Box Blade Dredges up Rocks

[Katahdin]

Hi All, newbie tractor and box blade operator here. I've been working on my 400' gravel driveway which has not seen any major maintenance in the last 10 years.

I have no problem ripping up the driveway with the scarifers, but find it brings a lot of undesirable 4-6" rocks to the surface. After I spread new gravel and angle the box blade to smooth things down, I find these rocks get caught in the blade edge and get dragged along the box blade path, leaving tracks and thus an unsmooth finish.

For my driveway I've been hand-raking out the large rocks and am happy with the results, but I'm about to do this all over again for my mother's 150' gravel driveway. I anticipate I'll have the same rock problems over there. Short of purchasing a landscape rake, I was wondering if there are any suggestions for dealing with these 4-6" rocks. Thanks!

 

[bcp]

Are these rocks the subgrade for the driveway or are they naturally there?

Bruce

 

[Katahdin]

Not naturally there. That picture was of a driveway extension that got put in 10 years ago and went in over an old barn yard. I remember the excavator bulldozed a few inches of top soil away and uncovered the cement posts of a barn that burned in 1950. He then put down new gravel, I think he said it was #4. When the contractor was done with all the work on the property, he smoothed down the entire length of the driveway. The originally driveway itself is 100 years or more old, and has seen new gravel and a culvert replaced over the years, just not regular maintenance.

My Mom's driveway was put in 33 years ago, but probably no new gravel in 20 years. Some of the top gravel has been scraped away by snow plow and the driveway can get muddy in spots. Her driveway is 150' long, after I rip it up with the scarifiers I plan to spread at least 18 tons of a one-inch reclaim gravel aggregate.

 

[Piston]

Why do you need to rip it up if you are going to put more gravel down? Try angling the box blade so you are just cutting the top inch or two of soil off, and keep the scarifiers up, this way you will just scrape the soil and leave the rocks. Then when the box blade fills with dirt you can spread a thin even layer to grade. You don't want to disturb the base if you don't need to.

This will only work if you have a good heavy box blade, otherwise it will just skim over the hard surface.

 

[Katahdin]

I had been putting the scarifiers all they way down to rip up and bury the grass and weeds growing in the gravel. I've tried different scarifier lengths, but all the way down does a better job against the weeds. My box blade is about 500lbs, its the 72" TSC King Kutter model.

 

[Combustix]

Make yourself happy get the rake though hand raking is good exercise

 

[CurlyDave]

You would be amazed at what 2-3" of new gravel will do to solve this problem.

Before you touch your mother's driveway, have new gravel spread. Then touch it up with the scarifiers only going about 1" into the old driveway.

 

[JoeBuyer]

Sometimes we haul large rocks in to make a "roadbed" in softer soil that gets driven on a lot by the tractors. Then smaller size rock on that and crushed rock on top. No science to it but it seems to work. I agree with others that you should not set your scarifiers so deep. Leave the larger rock down there and treat the weeds.

 

[s219]

You said you want the rippers down to tear up the grass, but don't like that it pulls up rocks. Well, pick one or the other -- you can't expect to put the rippers down and not pull up the road base. For my driveway, I use the top link to adjust the angle of attack so that the rear cutter is not very agressive, and I keep the rippers up. Works great.

 

[jenkinsph]

I wouldn't drop the scarifiers down just because of grass and weeds, as Piston said first, blade it then add gravel and smooth it out evenly. The large rocks are understandable when building a drive over a lot or barnyard, ground was likely soft and needed some large rocks to build the base. There is no reason to disturb the large rocks.



WOW, the picture didn't come up when I posted the above last night Looks like you pulled up the lower road base which should have been left alone. That is alot of rocks to deal with now.