Fired Road contractor. Build it myself?

[WoodChuckDad]

Yesterday was almost all digging with the excavator....An hour before dark I hooked up the blade. Got a little play time with it and then had time to think on it last night. Today was a maintenance day, until about an hour before dark, when I had another shot at it with the blade. Much better. That thing really does some nice work. You just have to get over the learning curve, and start dialing it in. I took a couple pictures from the next hill.... It's getting dark so the detail isn't the best, but the road is starting to come together.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

The place is going to look like the surface of the moon for quite some time, but every now and then, the beauty of it all come crashing thru.

 

[airbiscuit]

I like the looks of your road. Nice job on the sidehill. I am curious, why did you put the spoils on the uphill side instead of the downhill side? I would think it help hold the road and/or make it wider. I am not questioning your work, you obviously know what you are doing, I am just trying to understand the logic.

Don't give up on making that tail wheel.

 

[sixdogs]

How fortunate you are to have such a blank canvas of possibilities and the smarts to figure things out. Please look into an 8 ft rock (landscape) rake and maybe even a "cultimulcher" for your finish work. I use both on many acres a year and can put down almost putting green quality on a large scale. A big rototiller would be helpful as well.

If you use a dozer, the idea is to push the topsoil to the sides, grade things and then put the topsoil back. Doesn't look lie you have a whole lot .

Sure wish you would bring in a bulldozer for the land contouring. I move lots of fill like your project every year and a bulldozer can do things in hours that would take other methods months to accomplish. Either way, your project is a dream job that you will be glad you tackled. And with the $$ saved, you could easily buy more tractors and equipment. What a lucky dog. It's just my opinion but your contractor gave you an opportunity you will be grateful for.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

View attachment 498608

I like the looks of your road. Nice job on the sidehill. I am curious, why did you put the spoils on the uphill side instead of the downhill side? I would think it help hold the road and/or make it wider. I am not questioning your work, you obviously know what you are doing, I am just trying to understand the logic.

Don't give up on making that tail wheel.

I put the piles on the uphill side because I still have not popped the stumps out of that hill. And I will be planting apples on that hill. Some of those stumps are huge, and create very large holes when you pull then out, so I need to pack them back in When I am done, I will bring a dump trailer in and get any soil that still remains. As I went further up the road I started moving it across and build it up some. The road is 7 paces wide, so I figure at least 20 feet, including the space for ditches/swales. It was wide enough for my wife to turn her 4 door Jeep around on.

 

[Buppies]

That's one fine job on the road you are doing congratulations

 

[WoodChuckDad]

How fortunate you are to have such a blank canvas of possibilities and the smarts to figure things out. Please look into an 8 ft rock (landscape) rake and maybe even a "cultimulcher" for your finish work. I use both on many acres a year and can put down almost putting green quality on a large scale. A big rototiller would be helpful as well.

If you use a dozer, the idea is to push the topsoil to the sides, grade things and then put the topsoil back. Doesn't look lie you have a whole lot .

Sure wish you would bring in a bulldozer for the land contouring. I move lots of fill like your project every year and a bulldozer can do things in hours that would take other methods months to accomplish. Either way, your project is a dream job that you will be glad you tackled. And with the $$ saved, you could easily buy more tractors and equipment. What a lucky dog. It's just my opinion but your contractor gave you an opportunity you will be grateful for.

The dozer that was onsite, piling up debris moved all the top soil into piles. I have been separating the debris from the top soil. When I am finished pulling stumps, I will be moving a lot of that soil back to the fields I intend to plant, and disc it in. That cultimulcher looks pretty nice. But I've about run out of money for tools. I already have a landscape rake....a 7 footer. I didn't know when we bought it that I should go wider than the back end of the tractor. I will make do with it for a year or so and then perhaps trade up. As for using a dozer for the rest of the road build. I don't think it would be much benefit at this point. It could push the dirt across the road but I don't think it could actually do the cutting for me. We had the dozer that was pushing debris cut the initial line on the road. It cut a basic path, very quickly, but it struggled with the the rock. I am cutting into a lot of rock with the excavator. Faster results would be great, but I want to make sure I get this right. And most importantly, Budget is about dead. The money I am saving from labor, I am putting into materials to build the road to a better standard than originally planned. The quotes I had before were for a road 10-12 feet wide. No ditch and no culverts to handle runoff. The folly of that plan was pointed out on this thread, and it was quite accurate. A couple good rains showed me that water runs down the road and starts cutting ruts......Not having to worry about that constantly will be very nice.

 

[newbury]

<snip> I took a couple pictures from the next hill.... It's getting dark so the detail isn't the best, but the road is starting to come together.

Looks better when the road comes together.

 

[teg]

Looks better when the road comes together...

Like this?

View attachment 498632

 

[coldsteelva]

Nice stitching job TEG.