Building raods, driveways and trails with a tractor

[AustinTX]

Building roads, driveways and trails with a tractor

Could someone familiar with the tasks kind of provide the process for building roads/trails/driveways and what attachments/implements are used.

I realize this is a very broad topic and there may be multiple methodologies.

For example, I would like to create a mile or so of decomposed granite walkways, 800 feet of asphalt road and a three car concrete carport.

I realize I won;t get everything right away, but I figure I need to start my education so I can get started on doing them this spring. It might also be important for me to decide which tractors I should consider buying for this use.

thanks

 

[dangerdoc]

Could someone familiar with the tasks kind of provide the process for building roads/trails/driveways and what attachments/implements are used.

I realize this is a very broad topic and there may be multiple methodologies.

For example, I would like to create a mile or so of decomposed granite walkways, 800 feet of asphalt road and a three car concrete carport.

I realize I won;t get everything right away, but I figure I need to start my education so I can get started on doing them this spring. It might also be important for me to decide which tractors I should consider buying for this use.

thanks

I'm no expert but I have built a couple of drives.

rule #1 Control water flow. Look at where the water wants to run. Plan culverts, ditches and how to get the water off the road as quickly as posible.

rule #2 Get rid of the sod and build up the base. The drive is going to naturally sink as you drive on it. Building up your drive a good six inches above the surrounding ground is going to save you tons of rock and make it easier to deal with water flow. The cheapest and easiest way of building the base is to use material where you want the water to run. I did this mostly with a box blade with rippers to loosen the material and a regular blade to move the material onto the future road. This is a slow process each run only moves a fraction of an inch of dirt a couple of feet. I spent an entire month moving dirt this way. I also used a backhoe to dig some ditches on steeper areas and areas I did not have room to run the blade.

rule 3 Make a good crown, this is very important before you've worked the rock into the road. It gets the water off the road more quickly.

Apply a few inches of AB3, repeat as it packs in. Occasionally recrown with the blade and when it is well compressed, a couple of inches of clean gravel really firms things up and cuts down on the dust and slop.

Good luck

 

[Mousefield]

Bit of a tough one to answer. To really give you any kind of accurate information you need to provide much more detail and or pictures. As an example your 1 mile walking trail: how wide is it going to be, is it flat or steep, type of soil, treed, big rocks etc.

 

[AustinTX]

Bit of a tough one to answer. To really give you any kind of accurate information you need to provide much more detail and or pictures. As an example your 1 mile walking trail: how wide is it going to be, is it flat or steep, type of soil, treed, big rocks etc.

Property is relatively flat.

Trail 4' wide.

Property pretty much has 1-3" of topsoil over caliche. The caliche is fairly soft for a rock. There are a number of caliche outcroppings, but not of any significant height (more than a few inches.

Lots of trees. Mostly live oak.

 

[Egon]

decomposed granite walkways

Would you be talking clay, silt or sand?

 

[jml755]

Not sure about where you're at, but I've been slowly putting in a driveway in farmland up here in Michigan (1200 ft so far). First thing is to make sure you've got no topsoil. I had to remove 12" to get to a sand or clay base. Then I put in 12" of crushed concrete. This packs well and sets up like concrete. It was recommended that I start with a larger size (2-3") aggregate for the first layer then followed up with a 21A for the top. Problem with the larger stuff was that there was still some rebar in some of it and I had a couple of flat tires from it. I then quit using the big stuff and just put down 12" of 21A crushed concrete. It worked out fine. I'm using a Ford 755 TLB to put move it around and it's quite a bit bigger than your average CUT. But I figure the TLB has paid for itself already by allowing me to do the driveway myself.

Dangerdoc gave some good advice.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

A rear blade works very well at making a road. A good rear blade makes making and maintaining a road that much easier.

 

[AustinTX]

A rear blade works very well at making a road. A good rear blade makes making and maintaining a road that much easier.

Please recommend what you consider a good blade. is a 500-600 dollar usually suffice?

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Please recommend what you consider a good blade. is a 500-600 dollar usually suffice?

Maybe? What size is your tractor, or what size are you thinking about? Usually a good idea to get a rear blade about 12"-18" wider than your tractor.

 

[dcyrilc]

Maybe? What size is your tractor, or what size are you thinking about? Usually a good idea to get a rear blade about 12"-18" wider than your tractor.

I would add to this to get at least a medium duty blade.