Search results

Yeah you may be right about that Darvish. I suppose my bridge will last a good long time, but at some point I will probably lose confidence to drive my tractor across it. Hopefully the fasteners don't rot too quickly, and then it will be straightforward to disassemble and rebuild - assuming my...

First I had to switch from my box blade (my go-to summer time attachment) for the rear scraper blade. Clearly I would have a lot of grading to do to get things back into shape. I started by filling up the eroded ditches. Thankfully I had a pile of reclaimed 2-3" crushed concrete right nearby...

Last Friday night delivered a surprisingly intense, narrow band of rainfall to the Southeast Michigan area. After already receiving a 2+" burst during the daytime, a thin band set up on radar and just trained along for ~3 hours during the late evening, bringing another 4-6". I went to bed...

for a building... no. Anything else, sure.

That mow-cycle looks cool, but one wheel drive and steering, really?

I wonder how many people build a SIPs house and then don't do as thorough a job with the post-install foam sealing. Quite the chore. Obviously there is no need or space for regret, but at this point, would you build with SIPs again?

Eagerly awaiting pics. Put on your boots and trudge down! lol

It means more reasonable lumber prices are coming later this summer.

^ boom, piloon sounds like he nailed it. Sounds awesome

Sweet, congrats! Yeah that sucks about having to buy from a further away dealer. Hope you don't need any warranty work. That might be the first Kioti I've seen on R14s - was it already set up that way, or did you customize? Finally, if you're comfortable.... care to post your invoice? Or...

Yikes. Maybe the machine and engine can run at 45 degree side slope, but me the lazy operator sure couldn't. That would stress my core. When I mow my road frontage ditch, I typically slide off the seat edge and hang my ass off the uphill side, and plod along gingerly. I'm sure I'm not...

Another idea could be a retractable awning over that open side of the deck, that at least covers the hot tub area. Would only really work in light rain conditions though, because you generally dont want those left out when a heavy storm comes through.

Looks like you have a lot of height to work with. Why not just drop your metal or polycarb panels down about a few inches from the decking? Then you wont be trapping any moisture in the deck assembly. Plus maybe you could fish a power washer in there to blast out debris and clean it up...

I dunno, I chop down 2" trees with my brush hog all the time. Just have to go easy and let it whack away for a few seconds. And in reverse, not driving forward, obviously. That said, I agree with the "push over, back up, find rootball, get under it" method of loader clearing.

In my case describing the "grabby" DeWalt 20v pole saw, I am talking from brand new. I've only cut a dozen branches with it so far. The chain is nice and sharp, as received out of the box. I was actually wondering if the saw might smooth out a bit once it dulls up a little. But generally...

I'm fully invested in the DeWalt 20V architecture. The brushless tools are all really great, for the most part. Thinking about getting the 20v chainsaw so that my wife can use something in an emergency if I'm not home. But I have to say, I'm not real impressed with the 20v pole saw. It's...

Wait... some of you western state guys are running your wells dry just to look at green grass out the window? That strikes me as a bit.... ridiculous. I get that you can make the "fire break" argument, but bare dirt works even better, right? Easy to say from my wet state. Pretty dry...

NY Times has an article on declining lumber futures this morning. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/21/business/lumber-price.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

I'm with bdog, level the dirt out (and ideally compact it) before you put the stone on top. Then it's just a matter of visually distributing the stone in an even layer. Definitely good enough for a run-in shed at that point, anyway. I probably would have leveled and compacted the dirt...

Yeah the extra skirt board would eventually rot, but by that point you dont really need it anymore. It's not structural. That said, giving it a thin layer of gravel up against it wouldn't be a bad idea. Yeah I don't think the county gets to forbid you putting crushed concrete under the slab...

The main reason I always make a level pad of dirt for a new building, a few feet larger than the building on all sides, is for water drainage. If you build a level roof over sloping ground, you will still have rain water washing through the building every time it rains hard, snow melting, etc...

Ok then we are all in agreement, LUMBER BUYING BOYCOTT starts NOW! Let's see if everyone can hold out for a full month.

Absolutely. Any airport or firefighting training center has almost assuredly put these chemicals into the local water table. Sad that people are only still finding these contaminants now, after decades of exposure drinking well water. But it doesn't stop there. Any clothing or shoes made...

Lol. I put my toothbar into my T111 siding on my pole barn too. Sucks.

^ Yeah I saw that. That sucks. Who in their right mind is still allowing discharge of PFAS/PFOS foams ?!?!? Permanent groundwater pollution. The foam may not have reached the river, but the PFOA will eventually, mark my words. If it hit soil, it's in the ground.

I saw that the earlier fire fighting efforts (local response?) included applying some 3600 gallons of foam laden with PFAS/PFOS forever chemicals, which was probably pretty pointless given how hard the fire was raging at the time anyway. 3600 gallons of PFAS is going to impact the local...

