Grading--what am I doing to cause this?

[oosik]

The grading with my rear blade is done at 5mph max. I'm cutting 4" at the outboard edge and pulling it to the center of the driveway. I do most all driveway smoothing with my land plane grading scraper ( LPGS ). Blade snow with the rear blade reversed when the driveway is still soft.

Last two winters - haven't had to blade snow - even once.

My LPGS has scarifiers. Set down about 1 1/2" below the side rails. It scarifies and smooths all at the same time. Great for repair of potholes and other spherical anomalies.

 

[Smokeydog]

Most of my driveway maintenance on a hillside driveway was done with the blade backwards and at angle. Move as little material as possible to maintain to keep the compaction. The angle lessens the ripples. At times had to reshape and use the yardbox to move gravel uphill.

After getting the land plane haven’t touched the grader blade or yardbox in 5 years. Maintenance is down and durability is up. A few pothole producing areas disappeared. Driveway looks the best in 50 years. Such impressive results that several neighbors/friends bought ones too.

Just took off the bushhog and hooked up the land plane yesterday. Driveway hadn’t been touched since June. Takes threes passes mainly going uphill for a 1/2 mile driveway so 3 mile travel. Looks like I just had 200 tons spread. Adjust leveling box to give bevel to crown or slope entire road bed. We get lots of rain and gully washers. 1” of rain today. 300’ vertical difference in winding, wooded 2600’ drive.

 

[Grandad4]

Would share your real life experience that brought you to those conclusions?

One of my early jobs was with the townsip road crew that maintained the roads, mostly gravel, in the Ohio community where I grew up. My crusty old boss, who ran the "maintainer" - the grader that is - always insisted that potholes and washboard would not be truly repaired by just filling them with more material; the road had to be graded down to fully eliminate them and then brought smooth again by grading the loose material and packing it back in place.

I've followed that principle ever since and it has worked for me. "Filling" holes doesn't last. Traffic and water will bring the holes back much sooner than a well-graded repair.

 

[skipmarcy]

In post #32 you mentioned the one thing that is going to help you the most for using a boxblade to grade - the hydraulic top link. The next best thing to help will be practice !! I too have the opinion that breaking up a well-packed driveway except in severe cases is foolish, if needed you should add some more packing type material and smooth it out and drive on it to pack it. Packing with your large tractor tires will get a start on it but you will need to pack it with something that puts some PSI down - I use my diesel engined F250 with standard sized tires to pack any material I have added to my drives, just back & forth many, many times from shoulder to shoulder. Tedious and boring but it works for me.

 

[npalen]

Would share your real life experience that brought you to those conclusions? I draw my conclusions from seeing what county employees do with public roads in the area. The soil can be slick when wet so people drive slow and carful until there's ruts to follow then drive faster. With everyone driving in same tracks,ruts can get deep during long wet spells but if you get out of them you must go slower to keep from sliding into ditch. When road dry's, the ruts are filled with loose material and compacted by daily traffic. If something does excessive damage to a section while road is wet,county employees run water trucks and compact loose material,otherwise road would become impassiable if it rained before traffic completed compaction. County road maintenance never intentionally tear's up compact soil any more than required to fill low spots.

County road maintenance never intentionally tear's up compact soil any more than required to fill low spots.
That's exactly what I'm proposing with the ripper shanks going an inch or two at the most.

Yeah, the rut thing brings back old memories of the two miles of mud road and five miles of gravel we had to get to school back in the fifties. The problem was when the ruts were so deep that the bottom of the vehicle would drag. I recall using the tractor to navigate those two miles. Yes, it was winter in Kansas and there was no cab.

Oh, it was uphill both ways.

 

[npalen]

One of my early jobs was with the townsip road crew that maintained the roads, mostly gravel, in the Ohio community where I grew up. My crusty old boss, who ran the "maintainer" - the grader that is - always insisted that potholes and washboard would not be truly repaired by just filling them with more material; the road had to be graded down to fully eliminate them and then brought smooth again by grading the loose material and packing it back in place.

I've followed that principle ever since and it has worked for me. "Filling" holes doesn't last. Traffic and water will bring the holes back much sooner than a well-graded repair.

potholes and washboard would not be truly repaired by just filling them with more material; the road had to be graded down to fully eliminate them and then brought smooth again by grading the loose material and packing it back in place.

Yep!

 

[npalen]

The grading with my rear blade is done at 5mph max. I'm cutting 4" at the outboard edge and pulling it to the center of the driveway. I do most all driveway smoothing with my land plane grading scraper ( LPGS ). Blade snow with the rear blade reversed when the driveway is still soft.

Last two winters - haven't had to blade snow - even once.

My LPGS has scarifiers. Set down about 1 1/2" below the side rails. It scarifies and smooths all at the same time. Great for repair of potholes and other spherical anomalies.

The thing that makes LPGS (Land Plane Grading Scraper, I believe) work so well is the built in depth control with the side skids. That's also where rear gauge wheels shine also, built in depth control.

 

[gejandsons]

A master grader blade will be much more suitable. Box blades were designed for moving material more so than grading a hard roadway. Weight is critical. Once a rub board condition is created, it must be cut out to eliminate it. Filling in the waves with loose materials won’t fix it.

 

[coralhead]

If you are doing this regularly I would suggest getting a land plane that is made to do this type of work.

 

[LOWTECH]

I don't have a lot of experience doing this basic task. See the photo, I've used both a blade and box blade and keep getting these ripples and have no clue why. I've tried it with the lift arm float mechanism in and out and the slow-return lift adjustment loose and nearly off and nothing gets rid of the ripple. The tractor is a Branson 3520 and it doesn't have draft control, not sure if that would help. I'm in cenral Texas hill country, v hard ground, very rocky, I usually try to do any grading when the road is just a bit wet. Anyone have any ideas? Is it something obvious and I'm just too much a noob? Thanks for any suggestions.
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It's difficult to avoid ridging without a blade designed specifically for lanes, yards or roads. I like the HFL grader. hflfabricating.com