Box Blade Gravel What Am I Doing Wrong???

[oosik]

I have a mile long gravel driveway and I think I've used my Bush Hog ROBB about twice for driveway maintenance. I DO use the ROBB when creating trails elsewhere on the property.

My MAIN tool for driveway work is my heavy Rhino 950 rear blade. If I have windrows - either down or across the driveway - when I'm done with whatever I'm doing - I reverse the rear blade - drive forward over the windrows and this will gently eliminate any windrows.

At times I will also use my LPGS (land plane grading scraper) if all I need to do is smooth out a situation.

I've found that the reversed heavy rear blade works almost as well as the LPGS at smoothing out things.

Windrows across the driveway are caused by something - a big rock - that causes the box blade to jump up and deposit part of its load right at the "jump point".

I think this is what Girl Who Wants Tractor has explained.

 

[GreatWhitehunter]

A landscape rake with gauge wheels is a better tool for finishing a gravel driveway. I usually use the BB to break up the compacted gravel base, then rough grade with the BB feathering the gravel out. Then switch to the rake to finish the top.

Matt

 

[/pine]

I put box end plates on my landscape rake specifically for the purpose of eliminating windrows which it was notorious for leaving before...

 

[oosik]

Bottom line - - you are doing nothing wrong. You simply have your box blade completely full of material. It can not contain additional material and the material it can not contain is spilling out both sides of the box blade. This is what is making the windrows.

You need to drag something - big 'ol log - rear blade reversed - heavy sets of log chains - - - down the driveway to smooth out and eliminate the windrows.

As long as there is more material than can be contained within the box blade - you will continue to create windrows.

 

[shooterdon]

okay I'll throw in my 2cents, when I use the box blade I adjust the right side slightly lower than the left I then go down the right side of the drive ( my drive is 8 tenths of a mile long) at the end I turn around and come back up the other side and when I get back to the starting point I level my box blade side to side and tilted slightly back so the front does not catch nothing but a high spot and drive down the middle of the drive leaving any windrows in the tire tracks of my drive and as you use the drive they go away.

I know absolutely nothing about grading a driveway. I am buying a BB to do it only because I cannot afford a land plane. But Woody痴 method sounds like a reasonable approach.

 

[Piston]

Does your box blade have a hinged rear blade?

 

[MitchellB]

I like a rear grader scrap blade for my gravel driveway most of the time (do not have a landplane) and only use the boxblade if I need to use the scarifiers to dig down or move material from on place to the other. I angle the rear grader blade to bring material to the center, and lower the outside edge more than inside edge to create a crown. I do this once in each direction and this piles up material in the middle. Then I turn the blade around backwards, square and level it with the tractor. Then make one or more passes down the middle of the driveway to flatten out the center crown I just created some. Sometimes I even create the crown with the blade reversed so as not to dig up as much and skip the center flatting.

 

[JFoy]

I have yet to master the boxblade. For my gravel, I use the landscape rake (bought used off CL) and took out every other tine. It does best for windrows perpendicular to my forward direction. Have you thought about dragging a pallet behind you with the forward end barely lifted off the ground?

 

[LazyHRanch]

Try not tilting the box blade so far back. You want it to ride on the back blade but just barely. It will still smooth, you will just have to watch it going over bumps. That way the box will still catch the material needed to move instead of leaving it in nice little lines.

Hope that helps.

 

[donconnery]

Thanks for all the replies! I've been at work the last two days haven't had much time to come on here. My neighbor has a big piece of chain link fence with some pallets on it that he used for the main road before we moved there. I used the BB on the road and never got any windrows. I'm going to try again at some point, I ended up raking the windrows down (now they are just wider, shorter windrows.....) I think LazyRanch has pegged my problem, I literally have the link extended all the way, which I think is actually causing the rear blade to dig in. I'm going to rough everything up again and try to level off with less pitch on the blade.