I like my truck with no bedliner at all. The bed is full of scratches and dings. So what? Zero rust. Always heard that the plastic bedliners trap water (and salt/grime/grit) underneath which actually promotes rust and bed failure prematurely. Probably takes a decade or more though, so who...

Don't worry fried, I still really want one too! It's not a trivial purchase at ~$1000; still gathering the motivation.

Been checking grocery store prices? No. HECK NO. lol My wife buys whatever fancy organic groceries she wants, and I do not question the cost. Weekly trips to our boutique local markets combined with local farm co-op purchases for meat and dairy probably have my family of 4 close to, if not...

But, it shouldn't. Because you should have a team do the inspection, with a supervisor on the bridge watching the primary person who is inspecting it. Can't just have one dude submit a checklist and trust him implicitly.

Easy peasy, huh. Such cheerful music, blech.

"described as “a nightmare of building code and safety violations.” in 2008. Yikes. $40M isn't actually all that much. Clearly whatever fire suppression system they had (heard it was only water based) was not even close to capable.

I take a different opinion than Kenny and certainly would add more skirting now, especially with how easy it would be to do here. Shoot, I laboriously dug down 24+" around my pole barn perimeter on the inside just to pour a concrete rat wall. Keep the critters from undermining your slab! Plus...

^ says the guys who drives a school bus as a daily, lol (mega cab). :ROFLMAO:

Thanks, grumpycat and Gord. It was a fun project and is holding up well so far.

Oh man that fire and smoke plume is just awful. Not much to do except let it burn out. You dont want those chemical products being washed down into the river, or PFAS from firefighting foam. Chemical plants sited right next to rivers... seems so dumb now.

Haha that makes sense! Can your 4030 loader pick up that pallet of concrete bags, as shown in your pic? 2000 lbs is a lot more than my current machine can lift....

fried, quit pushing people away from participating, bud! Bones' bridge looks fine for a SCUT Massey. And if it fails, he'll live.

Exactly, and if you tilt a box blade to the side, they carve a ditch on the road edge, and pull material until it falls out towards the center of the road lane. Repeat on each side, and you have.... a crown. Magical. Not my favorite way to do it either, but maybe give it a rest now lol.

Wisconsin and Michigan aren't very used to these kind of droughts. Even though we're 5-6" down on accumulated rainfall this year, the plants look ok somehow. Still a lush green jungle at my place. https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

Sweet. Thats the exact setup that I am targeting for acquisition myself. Just kinda hard to summon the motivation for new debt when my current machine is still running great.

What about a stationary headache rack mounted to the truck bed, then notch out your cover to fit snugly around it?

Looks really nice. And also looks kinda heavy!

Imagine? I see them every single day, many new ones. It's still a very popular configuration for folks around here with 250/350 or 2500/3500 trucks. They do have to park at the back of the parking lots. While I like the short-ish overall length of my ext cab 6.5' bed 2500HD (it parks fairly...

Here's my corona lockdown project from last year. Holding up perfectly so far. https://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/threads/building-my-tractor-bridge-across-the-creek.431302/

Good selections for sure! New Orleans has parts of town that are on solid ground and up to 20 feet above sea level, so it's not all screwed. But Miami is sinking and built on porous rock that floods from below. The corps of engineers just proposed a massive sea wall around the city and...

I dunno, they actually paid the dozens (hundreds?) of men to hand excavate the line, installed the whole track, bought two locomotives, and built the big ore dock in Huron bay. A lot of very real investment. And then the architect of the whole project had to flee to mexico for fear of his life...

Learning about the Iron Range/Huron bay railroad yesterday was super fun, thanks guys. I love the history of Michigan's upper peninsula. Such a rugged, harsh land full of long abandoned industrial endeavors. Fun place to visit and explore.

Give us a link next time, lol. Who sells them new? I'm mostly seeing used kivel stuff. I just found this site the other day https://www.neatfarms.com/Pallet-Forks/Skid-Steer-Pallet-Forks

Uh, no, they don't have plenty of water. https://news.yahoo.com/california-and-much-of-the-american-west-face-mega-drought-brought-on-by-climate-change-190823817.html...

Welcome back, Graz. I think your listed out plan is pretty solid. The choice of what single implement to purchase is not an easy one. Personally I find a rear scraper blade and box blade to both be essential tools with different functions. The land plane is really only for gravel driveway...

My wife wanted a heavy clover mix in our new lawn after we carved a homesite out of the woods. I didn't really know any better and said sure, so we threw a small sack of clover into the spreader with the tractor-supply grass seed blend. Well the clover went kinda nuts and dominated... at...

Nah. Gauge wheels aren't necessary. Nice to have? sure, maybe. But absolutely not required. The 3-pt hitch doesn't have down pressure, so you toss the attachment all the way down and let it ride. Minor tractor dips dont affect the floating implement. A nice heavy box blade or rear scraper...

