Driveway help

[Egon]

Back blade with gage wheels and windrow back and till you run out of windrow.

 

[Cycledude]

My gravel driveway is only about 300’
A few years ago I added a foot of new gravel on top of the old gravel, turned out pretty decent but about every 15-20 feet it had a slight dip or rise and try and try I was unable to get it as smooth as I wanted it.
My township has their own road grader and operator, he lives about a quarter mile down the road from me, so one day when I was driving by he was outside working on something so I stopped and asked if he could grade my driveway, less than an hour later the big John Deere grader pulls into my yard, took him about 15 minutes to make my driveway perfectly smooth with no more dips ! The wheelbase of the grader is at least three times or more longer than my tractors wheelbase and the blade is in the middle instead of hanging off the back. And it didn’t cost me anything !

 

[paulsharvey]

Without getting too technical; we first need to define "dips", and see what the cause is. Is it wash boarding, settling, erosion, or natural lay of the land/topography, wet areas?
Wash boards suck, and they will keep coming back over time, but can be fairly easily graded away. More cohesive material tends to not washboard as bad.
Settlement, there are lot of reasons/causes, but often, just scarifying the existing material and adding a few more tons is your best bet.
Erosion, can be somewhat dealt with by swales/ditches, cross slope/crown.
Wet areas are the hardest to deal with, but as much as it's Not the right answer, often the most effective, cheap way, is add additional material.
Topography, cut the highs, add to the lows.

 

[paulsharvey]

Part of the problem is when it was put in they did not remove enough of the organic material , it have a lot of pit run gravel up to 12” on most of it .
I have put lots of crushed concrete on it over the last few years .
It has gotten better after the kids moved out and the speeding through the puddles has stopped

So, I think what you describe is the bottom material and the top material acting independently. Did you/they scarify the bottom lift of old, compacted stuff, before placing the new material on top? You want the two lifts to act as a single homogenous base. Dont know if you have the ability to rip/scarify down through the crushed concrete to the original base, regrade and recompact, but I belive that is your issue.

Essentially, your top lift of crushed concrete is scabbing in areas, and getting loose

 

[bdhsfz6]

Man.... that's exactly what I want/need for my drive and other uses around the property. I've got an Everything Attachments (I got lucky and purchased back when they were reliable) offset/adjustable rock rake that's pretty much bomb-proof....

However, the cost of buying an aftermarket set of gauge wheels and grader blade for the rock rake are freaking ridiculous. One of these years, when the kids are gone, I'm going to get a welding rig along with the raw materials and fabricate the remaining parts I need. Even with the time spent learning I'll still be money ahead of purchasing pre-made.

How does the grader blade attach to the implement?

The blade is mounted on hinged brackets which are bolted to the cross bar. It folds down and rests against the tines when in use. It folds up and is held by latches attached to the bracket when not in
use.

 

[Cycledude]

Without getting too technical; we first need to define "dips", and see what the cause is. Is it wash boarding, settling, erosion, or natural lay of the land/topography, wet areas?
Wash boards suck, and they will keep coming back over time, but can be fairly easily graded away. More cohesive material tends to not washboard as bad.
Settlement, there are lot of reasons/causes, but often, just scarifying the existing material and adding a few more tons is your best bet.
Erosion, can be somewhat dealt with by swales/ditches, cross slope/crown.
Wet areas are the hardest to deal with, but as much as it's Not the right answer, often the most effective, cheap way, is add additional material.
Topography, cut the highs, add to the lows.

Well he said the dips are about 20 feet apart so I wouldn’t call that washboard. I believe the main problem is his tractors wheelbase is simply to short to do a real good job of grading those dips out and using a three point hookup boxblade hanging off the rear of his tractor makes the job nearly impossible. Boxblades work great for lots of other stuff

 

[2diamondfarm]

Photos of the driveway

 

[Tomtint]

The problem with a land plane.. and any other rear attached implement.. is that when your front end goes into a dip.. the back and implement can go up, making long swales in the overall run. It can be done without doing that, but it takes practice and knowing where to drag material into the low spots as you go. I also have the long driveway and same attachments as you. We just recently put down a few thousand tons of millings on the roadway.. I used my skid steer to do the majority of the grading and spreading of the material. It’s easier for me to have the material in the front and level it as I go, then fine tune it with a LPGS behind the tractor.

 

[paulsharvey]

Photos of the driveway
View attachment 1736630View attachment 1736631

Pictures help a lot. Those appear to areas that hold water. I would cut the grass shoulder down, to create "weep holes" and then scarify the low area, and add some material to it. I dont think the dips you are showing are the result of a short wheel base problem.

You mentioned that the subgrade may be organic or expansive; water sitting on it will certainly make the problem worse.

 

[jyoutz]

Pictures help a lot. Those appear to areas that hold water. I would cut the grass shoulder down, to create "weep holes" and then scarify the low area, and add some material to it. I dont think the dips you are showing are the result of a short wheel base problem.

You mentioned that the subgrade may be organic or expansive; water sitting on it will certainly make the problem worse.

It appears that the road bed is lower than the surrounding ground. This will be difficult or impossible to keep shaped up because all of the drainage is into the road. The only real solution is to bring in more gravel to elevate and crown the road bed.