Grading What is the best way to smooth out a 1.5 road

[gusman2]

It used to be the best but now it has some boulders coming through and dirt plowed to the sides over the years. Grader blade? Scrape box ? I dead would hel. Thanks mark

[Lou66]

you have two choices,, one is to dig the boulders up and remove or two add road base back to the road and smooth out over the stones.. Lou

[john_bud]

I would a cutter to cut the shoulders down tight, then round up to kill. Then
a back blade 8' wide or so with an aggressive angle to move the material from
the edges to the middle of the road. Then a box blade to smooth it out. From
what you said, it sounds like you may also need to add more material in the
thin spots too. If you have areas that rut up or pot-hole, you should put down
geo-textile to keep the stone from migrating down.

[jenkinsph]

I would use a rearblade to pull the fines back to the middle that has migrated to the sides and ditches. I would then run a landplane on each side of the road to smooth out the material. Might need to repeat this with the grader and landplane to get enough fines up on the roadway and clear the ditches properly. I should add that when running the grader blade on the second pass with the road smoothed somewhat will give you a better finish on the edges. I would suspect that most of the material is still there, just misplaced to the ditch. You may have to add some material in a few spots if still bad but recover as much as you can first.

[Willl]

Landscape rake angled towards center.

Come back and kick the big ones to the side.

Plan on a top fill crusher run in near future.

[gusman2]

thanks for the help I will head off to try it un a few weeks

[powerscol]

All of the above are good, except they forgot the most important step - Compaction, compaction, compaction.
At each step you will need to compact the material moved. A pneumatic roller is best for gravel. but running you tractor over the road on numerous passes will work. If you have access to a vibratory roller even better, but watch for bridging (un-compacted spots in the roller path) Also try and achieve a good crown in the road when done - water standing on the road is not good. A 2% to 4% cross slope should be the minimum. The best time to work the material is after a rain. Working dry will get you nowhere. you will need some moisture to have it last.
Hope this helps

[jenkinsph]

powerscol is right about compaction being important but I find most on these forums don't have anything worthwhile to compact with. For what few driveways I have done I use the loaded dump trucks to pack materials down and tip the trucker. For building foundations I use a larger vibratory roller and a plate compactor working in lifts of a few inches at a time.

In this case it appears to me that gusman2 needs to recover the materials and get them back in place on his road. This is the larger of a few issues.

[Gordon Gould]

powerscol is right about compaction being important but I find most on these forums don't have anything worthwhile to compact with. For what few driveways I have done I use the loaded dump trucks to pack materials down and tip the trucker. For building foundations I use a larger wibratory rolloer and a plate compactor working in lifts of a few inches at a time.

In this case it appears to me that gusman2 needs to recover the materials and get them back in place on his road. This is the larger of a few issues.

This is what I think too. Pack as best you can with what you have. Normal use will pack it further and expect wheel ruts to probably develope. Don't let them get very far just redo the drive. After a few cycles of this you won't get wheel ruts anymore.
When I do my road I often grade it then pack it with my 1 ton with a load on. Some places pack down more than others because the loose surface material is thicker in some spots. Then I turn right around and regrade and repack it again. This helps alot in maintaining the drainage contour and helps keep the wheel ruts from reappearing.