Lol fried, you are so passionate against Box blades and for rear scraper blades as driveway maintainers. I use both, and you are absolutely right that the box blade can't re-shape the crown. But it does a nice refresh and smoothing of washboards, etc. And NO, I don't want any fines, thanks...

I mowed some forest trails the other day that were a full carpet of poison ivy. Gotta hit em again here shortly to make sure it's killed back. There's grass seed blends made for shade. It works ok.

Here's my recent thread about wanting a land-plane scraper, and being advised by forum members to try extending the top link and using my box blade instead. https://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/threads/poor-man-ok-cheap-sob-wants-a-land-plane-grader-scraper.431897/ Long story short, it mostly...

Lol. He posted at $50 and i instinctively offered $40, because apparently i cannot resist haggling. If he had pushed back whatsoever i woulda gladly paid 50. the 2x4s are new… I basically got all the posts for free. I did go and try to look up the 6x6 prices. $65 each for “cedar-tone” 10’ers...

^ absolutely do NOT fill your driveway with wood chips!! lol, what a thing to suggest. You forgot the /S tag on the end.

Ok, I have a game for y'all. I saw this pop up on craigslist yesterday, quickly reached out and got the load right after work for 80% of the dudes asking price. Can you guess how much I paid? I was gonna look up all the box store prices for comparison but I'm too lazy. 5 of 6x6x9.5' treated...

Well we could argue with each other until this thread is 10+ pages long, but Graziaka (OP) is awol, so.... I'll just say here, for the record, that I am personally the single most knowledgeable gravel driveway expert on this entire forum. :P But I like my ditches to be about 2 to 3 feet...

That cabin is delightful, thanks for sharing. Are you at all worried that the creosote timbers will be kinda smelly and greasy for a porch?

So... you're just here to argue about stuff? cool, cool. A 35-40 HP tractor with a front loader is generally almost as wide, and almost as long, as a pickup truck (depending on what truck he has). So what am I missing here.

A tractor has no provisions for automatically controlling the brake controller or trailer, BUT, if you just ran the power, you could still grab the manual control and stop your trailer effectively. You probably dont need it, though. Having said that, I don't really see how a tractor is going...

Holy crap, way to put that trailer to work right away. Great restoration, by the way. How did you load/unload those trestle beams? And what are your plans for them?

Is that "concrete to rock" picture really your main driveway though? That looks more like a logging trail, lol. No dirt work to set a contour or grade, no ditches, just a dump of rock curving around a tree and up the hill? I'm not going to tell you to start over, but, you kinda should. A...

Whoa whoa whoa. Every one take a deep breath here, lol. OP's head must be swirling with all this advice. (driveway threads are the best). I concur with the correct assessments of improper grading (no ditches, no crown, etc) and type of stone used so far (large, round, no fines). It will...

Some amount of inflation is definitely a good thing. Too much sucks, but none, or deflation is arguably even worse https://www.thebalance.com/why-is-inflation-good-4065995 On the lumber topic, I am building everything I can at home out of scrap lumber these days. Kind of a rustic feel, but...

I would heartily endorse a used John Deere, but only if its one of their top tier garden tractors. I found a mid-2000s GX335 for $1800 that I jumped on earlier this spring. With ~1250 hours, it's a little well used, but fires right up and mows strong all day. Rear diff lock, hydraulic deck...

I'm struggling to see how a new 40 HP machine is feeling weaker than an old little Deere 855 though. Both hydrostats, should operate similarly. Maybe gotta take it back to the dealer for a checkup?

Well, it is kinda steep if you're in high range, which it sounds like the OP expects to use going uphill. beeser, 40 HP should be plenty for mid-range to go full speed up a hill in 4WD. Pulling a loaded rear blade, maybe not though. What rpms are you running at?

I swear I've seen some big rollers (pulley like shape) that you mount atop and below the tube gate to sorta pinch and suspend it.

Good deal! I would have a hard time resisting the urge to grab my tools and head down there to help prep it, lol.

I do. Dude kills it.

I mowed all my deep trails this weekend. Somehow I didn't find a single tick afterwards. Some sections of newer trail were a complete carpet of poison ivy, though, yikes. Two passes wide on the 54" mower deck keeps them comfortable for walking. My neighbor liked his "tighter" and now they...

Everything described sounds like normal hydro steering to me. I was confused when I bought my (used) tractor too. As long as it steers well when moving, you're good.

Whos the guy in Virginia on here that has a saw mill and is always posting his new shed and carport builds? Maybe he would take your logs. Hate to see that much good wood go up in smoke for no benefit. Be patient.

One test you could do: right when it stalls, pull a spark plug out, and plug it back into the plug wire. Crank engine - is there a spark?

This is so god damn cool. Great work, thanks for all the additional pics. Really impressive how you figured it all out. A video of the unlatching process and gas-shocks lifting it up would be neat to see.

