Road Drag - Driveway Drag

[airbiscuit]

I was doing a little work on my road drag, so I thought I would mark up the dimensions in case anyone wanted to make one of their own. I slapped on a coat of paint so it would show up better in the photos. For some reason my PDF of the dimensions wouldn't upload, so I scanned the pages as JPEGs, but the quality is poorer.

This thing was really easy to build, and I made it about 15 years ago when steel was less expensive. Nonetheless, I would do it again today because this thing works so well. It leaves the road silky smooth on a single pass. I will try to do a video later and post that.

So here are the plans. You can make one that is 8 feet wide or one that is 6 feet wide (multiply the dimensions by .75). You will be amazed how well this works!

 

[the old grind]

:welcome:, and :thumbsup::thumbsup: Having used a similar though far less sophisticated device this is impressive, to say the least. IMO, what stands out is the multiple crossbars, shear angle (improves cutting action), and that there is nothing to trap excess material to then be dumped in the wrong place.

Thanks for sharing the construction details, from one who wouldn't be surprised at how efficient and effective this is. The tail-wheel has me thinking about how to upgrade the one we're passing around and considering improvements to. Then again, I just might just want to jump ahead to this well developed design. I just know it's a winner.

Btw, 15 years, already? Airbiscuit, where have you been all this time?

 

[GPintheMitten]

Very nice. I'm not surprised that it works well. I've used old grind ' smoother it works well too.

 

[PILOON]

We maintained 3 miles of heavily used gravel road with a very similar design for about 10 years and simply pulled it along with an old Willis Jeep.
Ours was about 8' wide and 8' long and used only 3 'blades' and it worked like a charm, in fact the city's Caterpillar grader is not able to do a better job.
Our 3 'blades' were angled such as to even out the side drag to keep it pulling straight. We tried to have the angle of the center blade equal to the sum of the front and rear blade otherwise the drag would go the way of greater resistance.. (like 2@ 15 deg and the other @ 30deg).
When we did grade the surface was just as slick as fresh paved road surface but naturally after a few weeks washboard would return. Worst was our hills as automatic transmissions would shift all at about the same place starting the wash board all over again. Each shift would create a mini dig that amplified with subsequent uses.

As airbiskuit did, our 'blades' were offset so as to allow the overflow to be caught by the next blade. With our last blade being at a slight left angle the overflow would spill off to our left side which in turn created our crown when flattened out.
I recently made a small version (about 6' X 6') for a a small CUT and it works like a champ.

NB, I.m not wanting to upstage Airbiskit but rather to support what I know to be a great functional project. Those drags work so well that our city copied ours and used it for years until a scrapper collected it one midnight for the scrap value. City grader ($250K) still can't match the efficiency of our drag. I would go as far as to suggest a well planned drag will outperform a costlier box blade.

 

[airbiscuit]

You're right about things getting washboardy after a dry spell. This drag works best after a rain. I also have a pony grader which is nice to "set" the crown in the spring, but it hates leaves (and we have a lot), that leave big clumps and clods. This road drag seems to be able to roll them around and dribble them out bit by bit. I very seldom get clumps.

I uploaded a better formatted "Blueprint" (a couple of the dimensions moved). Is it apparent that the black numbers are the bolt hole locations, and the numbers in the yellow boxes are the angle iron lengths, and the numbers in the orange boxes are the square tubing (frame) lengths)?

 

[the old grind]

I admit to having to rake-off some of my driveway first to get rid of pine needles & small elm leave that collect along sparsely weedy edges (chickweed, medic) vs blending biomass into what I'm spreading. Don't have to do the whole 500' of it, maybe half, but some of us old-timers have learned to rake without making a job out of it. (small piles every 20' each side, nuthin' moved more than 10', rake onto alum snow shovel & toss into wagon ..) Might do as well with the leaf blower but I literally have to 'comb' the stuff out.

Seem to get the most long-lasting results between light rains that help settle & secure the fines before the low spots & dips puddle-up again. Sometimes I get away with 2 sessions/year, sometimes 4 or 5, & timing seems to make a diff as much as o'all weather for the season. IMO, minimal depth/disturbance from this type drag works in its favor, too. Never have had ripples come back, so it could be that I'm getting good at it. (Might be because I drive like 'Grandma', too.)

 

[airbiscuit]

Here's a Video Link

I made a video today. A little shaky, but you get the idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoiYtBngDIY

 

[bcp]

Video requires a login.

Bruce

 

[airbiscuit]

Video requires a login.

Bruce

Hi Bruce,

I was logged in when I inserted it. Were you able to view it? Are you saying guests won't be able to view it, or no one can view it? Should I do something different?

 

[the old grind]

Views ok when logged in. Nice video, too! :thumbsup:

 

[bcp]

Works OK now. At first it wanted a password to view.

Bruce

 

[CNC Dan]

I made a video today. A little shaky, but you get the idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoiYtBngDIY

Not a bad video. Better than a lot of others out there.

what's the zig zagy things? Just scrap for weight, or for cutting into harder dirt?

 

[airbiscuit]

So, here's the short story about the zig zaggy things. They are actually precision rack (30 microns), that are scrap from work. I basically used them to replace worn cutting edges.

Here is the long story. Many years ago, my neighbor borrowed the drag and never brought it back. The good news, he dragged the road whenever it needed it. The bad news, he almost wore it out. I originally built it with 3" angle iron blades. I had intended to flip them when they wore down to 2". He wore some of them down to 1".

So I salvaged what I could, bolted on a few new 2 1/2" sections, and bolted on cutting edges over worn sections. It originally had some weight boxes on it, but they trapped debris (leaves, etc.). When I was able to get that scrap rack (2"x3"x 1 miter), it was the perfect solution for robust cutting bars and weight.

Because I crown the road, all the weight and wear is on the right hand side. The rest doesn't wear too bad. The ends of the two rear blades wear a bit over time which is perfect because it helps feather the edges.

I could have put the scalloped edges down to act as scarifiers, but I really don't need it to be that aggressive. I have a box blade I could use for that if I needed to, or I could bolt a scarifier blade to the drag if I wanted to.

I don't know if the video shows it, but that drag really leaves a nice smooth finish, and that guide wheel maintains the crown.

I see CNC in your handle. We have three 11 axis CNC Mill Turn machines in our plant.

 

[Red Horse]

AB- Nice work!!

 

[CNC Dan]

I see CNC in your handle. We have three 11 axis CNC Mill Turn machines in our plant.

Thanks for the explaination.

At work I program, set-up, and run 3 swiss lathes. Two Citizen L25's ano one Citizen M20.

 

[airbiscuit]

Another video ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URHteVfiYDI&feature=youtu.be

 

[smiley]

Great looking drag. Where I used to live in Fla. on a sand road, there was a similar one that someone built from railroad ties. It was parked beside the road at either end and when it would get too washboardy, somebody would hook on and drag it back and forth a couple times and park it until the next time. At the price of steel today, that might be an option.

 

[CNC Dan]

Great looking drag. Where I used to live in Fla. on a sand road, there was a similar one that someone built from railroad ties. It was parked beside the road at either end and when it would get too washboardy, somebody would hook on and drag it back and forth a couple times and park it until the next time. At the price of steel today, that might be an option.

That's they way they used to do it.
King road drag - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Sodo]

I will build one too, thanks very much for showing how its built The video in action is great, really shows that this thing does what I need.

 

[EddieWalker]

Great video. looks like it does a really nice job on your roads.

Eddie