Rear Blade How to grade a driveway? Need help please

[Trav City]

Hello, Its pretty obvious I'm new to this. My 2 track driveway is about 1000 feet and has a lot of wash board bumps. I have a 5 foot frontier blade and my problem is when the tractor goes up it digs a deeper bump. up and down. Ive tried several different heights and angles and just cant get it. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Rich

 

[Donfi]

Best option I have found is to turn blade around and back blade. This seems to eliminate the digging effect. If you need to loosen material use the blade in forward position and the back blade to level the surface.

 

[KYDan]

Do a search on land planes, they work really good on gravel driveways. You will get a lot of hits and everything attachments has videos of them in operation or you can use the search feature on this site. Tag driveway maintenance land plane box blade, etc. The box blade is more versatile, particularly if you want to move a quantity of gravel. However, the land plane will give you the smoothest driveway. Have some fun searching there are some neat threads with links to different brands and there are multiple videos on some of them. It will give you some ideas of what is available. Be sure to mate the size of the attachment to your tractor, your owner's manual should have a list of maximum size and weight of 3 point attachments. Either of these will work much better than a blade.

 

[Soundguy]

some people also use a landscape rake on gravel drives too.


soundguy

 

[MtnViewRanch]

A couple of questions. Is your drive hard or is there some loose material on it? The best way to remove wash board is to have your rear blade at a 30*-45* angle.

If there is some loose material, have the blade with the cutting edge forward set at the proper angle. Lower the blade and drive in reverse, with the blade at an angle you should be able to fill in some of the low spots and the tractor going over the smoothed surface does not do the up and down thing. After you have the surface smoothed out, you will need to use the blade going forward and actually cut and redistribute the entire surface to get rid of the wash board, or it will be back in no time.

If the surface is hard, then you will need to go forward starting on one edge and work your way across the drive. Take only a shallow cut at a time. If there is any place that is still smooth, start from there and move out from that point. This takes some time, don't expect to go over it once or twice and have it be all smooth.

The best and easiest way is to have one of the land plane grader blades as shown in the picture. Nothing better to maintain a drive than one of these IMO.

 

[Trav City]

Thanks for all the quick replies. I really want to try to get it done with the blade I own. I will try some of the suggestions given. I do also have a 6 foot rake if you think that will work better.

 

[Soundguy]

can't hurt to play with what ya got.

I'd try the blade or rake backwards...

 

[HSSC]

A couple of questions. Is your drive hard or is there some loose material on it? The best way to remove wash board is to have your rear blade at a 30*-45* angle.

If there is some loose material, have the blade with the cutting edge forward set at the proper angle. Lower the blade and drive in reverse, with the blade at an angle you should be able to fill in some of the low spots and the tractor going over the smoothed surface does not do the up and down thing. After you have the surface smoothed out, you will need to use the blade going forward and actually cut and redistribute the entire surface to get rid of the wash board, or it will be back in no time.

If the surface is hard, then you will need to go forward starting on one edge and work your way across the drive. Take only a shallow cut at a time. If there is any place that is still smooth, start from there and move out from that point. This takes some time, don't expect to go over it once or twice and have it be all smooth.

The best and easiest way is to have one of the land plane grader blades as shown in the picture. Nothing better to maintain a drive than one of these IMO.

Angle your blade as stated here by Mt View. My neighbor has to short of a top link on his blade and he grades the road with the blade perpendicular causing instant washboard. He claims his angle doesn't work and thus doesn't work grading the road. You want you blade to be mounted correctly so as it is angled across the road it stays level.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Thanks for all the quick replies. I really want to try to get it done with the blade I own. I will try some of the suggestions given. I do also have a 6 foot rake if you think that will work better.

Which is why I went into some detail with how to do it with the blade that you have. I mentioned and showed a picture of the LPGB to give you an idea what you may want to get in the future if you are going to maintain this drive for any length of time. The LPGBs are the only way to go for maintenance of a drive.

 

[JoeinTX]

Nothing to working a driveway........don't overwork or over-think it.

If your drive is wash-boarded then your four wheel tractor passing over it will do the same as any car or truck and act upon that washboard. You'll need to remove the washboard feature and re-contour the road itself. Angle the blade and remove the ridges. Drag a disc over it. Maybe a rake. Move the material in the ridges and then re-place it.

That's it and all......

Get after it.