Sad but true. How many midwestern states can claim any better, I wonder? I have a sliver of my property and the adjacent (preserved) parcel that appears to have had big, mature trees on the oldest aerial photo I could find (1940) so I know I have some 100+ yr old trees in that corner. They...

That makes sense. I am lucky enough to have purchased land and built my home on a node of pure sand down here in the southeast corner of the state myself. I have decently deep ditches on the sides of my driveway but they never flow any water, basically just a sieve like you said. However! If...

Whoa, neat idea and nice fab work. How heavy is that assembly?!? Can you even reach over the bed side and lift the front end with one hand? What do you plan to skin the top with? Do you still have 48+ inches inside your rails, for sheet goods?

ededic, that's some impressive results from a little tractor. Sorta surprised it can pull a 60" BB that well. But to be honest I do not see much crown profile, or proper ditches on the road edges. You have made an impressively flat road, but it's going to mean extra maintenance going forward...

I forgot I had this sorta recent drone pic of my driveway. The "circle" goes around the island in front of the garage there. Two of my buddies are parked in it on the house side. It's plenty big for delivery vans and trucks with modest trailers, but no you probably aren't gonna swing your 40'...

I would definitely put in a circle out front. As small a diameter as is reasonable for trucks+ trailers to navigate easily. We definitely knew we wanted this on our new home build, 5 years ago. All the intelligent delivery drivers swing around it at speed and park closest to the house facing...

Now that's funny, right there. :ROFLMAO: Better than thinking they are just high on a pound of meth, anyway. I have no idea on the back story, just saw the tweet. I suspect people will do some investigating though.

Lets see if this video embeds correctly: Seen on I-75 (in Georgia) :

Yeah, the PJ, Big Tex, etc are all closer to $4000. The local manufacturers were close to half that, for a time. But steel and wood prices are way up right now, so.

Supply is tight around here, specifically on the more affordable lines of trailer. I am trying to buy a car hauler right now for pulling around my tractor and materials, etc. My problem is, I know a good 7k 18'er with both brake axles should only be around $2500, or at least they were as...

Are you going to add any soil to bring up the low areas? It might help to watch the water patterns during a strong rain storm. Pics would help. Ultimately you probably need to carve the yard in a nice wide swale heading downhill to the pasture. Edit to add: Your box blade is all you need...

^ Store your tractor outside?!? never! My R4 tires never hold mud. Then again my soil is pretty sandy. I try not to work the soil much on the real wet days anyway.

We had a few nights of frost this past week, ground is still too cold up in southern Michigan (thought we might be on the very northern edge of the brood anyway). 90 degrees coming at the end of the week though, could be coming soon! It would be especially hilarious if they emerge thick down...

Cool! Thanks for sharing the results. Looks like you have a big a$$ pressure washer. My dinky electric one probably wouldn't make as much mess, lol. (or get the job done well perhaps).

AM General has engineering offices, if not headquarters, up here in Southeast Michigan. Could be something they are working on.

Wait, you were considering a $2500 tractor, and then got a quote for a $125,000 forestry excavator?!? Talk about scope creep. Just get a nice 40-50HP tractor. 3500 lbs minimum machine weight.

Ha! What are the odds. Your pavement looked just fine to me in the first pic.... They often re-pave the wrong roads around here too. Frustrating when your tax dollars go into a perfectly fine road while others pound your vehicles apart for years and years before a repair.

I had a white garden tractor with a snow-plow setup that I used for plowing the driveway and parking area setup in a rental house some years back. Having a couple good winters of frequent plowing, who has time to fully stop for every reversal? The gears started grinding more and more. Then...

Sweet progress. I love those attic-room trusses. I used them on my pole barn build because why the heck not get all that useable space for a minor upcharge. Looks like you just barely needed the top hats eh.

Why not just tilt your box blade and drive down the ditch? Pull until the box is full, leave it, come back perpendicular with the front loader to scoop it up and take it away. Why are you at all worried about being in the road if hours pass between cars coming by? I'm confused.

Slick setup, nice install! That should pull you right over the curbs at the mall with ease. ;)

Fantastic. Thats a sweet machine and package.

Yeah we went with phillips hue bulbs and strip LEDs for most of our common areas back in 2015. And the cheaper GE link bulbs are also compatible. Maybe ~40 bulbs/fixtures in total on our app. All the switches work like normal. But you can hit a button on your phone in 2 secs to change the...

Hit home depot on my lunch break. PT 4x4x8's were right at $15 a pop. So I got a few of those, and supplemented with some of the light-PT landscape timbers which are only $5 each. Big veggie garden fence project. PT 4x4x12' are a staggering $29 apiece. OSB was $49 apiece for the 1/2" stuff...

I still don't get why you can't have an unfinished basement, with stairs going down to it. Just an empty concrete room for storage and your mechanical stuff. Just about every house that isn't in a flood plain has that here in Michigan. It's not, nor will ever be, finished space, so it's...

