Field Leveling

[hawkeye08]

You could always do it old school, marking elevations with stakes and moving the dirt and then checking and staking again. The amount of dirt you are moving needs more than box blade. You need something like this...if your tractor is big enough.

Belly Dump

 

[TimboTractor]

Belly Dump, learn something new every day.

But looks like it would work better as you don't have to drag the dirt all the way, you can carry it and dump it.

 

[Coyote machine]

Jenkins, sounds like you're making what I want. I see lots of those draw bar scrapers with a receiver mounted on top in INDIA, and one or two companies here that make them and they're not cheap.

I was wondering how long it might take me with a six foot box blade to level a 12 acre field with about a 24" off benchmark grade to level, about 50/50 above and below my desire benchmark.

Am I crazy for even thinking about doing this with a box blade?

Here is what I would like: Used Tractors, New Tractors & Other Used Farm Equipment Machinery For Sale at U.S. Farmer


Then I could mount my receiver on it and manually control the grade.

Let me see if I have understood your plan. First, you don't own a tractor, correct? Second, you want to make a 12 Acre farm field level and divotless for your kids to play on without twisting an ankle? And you ask if you're crazy to think about using an 8' box blade to accomplish this monumental task?
Answer is: (IMHO), Yes! :confused3::confused2:
I'd say hire someone who has done something like this before and pay them to get it done and move on in your life to other things, OR as suggested, keep it as a field and use it for teaching your kids about wild vs. golf course like land(s).

 

[TimboTractor]

Wow Coyote, that's brutal. You A S S-ume too much. There is soybeans on it now and it will never be in sod/grass for kids to play on. Changing it to pasture, but I'd like to get it level first.

 

[Coyote machine]

Wow Coyote, that's brutal. You A S S-ume too much. There is soybeans on it now and it will never be in sod/grass for kids to play on. Changing it to pasture, but I'd like to get it level first.

Sorry, not trying to be brutal, just throwing an objective view in to see if what you want to do is really realistic. Sometimes it takes a little harsher look at what one is wanting to do. You asked if you were crazy to want to try to do this with a 6' BB. I gave you my opinion.

I see now what happened: you hijacked Hattereno's thread; he was asking about an 11.5 acre plot he wanted to turn into lawn, etc. for his kids to run through- you picked up where he left off and ran with his thread, called hijacking, and went on your way with your topic/concerns and I responded to what I thought was the original poster's question about 'your' field, not his. No harm, no foul, but there is no need to try to call me thinly disguised names; that's unnecessary and inappropriate use of these forums, TBN policy, not my personal choice. My objective was, as already stated above to bring a reality check to the OP's thinking process.
Next time post your own question relating to your particular situation in a new thread. It will create less confusion and get you better specific answers.

 

[Dr_Zinj]

I'm leveling my front yard at the moment, a square area about 50 ft x 50 ft.
Dump the fill in, set the FEL level and scoop a pass through.
Rinse and repeat until all filled.
That leaves me with a fairly level area covered with R4 tracks and very compacted soil since I've run a 3000 pound tractor repeatedly over every inch of it.
Next step is to take the tiller and un-compact the top 6 to 12 inches.
Once that's done, I'll run a drum lawn roller over it by hand until I can walk on it without leaving deep foot prints.
Rake lightly, seed, and then roll again.
Then water like crazy.

 

[jenkinsph]

Jenkins, sounds like you're making what I want. I see lots of those draw bar scrapers with a receiver mounted on top in INDIA, and one or two companies here that make them and they're not cheap.

I was wondering how long it might take me with a six foot box blade to level a 12 acre field with about a 24" off benchmark grade to level, about 50/50 above and below my desire benchmark.


Am I crazy for even thinking about doing this with a box blade?

Here is what I would like: Used Tractors, New Tractors & Other Used Farm Equipment Machinery For Sale at U.S. Farmer


Then I could mount my receiver on it and manually control the grade.

While the boxblade you linked might work it appears to be too light weight for its capacity. If you were to level the whole 12 acres in one shot that would be about 20,000 cubic yards to move . I wouldn't attempt to do that with small equipment. Terrace the land and level between these for less cost and more importantly you wouldn't be stripping off all the top soil from the high areas. How many yards you would need to move would be considerably less depending on the specific property. When you look at moving 2000 yards of dirt 50 or 100 ft it begins to make more sense.

 

[crazyal]

Just how level is the field now? 12 acres perfectly level kind of needs a skilled operator using a dozer. If water run off is your main concern then it doesn't need to be flat as an ironing board, just needs vegetation to keep the water from flowing. I'm a do it myself kind of guy so hopefully we can help if you feel you really want to tackle this. I did level a small section of land using my Trimble laser level and stakes. I found the high spots and put stakes with ribbons at the height I wanted the top of my grading scrapper to be. That allowed me to plane the high stuff down without taking too long. I would just work next to the stakes. Once done I would pull the stakes up and move them over about 20 feet so I could do the next 20' wide swath. After I was don't I let the ground settle for a few weeks and then repeated the process. I didn't need perfectly level but wanted it close so I could have place for horseshoes, volley ball, and a few other lawn type games.