Dirt Moving Leveling sloped area of yard with box scraper

[btrow]

I need to level a sloped area of yard with a box scraper. The area I need to level is approximately 24' x24' and currently is sloped approximated 16" from highest to lowest. The area to be leveled is part of a larger area that will be untouched. I will just be cutting this square to be leveled. I need to use my box scraper. Any tips or techniques to best accomplish this with my box scraper is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[jenkinsph]

It would depend on what you plan to do and what your use would be. You could do a cut and fill pulling from the high side to the low side which would leave approximately an eight inch cut on the high side and similar fill to the low side. You could haul in fill and smooth it out. What is this for?

 

[btrow]

Thanks. The owner wants to make a playground for their kids from this sloped area. I have a 5' box scraper I have used for a variety of projects but not specifically for leveling an area such as this. His preference seems to be for digging and leveling, rather than bringing in fill.

 

[jenkinsph]

Digging should be easy and quick, making it look good and dealing with the edges will take more time. On the edges you will need some type of retaining curb to hold the material in place, how you do this is the brunt of this job. If you taper the edges instead which may work fine you need to allow room for the sloped transition areas. Make sure you have good access to the low sides unincoumbered as you will need room to pull the tractor forward to drop the materials in place.

 

[btrow]

I appreciate the feedback! I am going to look at the job tonight so will have a better feel, but I am thinking along the lines you describe. So you see no issues with the box scraper capabilities for this job? I haven't used it for this type of thing so looking for some confidence that it is the right tool. If he decides to go with tapered edges, I suppose it makes sense that I would need to dig deeper than 8" from the high side in order to have enough material to create the tapered edges, right?
It really sounds like a box with additional fill dirt might be a better option, and would allow for a more level entry to playground area on the high side. Otherwise, there will be a significant step down just to get in after the high side is dug out.

 

[the old grind]

A few things come to mind:

1- Deal with any turf first. Lumps & roots will give you fits when dragging with the BB. Skim sod to be used elsewhere, or perhaps relaid there.

2- Work down from the high side with the teeth fully down & the blade level above surface to loosen-up the deeper soil. Stagger or cross paths as you go. A subsoiler will do the same thing with a few more passes. Once softened, things will level pretty easily and you might even take the teeth out to grade.

3- Set the stop or note where your position control lever is to get the smoothing you'll want to finish. In the right position, you may be able to go back & forth when set at the right height & 'tilt'. Hand raking last on such a small area before seeding would be indicated. You tires will leave a few grooves if you don't use them to compact the entire area. (a BB used without position control would be as handy as a sea anchor, glad you have it)

4- Use top link adjustment to tweak depth of cut or the amount shaved when dragging with the box 'floating'. There will be a sweet spot that shouldn't be hard to find.

5- Use the FEL for where the BB won't reach. It'll will scrape going forward nearly as well as the BB, and back-dragging may be the easier way to get the final level. Depends somewhat on soil texture or amount of moisture, etc.

If you haven't done much of this before, IMO you'll be darn good at it even after doing an area this small. You may get the urge to make parking lots to further display what you can do after the experience.

 

[btrow]

Love the tips. Very helpful and feeling more confident already.

 

[rentprop1]

one tip might be to mark the outer 4 corners as well as the center line, but mark it well off of the work area and use it for reference, in your head you know you need to remove the high side and take it over to the low side, you can always take a few steps back from the project and look at areas that need more attention, the markers really help I just had to level a pile of rock that had settled after 7 years it was piled up higher in the front

 

[Egon]

Use your bucket.

 

[pwright]

FWIW, I had to do something similar a couple weeks ago. I needed to level out a space on a slight slope to put a 10x16 shed. My solution was to tilt the box blade down slightly on the right so that when the tractor was sitting crossways on the grade the uphill side of the BB was cutting into the slope and the downhill side was slightly above grade letting the gathered material flow down hill. I just kept making a pass through the highest point until I had cut as far down as I needed and then used the BB and bucket to finish off the leveling.