It's not coming out of the trailer unless you crash. Don't crash. Just send it.

Thanks for explaining! Would a raw basement (but with stairs heading down and no egress) really be taxed all that much? So basically a rational set of choices let to having a bigger, fancier crawl space. How's the radon around there?

Which raises another question for me: It looks like if you just slid the house back 20 feet, you basically could have filled the dirt in and not really been "building on a slope". What would the foundation requirements in WA be like in that case?

Wait, what? Why wouldn't you want to have a basement down there instead of all that huge wasted crawl space and ridiculous number of 4x4 posts? This is very odd to see while sitting here in climate and ground-stable Michigan.

It looks great. And so, so bumpy lol. Maybe 3-pt rototill it and then rent a roller compactor. Shame you had to wipe out the entire field of vegetation just to build the track. Are you going to re-seed all the infield? Big project. Dozer guy was skilled!

Was probably traveling on the highway above and came down between directions into the underpass. Harsh ride, no doubt.

I love that one cops chuckle when he sees her hop out. Man, she looked pretty disoriented. Meth is a hell of a drug.

Only if you hold the saw upside down! Not very ergonomic to run that way, but you gotta do whats necessary to keep the bar wear even. ;)

Amen! lol. The only ducts in my house are three 6' runs for the centrally located ERV to suck from my 2 adjacent bathrooms and the kitchen, and dump back into the great room.

^ good story, Alan. Sounds like a nice place. I went to Shanghai for a work trip in 2013. I was pretty excited to go! But that sentiment quickly soured. All of the "high end" restaurants our local colleagues took us to were kinda dingy and mysterious. I have a shellfish allergy and no one...

Ooh I like that tire idea. But honestly, when I picked up a load of boulders in a dump trailer to go 10 miles, I didn't use any straps. They didn't move a bit. Just use all your straps on diagonals, crossing above the rocks and you are good enough. Do you have to go on the highway, or is it...

This place is near Lansing and is a top notch Kioti dealer. They also have a killer parts dept that many on here order from. https://www.michiganironandequip.com/

You have windows, sure. But you won't ever open them voluntarily in the winter time. And yeah check code reqs. You wouldn't need to run ducts for it across your great room, just having it over the utility and master bedroom side would be sufficient. All I can say is, get a good indoor...

Whats the SHGC (solar heat gain coefficient) on your south facing windows? No offense but you probably made the same mistake our architect initially did, and spec'd windows that block all the free heat? We had to swap glass on our south facing because our entire design goal was free passive...

If you don't have any local dealers... you sure you want to travel to buy one? Not to sound like a jerk, but there are several threads about lemon Mahindras on this forum alone. Anyway I presume you tried the most basic search option...

When the sun is shining hard, you may not need any heat at all except for sub-20f days in January/February. By the way, do you have an ERV/HRV in the plans? I sure hope so, with super tight SIPS construction, your air quality will suffer otherwise.

Not strange at all. A burn pile sitting and waiting always feels like a liability to me. I took down 20-some trees last weekend. Buried the stumps, stacked the logs, and now need to burn off the pile of tops. Wish I could let them dry out for a month or more, but the pile is in the way!!

Sorry Danica, that sucks. Definitely lucky you weren't hurt worse. I am a bit confused why you need a logging winch due to this situation though? Do you otherwise need one for logging? Kinda seems like you just need a long rope.

Ok, so you should support all the rest of us who can more easily transition to electric vehicles to do so, right? Take away our demand for petroleum, and it becomes more affordable for you, a person who cannot easily switch over yet. No one is taking away your diesel fuel before you die, bud.

Why the new thread? It seems like the other thread basically answered your questions, and you conclude here with "step 1, control the runoff, then see how wet things remain". You probably need to observe it for a long time (like, a year?) after getting the ditches fully operational. Still...

I use clamp on bucket forks. Works pretty well. If you get skillful enough, you might be able to poke the forks into your pile and snag a few logs without ever leaving your tractor seat. Getting on and off to chain up and un-chain logs sounds miserable, and rather dangerous. However, I can't...

I rented a Bobcat E35 all weekend, kinda dizzy today from 15 hours of spinning around. Had to give them one of my spare linch pins, for the quick change bucket rod. I yanked like 30 -some stumps out, surely left one at the bottom of some hole.

Oof, that wooden ladder backpack doesn't look real ergonomic lol. Thanks for sharing.

I would upgrade or change to a proper hitch pin, or at least a clevis pin. Those linch pins come out ALL the time on my tractor 3-pt hitch. They just seem to lose tension and vibration can open them right up. Or a bouncing stick/rock, etc. Personally I prefer a LOCKING hitch pin so there's...

Nice project! I have some similar river-rock landscaping stone that has absorbed a lot of dirt over the years. And trying to relocate my spare piles of this rock just meant me mixing in a lot of soil also. I have been pondering building a stand-alone sieve/screener stand that I could move...

