Driveway repair with rear blade HELP!

crocodile_jkg · Nov 14, 2007

I need to do some work on my driveway and need some advice about rear blades.

We are in a drought, but when it dose rain the rain has been making ruts in the base. Much of the gravel top layer has been pushed to the sides in the year an a half we have lived here. The drive way also has a small hump in the middle.

My father-in-law was here for two days and suggested, as only a father in law can, that I use a rear blade to fix up the drive way. I am planning to get a rear blade before he comes back to visit when my wife and I have our first child in January. Can any of you give me some advice on using a rear blade?

I will post a few pics on Thursday.

Thanks

James

Jimbrown · Nov 14, 2007

Prepare to be frustrated. It takes practice and then it still is not easy. Is the hump in the middle really not supposed to be there or is it crowned. Mine is crowned on purpose to make water run off. I would start by angleing the blade so as to move gravel from the edge to the center. I would drag the blade backwards to keep it from digging down. Once you have filled in the low spots that way you can try and cut down the center if you really want to. I find I get much better results by dragging backwards with the blade all the way down in the float position. If I try to cut with the front of the blade I can not drop it all the way down or it starts to dig too deep. If I don't drop it all the way the dips and humps become exaggerated because the blade follows the wheels. If you have some sort of position control or whatever you might have better results. How to maintain a dirt road by Marjorie Burris Issue #48

crocodile_jkg · Nov 14, 2007

The "hump" is more of a crown. I have no idea if it was put there intentionally or not, but it dose run the full leangth of that part of the driveway.

2manyrocks · Nov 14, 2007

Road grading is a question that has been discussed many times here. If you will invest some time seaching the attachments, projects and do it yourself forums, you'll find quite a number of useful threads that will help you. There have been several discussions about using a rear blade, using a box blade, and making/using a custom grader. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. There are threads about attaching guage wheels to help grade more evenly and to use to re-crown a gravel road. There is so much information here that it can't be done justice in a single post.

easygo · Nov 14, 2007

I redid my driveway recently, using a rear blade. The gravel was really hard packed and it was tough for even the FEL to dig into it. Had to wait for some rain to get the thing loosened up. So I used the blade in the position that makes it cut in as hard as possible.
What I did is angle the blade and drag the gravel into the middle from the sides to built up a windrow in the middle. In the process you would fill the holes. Than turn the blade around, set it straight and lift it a couple of inches off the ground and drive over the windrow to push the excess off the top. It would maintain the crown and hopefully put extra gravel into the path of car tires. But as it was mentioned above it did get frustrating at times. I'm new to this tractorin' game.
good luck

ToadHill · Nov 14, 2007

I've found that a york rake will do a much better job than a back blade. I rake mine about once a month in the summer.

bamatoolmaker · Nov 14, 2007

Where in the big city of Ashville do you live?

easygo · Nov 15, 2007

Actually I have heard too that a york rake works really well especially with gauge wheels. It also costs a lot more then the rear blade though and I would have no use for it other than fixing the driveway one or two times a year. The rear blade is really good for plowing snow too as many mentioned it here on TBN. I went for the most bang/use for my $.

crocodile_jkg · Nov 15, 2007

Thanks everyone for the info. I have tried to search this forum for information about using a rear blade, but keep getting an "internal server error."

Here are the pics I took last night - just before we got some much needed rain.

You can see much of the gravel has been pushed back to the edge of the drive and into the area between the garage doors.

More of the same.

You can see that the gravel has been pushed to the sides of the drive and into the middle, over a small crown. There is a ditch on the right and a good drop off on the left. The ditch is full of weeds and needs to be cleened out. Not one of my favorite jobs.

There is some damage do to run off from the down spouts. I have a plan to solve the run off issue by connecting the down spouts to that black pvc pipe and running the pipes to a culvert that will take the water away.