Crowning A Driveway

[JimMorrissey]

I've got a 5' Woods blade that tilts as well as angles and I would like to put some crown back in our flat driveway. Wondering if anyone has used the tilt option on their blade to make a crown. If so, how do you go about sculpting your drive?

 

[GlueGuy]

I don't have a blade, but I do have a boxblade.

Something I learned from the guy that "used to" grade our road was that you can put "too much" crown in the road.

He discovered after many years that if you put a big crown (small radius) crown on the road, people will drive down the middle all the time, and wear grooves on either side of the top of the crown. This leads to faster erosion in two places on either side of the "middle".

Much better, he says, is to put a relatively "flat" crown on the road, such that the casual user isn't lead to drive the middle all the time. People will "tend" more to stay on the right (or us country types will wander around /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif). Either way, the crown lasts longer, and you end up doing less re-work.

That all said, I use the 4' box scraper on Lucy to do the whole thing. Lucy is equipped with T&T, so if the road is "flat", I will angle the T&T a few inches to make a ditch on either side of the road. Once the ditches are in, I pull material all over the "crown" and try to make a nice, low, crown (with the boxblade "mostly" in flat (or neutral) mode).

The GlueGuy

 

[StanInCalif]

Jim-
That sounds like a daunting task for a rear blade, at least for me. The tilt adjustments on my blade are too coarse and I would end up with what Bill describes- too much crown. The blade is great for pulling ditches, but it seems like every time I try to grade with it, I end up putting the box scaper on. - Stan

 

[JimMorrissey]

Stan,

My driveway is gravel and can be disturbed by the blade fairly easily, but there are a lot of rocks in it. The angle adjustment seems kind of crude, but it's all I have right now and I gotta work with it. I have not tried the tilt action yet. --There will be no boxscraper with T & T for at least two years......but it's on the list You lucky dog!

Has anyone actually tried this?