I went through this a little in my pole barn garage. Wanted to run conduit on the drops along the walls for switches and outlets, for wiring protection. But there was no reason to run THHN in full conduits all the way from the panel. Was told by a couple electricians and my township...

Nice Vid. Can really empathize with the mental fatigue in trying to get the exterior wrapped up. Hard to stay motivated. And breaking a custom cut piece of Hardy on install frickin sucks. Things are looking great though, stay at it. Shoot, might as well just run 14/2 for lighting circuits...

So is "laneway" Canadian for driveway? I just started watching Letterkenny last night and he keeps telling people to meet him for fist-fights at the end of the laneway on the farm, lol. So your crusher "dust" still drains water well?

Nice machine! And congrats on getting the first piece of damage out of the way. Now you can relax and just use the thing. Nice log pile, too

^ good point. Just use your rear blade. With practice you will become an expert at it.

I'm no building pro, but 1) why does the electrical have to go under any slab? Can't you just run it to the outside of the building, and then wire it conventionally inside as needed? 2) Pole construction is pretty standard. You don't really have to "attach" the poles to anything, other than...

A third nomination for this idea. Basically how I built my drive. 2-3" crushed concrete makes a very sturdy construction driveway. Get the dirt base properly crowned up with ditches on each side first. Then 4-6" thick of this layer. Top with a nicer, natural stone to finish. On my...

Here's my own thread of discovery for gravel driveway maintenance. I got talked out of buying a land-plane, and encouraged to fix my 3-pt top link situation and try my box blade. It worked well! Still kind of want a land plane, but those are one trick ponies. A proper box blade can do a LOT...

Just gonna bump Eddie's post here in case anyone missed it. I think this is a big deal, and a great catch. You need the super-insulated support box for long-term thermal safety.

Man, kinda surprising how many details there really are to discuss about dump trailers here. I'm not in the same league as what y'all are considering for the OP, but I sure do appreciate having my neighbors 6x10' 10k dump trailer available to me, had it all day saturday. Super easy to...

I guess you don't have any friends or family in California, eh. It was a f&*(ng hellscape all summer long. And our air quality across the entire country suffered noticeably too, as a result. Over 4 million acres burned just in that one state alone. Nonetheless, good point, I should have...

Haha. Yeah I am planning to push over some large trees and will be ripping out some big stumps - stuff a compact tractor backhoe would really struggle with. Almost wish I would have a larger excavator to do it more quickly and safely, but this is about all I can afford to rent. It's $660 +...

Good question. I just did some web searching and couldn't find the answer. All DK's have the same engine displacement, but power steps up progressively. This could certainly imply a base naturally-aspirated 3H-TH4D base engine with increasingly fueled/boosted 3H-TH4C versions above it...

Agree, spending money is not greed. Spending money is good for everyone! Dramatically over-consuming finite resources in direct conflict with the climate stability of the planet, however, is greed. Getting back to the thread topic: building a house with this much raw lumber has a very real...

Guys - don't the front loaders often have scales built into the loader boom nowadays? They know exactly how much they are lifting with each scoop. When you see them jostle that final scoop to get it "just right", its by watching a digital scale readout. Sometimes, anyway.

Personally I hate it MORE when old threads die with no resolution. No problem reviving an old one if you have the ball moving again! I have a similar tractor short list to purchase next for my 10 acres. Same task list, too. I'm renting an 8000 lb excavator next weekend to knock out a ton of...

Yeah I mean, we can pretend that the increased efficiency of new home construction techniques makes it acceptable for 4 people to share 19k sq ft, but the world is literally burning and this house will consume a huge amount of energy, just no way around that. In Wisconsin winters no less...

I don't have any problem with people being wealthy, and spending lots of money. I have a problem with them consuming an insanely disproportionate amount of the finite resources that we have left on this planet. Building materials, and fossil-fuel energy to condition the home. It is selfish.

How anyone can believe that their personal family deserves 19,000 square feet of resources and annual energy consumption is simply beyond me. What a disgusting monument to selfishness in a world that is rapidly reaching the tipping point. That place will be a prime target for the roving bands...

Sig, sorry don't have time to read the whole thread, but not sure if anyone pointed out: Kids menu prices aren't always lower just because the portion sizes are smaller. Restaurants often take a loss, or at least barely break even, on the kids menu stuff as an incentive to get families coming...

I just bought a 2005 Deere Gx335 for $1800. Higher hours, but well maintained. Hydraulic deck lift, power steering, diff lock, 54" deck, bagger, wheel weights. I would keep looking and get the Deere you truly want.

^ WOW! Wow #1, at those truly massive logs getting loaded. Some impressive trees (rip). Wow #2 at how much good cedar wood you extracted from... telephone poles?!? How could you be sure all the metal was out of them? Sorta surprised the sawyers wanted to do that job given how much metal...

