Rear Blade How to grade a driveway? Need help please

Trav City · Jan 3, 2012

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 · Jan 3, 2012

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 · Jan 3, 2012

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 · Jan 3, 2012

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

soundguy

MtnViewRanch · Jan 3, 2012

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 · Jan 3, 2012

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 · Jan 3, 2012

can't hurt to play with what ya got.

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

HSSC · Jan 3, 2012

MtnViewRanch said:
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 · Jan 3, 2012

Trav City said:
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 · Jan 3, 2012

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.

teg · Jan 4, 2012

Trav City said:
...My 2 track driveway...

So we are talking about the same thing here... There's Grass in the middle of 2 rows of gravel or is it just 2 rows of dirt???

Do you want to keep the grass? if that's what you mean by "2 tracks"... let us know...

Gordon Gould · Jan 4, 2012

You have been given good advise. To repeat it: Angle the blade so it isn't paralell with the troughs and pull material to the center of the road. Cut a little at a time. Go slow and keep your hand on the blade height control. Try to cut just the high places off first. Pick up and lower the blade so it does not deepen the dips and cuts the high places. You will not get it perfect on the first couple passes, only better each time. When you've made some loose material back up using the back of the blade to make it flat as posible by filling the dips. The flatter it gets the easier it will be to make it better because your tractor wont rise and dip.
The only thing I can add is that you must be patient. It will take several passes especially when you are learning. Try working on just a 100 foot stretch to develope your technique and get a feel for how it will go. Working the entire 1000 feet might seem overwhelming when your confidence is low.

Army grunt · Jan 4, 2012

I think what my problem was years ago, was I didn't realize how important it was to have lose stuff to work with an the time it took to get the driveway all looking soft an workable.
A drag is what I use mine is a flatbed trailer frame.The cross members pick up an drop soft while the side rails keep the hole thing level.
You can try adjusting the angle of the blade to keep it from digging in or not cutting at all. also swing it on as long as angle as you can get to clear the wheels.
I just did my drive an graded it for a day, then after a few weeks dragged it an had some #57 spread, an dragged that. really worked great, also added several runoff to help get water off drive.
Also split the wheel tracks going an coming in it will help keep everything flat.
Good luck it just takes practice,an time.
Army Grunt

jenkinsph · Jan 4, 2012

Might also wan't to try using your loader bucket tilted down while driving in reverse. Basically what ever you can do to knock off the bumps and smooth it out to start with. I say this because the Frontier 5' rearblade is very light and you can use the fel and get more weight to work with. If you can knock down some of the bumps then gradually set the front bucket closer to flat you can get the drive fairly smooth. Or atleast a better starting point to use the rearblade as mentioned by others.

With your 2520 which has some pronounced bends and angles in the hitch arms I would not use a rearblade, boxblade or any heavy implement with the tractor in reverse.

When we say go slow we mean to move slow enough you have time to react with the hitch controls, most noobies attempt to go faster than they can control the rear implement. Stop if necessary and adjust the hitch and continue a little at a time.

As others have mentioned a landplane/grader is the tool of choice for this work, I would save some coins for one in the near future.

blueriver · Jan 4, 2012

Running and operating any rear blade is a talent that takes time to learn. As stated play with angles, top link adjustments and go slow and you well learn.

Anyone can run a blade ... an operator can perfect his level of skills ... also devolpe an "eye" and you'll be able to see where its high and where its low. Just takes time to learn.

Trav City · Jan 4, 2012

Thanks again for everyones advise! This site is great. :thumbsup: It was a 2 track, but I did grade the center of the two rows out, I just want everyone to know it is fairly narrow drive. Any other tips would be great. It sound like I need to look for a good used Landplane.

tbutman · Jan 4, 2012

The best graders have a center mount blade. They aren't nearly as touchy as the grader blades on either end of your tractor. Most tractors have a float option and this helps. Try using the blade to loosen your material then find something heavy you can drag behind the tractor. This will drag the material around to fill in the ruts and holes. Then use a drag chain behind your tractor to give it the finish look. pick any rocks bigger than your fist. Rolling it is optional at this point. This will punch down the bigger rocks.

tbutman · Jan 4, 2012

Also as mentioned earlier, your blade should be angled and drag your material from the outside edge to the center of the road. You want to try to keep a moderately high crown in the road center. This will encourage water to run OFF the road and will keep you from getting washboard and pot holes. I have a farmal cub with a center grader blade that works awsome for moving material around after I have already loosened it up with my 1050. I also use a chaindrag hooked onto the back of the cub so I can move material around and give it a "finish" look at the same time.

jenkinsph · Jan 4, 2012

Trav City said:
Thanks again for everyones advise! This site is great. :thumbsup: It was a 2 track, but I did grade the center of the two rows out, I just want everyone to know it is fairly narrow drive. Any other tips would be great. It sound like I need to look for a good used Landplane.

If you can weld or have a friend that can help you out you can build one for about $400+ to fit your tractor. I built this larger 8' landplane for about $950 with straight set blades for landscape work. For driveway work I would use the angled blades which is more common. Long skids help overcome the problem with the dips you are experiencing. I plan on building a small 4' plane for my x749 in the next month or so and will post some pics of the build.