractor will also help smooth out the washboard effect you can get with the rear blade too. The longer you make it in relation to it's width, the more it will smooth out the wavy effect that gravel roads can get. On the other hand, renting the excavator would be a blast, and that would work too.
 
   / Kubota KX-121 Tilt Blade Capabilities / Grading Crown into Gravel Road #4  
I too have used the adjusting link on my tractor with a plain rear blade to create a major crown in my 200 yard gravel drive. When I replaced my L3710 with a new L5740 I got a top and tilt from FitRite Hydraulics which makes the job easier, but I did quite well with the mechanical tilt although fine tuning meant multiple mounts and dismounts. A blade with tilting capability like a Land Pride RBT35 Series seemed like overkill for what I had to do.
 
   / Kubota KX-121 Tilt Blade Capabilities / Grading Crown into Gravel Road #5  
The general terrain has a lot to do with what is really the best way to pitch a road. Many times it is best to just pitch the road in one direction rather than crowning it and pitching it to both sides which often requires digging ditches on both sides rather than just one. A crowned road often requires culverts to move water from one side to the other.
 
   / Kubota KX-121 Tilt Blade Capabilities / Grading Crown into Gravel Road
  • Thread Starter
#6  
The general terrain has a lot to do with what is really the best way to pitch a road. Many times it is best to just pitch the road in one direction rather than crowning it and pitching it to both sides which often requires digging ditches on both sides rather than just one. A crowned road often requires culverts to move water from one side to the other.

In most areas the road has been set up for "sheet planing" off to one side. The problem is that the hill is pretty steep, and unless I make it a foot and a half higher one one side than on the other, the vector motion of the water is like 10 feet down for one foot over, so while it makes its way to the side, it does it very slowly.

The road used to be a mastic/crappy asphalt road, however this fell apart in time and about 20 years ago the failing asphalt was excavated in most areas and it was just built up with process. The process that they used doesn't seem to pack right.

Two of my neighbors are involved with construction, one is an executive for one of the two big state highway contractors, and the other owns a smaller (but still large scale) construction company. Between the two of them, they've probably dumped 100 additional tons of process on the road over the last several years. Neither has the equipment to do a crown or anything intelligent to the road. If it gets bad enough someone just brings in a bulldozer, and digs it deeper while trying to flatten it out, but this is all temporary.

In time the grass has encroached on the edges and has sort of taken over some of the process gravel. This is stabilized and ends up being almost like a natural curb, keeping water on the soft and relatively easy to erode processed center.

If I can get a crown on the road, in most cases the areas on both sides of the road are lower than the road--except it currently looks something like
____/----_______----\______ from a side profile, whereas I'd like it to look like



(IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII>. . ______----------______. <IIIIIIIIIIII)
(IIIIII) \______ / oooooooooooooooooooooooo \_____/ (IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII)


If I have to put in a couple of 12" N12 cross drains it's not the end of the world.
 
   / Kubota KX-121 Tilt Blade Capabilities / Grading Crown into Gravel Road #7  
Like others have said, a back blade set on angle will get the job done. I used to do my old gravel road with my plow truck every spring, I'd make about ten passes down and back and build up the middle about 18" and then make a fast straight pass with the blade about 5" off the ground, road looked new every time...
 
   / Kubota KX-121 Tilt Blade Capabilities / Grading Crown into Gravel Road #8  
To answer your original question, yes the 121 has plenty of weight and downforce to do grading.
 
 
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