You got a good phone. Should last you a good long while, and the camera(s) are phenomenal. Pretty amazing how long your 7 lasted. I got 5 years each out of a 3GS and 6 before getting my 11, which I love. Face ID to unlock the phone and authorize apps/payments is pretty handy. That and the...

Nice trailer! So, let me get this straight. With 3500 lb axles, the axles/tires should only carry 7000 lbs total, which includes the trailer weight. But with a GVWR of 8950 lbs, they expect you to put 1950 lbs on the tongue ?!?!? Thats a dangerously irresponsible GWVR, in my opinion...

Terrifying. This happens every day on the roads all around us. My elderly neighbor, bless his heart, bought a fancy 10k dump trailer (that he lets me borrow, wahoo). First he hauled it with a ford ranger until he bent the frame. Upgraded to an F150 (V6, overweight on tow rating, but it...

You lucky dawg! Sound like I coulda snagged dibs on it, but I couldn't rationalize spending that much this year on a play-toy, uh, I mean, serious work machine. Post some pics of the beast in its new habitat!

Yeah I missed the boat on buying an affordable car hauler. Didn't really need it enough to justify buying and storing one. Now I want one more, and will pay an extra thousand bucks to get one this year. Oh well.

I can think of a pretty major issue you've had with it though: It cost a lot of your money to purchase, lol.

Just push it into the woods and forget about it. Excellent berm foundation material, though.

This site is so weird sometimes, with the sheer variety of equipment people suggest. Ok I'll change my vote to.... a helicopter with one of those sweet power line trimmers! Easy to use and super affordable. ;)

Heck yeah, perfect for that! Exactly the kind of trailer I want to own, actually.....

This is pretty normal for a tractor FEL. My older Cub Cadet behaves this way too. Heck, even 5 minutes with it running will let the bucket get a bit floppy. Overnight, it goes limp. I have the habit of grabbing the curl back lever periodically just to keep it tight. Plenty of other threads...

To slope your land for drainage, I would generally go with a slope that starts at higher ground, and tapers down to lower elevation. J/K sorry. Can't you just pull up a topo map from your county GIS dept? What state/county are ya in. Sounds like you have minimal elevation change to work...

That looks like a trailer built for half the capacity, that just happens to have double 8-lug 7k axles underneath it. Interesting.

Compact diesel tractors dont use DEF. They just have a Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) that passively and actively regenerates (burns the soot out) as needed. Pretty proven technology at this point.

Lol, so true. A couple times towing a proper trailer fully saddled with a compact tractor and attachments on a compact Nissan pickup.... even if just within tow rating, he'll be looking at full sized pickups for sale soon.

Hey sailorman, don't bail. No one meant to offend you personally. We agree, receiving a brand new, expensive tractor with a cracked loader valve is not acceptable. But if you hang around here more, you'll learn that random part failures and hydraulic leaks are actually pretty common on all...

^ agreed. No one wants to be cutting big ugly ruts into the ground, but as long as you dont do much of that, the forest floor will recover. Organisms and natural root growth will break it all up again over a few years.

Eh, 900 hours isn't horrible. Most of these Kawasakis can run out well past 1000 hours. I just bought a Gx335 with 1250 hours on it, well maintained for $1800. Hydraulic deck lift, power steering, diff lock.... feels fancy. Just hope it lasts for me.

^ I'd wager that more people have issues with tracks coming off, than they do with tires coming off the rim. Pretty easy to notice a low tire inflation and correct the issue before it comes off the wheel.

I mulch them in my grassy yard and occasionally blow the edges into the forest too. But around my garage and driveway where I dont care about the grass bits so much, I just blow into quick rows, and scoop everything up with the front loader for transport to the compost pile.

It's not just about (average) ground contact pressure though. Think about how you turn on a skid steer..... by ripping the track sideways. If your goal is minimal ground disturbance, you're much better off with a lightweight tractor with tires that ROLL and steer. Unless you only drive in...

The math is pretty easy. Truck rated for 6800 lbs towing Tractor weighs 3500. Lets call it 4k to be safe. Means a 2000lb, 18', 7k rated car hauler will be easy to tow around and stay well within the limits for both trailer and truck. Don't get a 6k trailer. Don't get a 14 or 16' trailer...

Interesting choices to compare. The Kioti 3510 has waaayyyy more loader capacity than the kubotas you mention, or the wimpy deere. And the 3510SE has all those nice optional features like telescoping rear 3-pt links, linked-pedal hydrostat, etc. The Exhaust DPF seems quite reliable on them...

Oof, that blows. C'mon Kubota. I would love if we had a fuel-injector engineer on here to chime in. I am still confused how any commanded duty cycle or rail pressures would wipe out the fuel pump and injectors all at one time. Still kinda smells like the shop just threw all the parts at it...

