leveling about 1 acre of Land (Suggestions)

[Charlton John]

Hi Guys, I have about 1 acre of my property that has a mild slope to it and I would like to level for a flat playing area for my kids. They can play there now the slope is pretty minimal but I want to flatten it. It is old cow pasture so there is a root system growing that I just keep mowed down seems to be mostly weeds and some grasses. I have a landscape rake and a box blade to work with. I would like to do myself instead of hiring a dozer job out as I want to get more seat time in I would also like to do w/o spending a bunch of money on a rototiller. Do you think it would be possible to do myself w/ the 2 attachements I have or what would you recomend?

I tried taking a couple passes through the other day from high to low point w/ the rake down but it didnt seem to bite in enough to move enough earth. Thanks!

 

[stevess]

i'm far from doing this myself but i've used my recently acquired ratchet rake to level some hardened grass dirt combination on the side of my yard and it seemed to work very well. search ratchet rake on this forum and have a look at what some people have done. just an idea and no affiliation with the manufacturer.
steve
mass
bx25

 

[dave1949]

Can you add scarifier teeth to your box blade?

Ideally, you could pull you topsoil aside, then level, then re-spread the top soil.

Dave.

 

[hitekcountry]

The short answer is yes. It's just a question of how long it will take. The box blade is the tool for the job.

 

[Charlton John]

Can you add scarifier teeth to your box blade?

Ideally, you could pull you topsoil aside, then level, then re-spread the top soil.

Dave.

My BB does have the scarifers already.

 

[Page2]

My BB does have the scarifers already.

Drop the teeth down, tilt the box so the edge is out of the way, and start digging. After you get the ground worked up, raise the teeth, tilt the box so you can scrape and pull the dirt. You'll have to fine tune the angle of the box, but with practice you should be able to get it levelled pretty good. Don't try to move too much at one time, that's the trouble most people have with a BB. It'll take several passes on alternating teeth and blade work.

 

[deepNdirt]

the way I level is quite a lot of changing back-n-forth from a Box scrap to a all purpose plow, I start out with plowing as deep as I can on the high side of the area I want to pull dirt from, once I have all loosen up then switch to the box scrape pull all this dirt to the low side building up approx hight needed,... I know it sound like a lot of switching but here in Ga, we have a lot of Red clay that will not simply scrape up even with the scariffers all they do is just trench small 2" wide x 2" deep grooves in the ground
so its easier to plow first then switch to pull with the box, But these days are over for me now that I have a FEL still have to plow first but then pick it up and move dirt, one day I'll get a teeth bar for the loader bucket

 

[hitekcountry]

TnT Hydraulics would be great to have for that project.

 

[radioman]

well- using only the implements you have, I'd say use your scarfiers on your BB to rip up the yardas much as you can. Use the FEL to scoop up the high scooping from the low side driving into the high side and then back up to dump onto the lower side. Run your scarifiers from BB again all over the whole yard, paying attention to really do the high side. It's kinda like plowing. Once you do that, I'd switch to the landscape rake and angle it so you are always pulling debris (windrowing) from high side to the low. On last pass use the FEL to flatten the windrow on the last pass.

If I were you, I'd rent a pTO tiller for the day and then use the landscape rake using the method decribed above. It would come out to a much smoother finish.

 

[wedge40]

First you get about 500#'s of fertilizer, then some diesel .. Well you know the rest.

Wedge