Have you ever tilled a driveway

[Hooked_on_HP]

I had a guy I know ask me if I would till his gravel driveway. I have never heard of this. He said it it mixes the fines up with the larger stone. I guess it is like using scarifiers on a grader. BTW I told him no.
Bill

 

[radman1]

I can't imagine tilling my drive way. It is packed so hard, I think the possibiltity of something on the tiller or tractor breaking is higher than I would risk.

 

[Wombat125]

I could be wrong, but that sounds like a profoundly bad idea.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

I bought a compact tractor real cheap due to this practice. Rumor had it that some genius used the rental tractor to till his driveway. He kept replacing the shear bolts with stronger and stronger bolts until the PTO shaft busted inside the tranny.

I put over $700 worth of parts and 30 hours of labor into it.

Don't do it.

 

[Willl]

Landscape rake set on aggressive mode does a hard packed driveway wonders.

 

[marimus]

Caterpillar make a 540HP rotary road remixer for road reclaimation.

Sounds like he wants you to be the poor mans version

 

[Kernopelli]

Landscape rake set on aggressive mode does a hard packed driveway wonders.

This is exactly what I use. I Have a rack that holds 4 cinder blocks that is bolted along the top of the rake and adjust the # of blocks according to the amount of "down pressure" I need. It does an amazing job, I haven't used my box blade on the drive since the first time I used the rake. I use this to regularly maintain my drive and crown, smooth, fill ruts and bring some of the larger gravel to the top.
In fact, I cut 4 feet off the width of my entire drive this spring down to the bottom of the drive's bed. The rake set on an angle would cut an inch or so with each pass and windrow the gravel. I incorporated that gravel into the remaining drive and now have a drive with a very defined edge and grass has taken over the part I cut out.
I can tell you, the hard packed gravel would have destroyed my tiller.

I also use the rake to pull out clumps of weed/grass that appear occasionally in the areas that aren't driven on regularly. After a good soaking rain, it will pull them out with the roots very easily.

 

[budgie9]

I use a DR grader for my 1/2 mile long driveway. It does a great job of stirring up the gravel and pulling out weeds. I have also used this for leveling out hard packed mole hills to the side of the driveway and pulling up long dead grass.prior to cutting and then mowing

DR Power Equipment - Power Driveway Grader - 5-foot wide gravel & dirt driveway grader

 

[tessiers]

why is it the one who comes up with these ideas is always the one with nothing invested?

 

[Opti-Mist]

I'm also in the camp that won't use a tiller. I have used the scarifier teeth on the box blade to break up parts of the surface and have used a disc to break up a dirt roadway so the grade could be reset. Right now my driveway could use either another overspread of stone or renovate the surface and regrade it. Neither will in reality happen before next summer - too many fish to catch in the short term.