Yeeeeahhh, I wouldn't. I find nests in about 1 out of 4 totes of mine. I actually pack 16" firewood in my totes in two rows with as MUCH gap between the rows as I can. I don't try to pack it tight (theres always a terrific little snug hole for a mouse nest). My thinking is that having a 3-6"...

Haha. I read your prior comment literally: Just got to try it out.

Don, doesn't you wood still always get wet with the tote liners tucked inside the tote frame like that? I would think all the water will just trickle down the sides, over the wood ends, and run through all the wood still. I always make sure to get a half sheet of plywood sitting out over the...

Super clean! congrats. I might go pick up a private party gx335 later today to replace my haggard old gt275. I'd rather have your X738, but I'd also rather pay 1/5 the price lol.

annnnd? How did it go? Looks great.

You're putting gravel into sunken parts of the asphalt driveway? I don't see how those stones are ever gonna stay put like that. Try switching to recycled asphalt millings and tamp them into the holes on a hot day, maybe?

whoa, higher than I might have guessed also. Click through the link to see a bit more context on recent trends. Almost hit 70% before housing bubble burst, dipped to 63%, now rebuilding steadily. Hope it holds this time...

.... those are different people. The separation of wealth in this country grows ever wider. Have and have-nots. Almost no true middle class left.

I'd go 15 feet up, just to be safe. Should only take about a couple hundred dozer hours and 50-60 tri-axle dump loads of fill. Easy weekend job. I mean, you don't want any pot holes, right?

Actually I know a high school friend who became semi pro in poker as well. Thing about poker is, you only have to be smarter than the other people sitting at the table with you, not the odds of the house winning. blackjack, roulette, slots... all dumb. Poker maybe an exception, if you're savvy...

Whoa. So it really is getting crazy everywhere, huh? There's a 850 sqFt 2-bedroom shack from 1938 with zero updates, next door to me for sale on 1.2ac. There's no functioning indoor plumbing or appliances. Septic is failed which means the township and county will require water/sewer hookup...

I sorta made money from gambling. FanDuel offered me 55:1 odds on a super bowl pick as a new subscriber. Minimum $10 sign up and $5 bet. I took my free $280 from them and never went back. Gambling is stupid. The house always wins in the end.

No sorry to sound negative, that would be awesome for brush work! Also, get some work boots, lol

Congrats! More pics of the new gear, asap. Third function on a bx1880.... kinda made me lol, just sayin. The "thumb" or other grapple type attachment will use up almost all your loader capacity. Still awesome, though. Good luck!

Haha yes it is quite noisy! It's a helpful driveway alarm, at least when I am working outside. Hear a nice loud rumble-whoosh as any visitors arrive. I do feather my pedal a bit when driving my truck up the drive... easy to spin the tires.

Go with 2" chairs. don't mess with em, just use them.

And this is why I never put fines onto my 1000' gravel driveway. Zero potholes, ever. Yes, my loose stone rolls around some, and I do re-grade the whole thing a few times a year (10-15 mins of work to freshen it all up). But I cannot stand pot holes and puddles. Let the water drain!

Nice choice! Yeah you should always be throwing out nice chips of wood. If you're ever making fine dust... just stop and sharpen up the chain.

Man, your videos are just so much better produced that those shaky, uninteresting clips though. I couldn't even watch.

I mean, pretty understandable when you think about it. If his GPS really did send him up there, well that sucks pretty bad for him. He was just trying to find a reasonable place to get turned around. You fence your field off and now hes got to back up another, what, half mile? (certainly not...

This Dewalt is $40 off, so I'm going to go buy it today. Will be handy for interior projects, but I'm actually mainly planning to use it outside. I understand that I'll have to wait until dusk to clearly see the line at 20 or 30 feet out (or more). Should be good enough for my crude projects...

I see multiple references to the Dewalt DCCS620 here. Since I already have multipled 20v dewalt tools.... this is pretty appealing. It sounds kinda dinky with just a 12" bar, but I guess that Is kind the point! For cutting smaller stuff only. Slightly off topic but I'm headed to HomeDepot...

First of all your local county and road commission have the full right to send drainage water basically wherever they please. For the vast majority of roads and areas, this is just a certain amount of control over the natural drainage patterns that already existed beforehand. They cant make...

$37k w/ loader and remotes, then after 20% discount = ~30k. Then plus almost $2k more options (3rd function, loaded tires, etc)/

You'll be all set once you get that extra rear ballast. Carrying things in the front loader without any counter balance on the rear is a bad idea. As you just learned. I don't think you'll need to reverse down moderate hills once you get the machine properly set up. Also, were you in 4WD? I...

We heat with firewood, anywhere from 2-4 full cords per winter. I am pretty busy and value my time, so efficient firewood processing is a must. Currently only have my hand-me-down Stihl MS310, which has been an incredibly awesome and reliable saw for my needs. A buddy came over last night and...

Congrats! Decent price with that 20% discount. What finance rate/term did you get?