Front-End Loader How does a FEL rate for grading a driveway?

[Gordon Gould]

Get to know all the tools. They all have plusses and minuses. I find my grading scraper a super road tool. I would strongly recommend you look into one.

 

[beppington]

Get to know all the tools. They all have plusses and minuses. I find my grading scraper a super road tool. I would strongly recommend you look into one.

This is the implement that will make you look like a seasoned road grading expert from the moment you put it on the ground & start dragging it around :thumbsup:

Mine's got shanks like box blade's have, so ... I don't bother with the box blade anymore :thumbsup:

Two parallel, slightly angled blades direct the material toward the road center for crowning. Very hard to mess up & dig a hole with these.

 

[Lumberdink]

I guess I'll start with what I've got (or will soon have---I've pretty much committed to a new BX2660) and go from there. Great forum with much to read!:thumbsup:

 

[scesnick]

Get to know all the tools. They all have plusses and minuses. I find my grading scraper a super road tool. I would strongly recommend you look into one.

How does that work with a more packed road surface? My road is made up of very packed crusher run. It is hard as a rock. The only way I have found that works at all is to rip it up with the teeth of the box scraper and then smooth it out.

 

[beppington]

How does that work with a more packed road surface? My road is made up of very packed crusher run. It is hard as a rock. The only way I have found that works at all is to rip it up with the teeth of the box scraper and then smooth it out.

Grading scrapers are similar enough to box blades that if your box blade won't penetrate the material, a grading scraper probably won't either. However, my Land Pride GS1572 grading scraper also has teeth just like a box blade :thumbsup:

 

[scesnick]

Grading scrapers are similar enough to box blades that if your box blade won't penetrate the material, a grading scraper probably won't either. However, my Land Pride GS1572 grading scraper also has teeth just like a box blade :thumbsup:

SO then what will a grading blade do that a regular box blade can not?

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Grader blades are just like box blades and rear blades, the heavier they are the better they work. There is no way that a 6' wide blade of any kind that weighs 500lbs is going to work as well as one that weighs 1000lbs.

A grader blade will remove washboard far better than a box blade, along with cutting high spots down and filling in low areas. Sometimes you should wait for some rain to dampen things down before any grading is even attempted

 

[cttractor]

I have a 2.5 mile road/driveway that I have to maintain. I HAVE intimate knowledge of this feat and I will echo what others have said. Box scraper with rippers is the only way to Go. FEL would be a waste of time.

Wow! 2.5 miles? I'd think you'd need access to a motor grader for something of that length.

 

[scesnick]

Wow! 2.5 miles? I'd think you'd need access to a motor grader for something of that length.

Yeah, it is quite long but in the summer i only have to take care of 1.1 mi of it. The coal company on the other side of the mountain takes care of the rest. Now, in the wintertime when they shut down I get the pleasure of plowing the whole thing . And two yrs. ago we got a bit over 22ft of snow !!!!

 

[scesnick]

Grader blades are just like box blades and rear blades, the heavier they are the better they work. There is no way that a 6' wide blade of any kind that weighs 500lbs is going to work as well as one that weighs 1000lbs.

A grader blade will remove washboard far better than a box blade, along with cutting high spots down and filling in low areas. Sometimes you should wait for some rain to dampen things down before any grading is even attempted

can you use it to put a small cap on the road by tilting it?

 

[jimrs]

The biggest difference in a land plane and a box blade is the land plane won't carry as much dirt, gravel, rock, ect. It spreads is more evenly and fills smaller indentions like washboard areas better. The box blade will carry a lot of material until you adjust the height. Thus the land plane is easier to use with less experance and seat time. Most land planes come with rippers like the box blades and are a little larger and most are a little heaver. If I had it to do again I would have bought one instead of the box blade.

 

[cttractor]

I've used box blades, but never a land plane. I think of a land plane as an attachment more for loose gravel or stone roads/driveways and a box blade as more universal. Is my logic faulty? In other words, is the land plane the better tool for leveling a road of almost any kind of loose substrate. I suspect the land plane would not be a good tool for creating the road in the first place after trees and brush have been removed. Or am I wrong about that?

It's hard to know about a tool you've never used, so feedback based on experience is appreciated.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

can you use it to put a small cap on the road by tilting it?

Do you mean a crown in the center of the road? Yes a land-plane grader blade can be tilted to make or improve the crown in a road.

I maintain over 2 miles of roads at my place with 1/2 mile of that a shared road with 4 neighbors. I have an 1140lb rear blade, a 1000lb roll-over box blade, and a 1400lb grader blade. Our road is DG, (decomposed granite) and to the best of my knowledge was put in back in 1974. I have been maintaining the road for the past 10 years, have had the property for over 11 years. The shared part of the road needs to be graded 3-4 times a year to keep it in very good condition. When the ground is dry, it too is ROCK hard and my 1400lb grader blade will barely scrape up any material. But guess what, when it is dry and hard it does not need to be graded at all, so it is a moot point, because nothing needs to be done when the ground is rock hard.

I maintain with the land-plane grader blade, build new roads with the rear blade and scrape weeds off with the box blade or move larger amounts of ground when building new roads. If the road needed more of a crown I would most likely use the rear blade just because I could do it with one pass in each direction versus several passes with the land-plane grader blade.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

The biggest difference in a land plane and a box blade is the land plane won't carry as much dirt, gravel, rock, ect. It spreads is more evenly and fills smaller indentions like washboard areas better. The box blade will carry a lot of material until you adjust the height. Thus the land plane is easier to use with less experance and seat time. Most land planes come with rippers like the box blades and are a little larger and most are a little heaver. If I had it to do again I would have bought one instead of the box blade.

When the ground is damp, I can move way more material with my land-plane grader blade than with my box blade, both are 7' wide. The sides are 8' long and 2' tall. In the picture there is 50+ cubic feet of dirt being moved where as my box blade would be pretty much maxed out with about 30-35 cubic feet. This would not hold true for moving rock-pea gravel though.

 

[beppington]

SO then what will a grading blade do that a regular box blade can not?

1) See the long skids along the sides of the grading scraper? They're the main difference - They help the grading scraper sort of glide atop the terrain, with minimal, controlled digging/ scraping by the blades, as opposed to a box blade which can dig a lot, gouge, etc. & will tend to actually worsen the road surface if you don't manually adjust it depending on whether your tractor is in a dip or on a rise.

2) The grading scraper has 2 blades instead of 1. This enables material to flow up & over the first blade for smooth leveling distribution, & then again over the 2nd blade for more of the same. A grading scraper with 1 blade would still be pretty darn good, much better than a box blade for road grading; A 2nd blade is that much better.

3) The grading scraper's blades are slightly angled so material is directed toward the road center for creating/ maintaining a crown. They also help ease washboarding because any washboarding/ rippling that occurs should, for a while anyway, not be directly perpendicular to the roadway, meaning a car's wheels don't hit the little ripples at the same time, which is the worst case scenario for washboard effect. Compare to going over a speed bump straight on vs slightly at an angle, A slight angle can make a speed bump much less severe/ jarring.

 

[beppington]

can you use it to put a small cap on the road by tilting it?

Yes! :thumbsup:

 

[MtnViewRanch]

I've used box blades, but never a land plane. I think of a land plane as an attachment more for loose gravel or stone roads/driveways and a box blade as more universal. Is my logic faulty? In other words, is the land plane the better tool for leveling a road of almost any kind of loose substrate. I suspect the land plane would not be a good tool for creating the road in the first place after trees and brush have been removed. Or am I wrong about that?

It's hard to know about a tool you've never used, so feedback based on experience is appreciated.

Here is my :2cents:. When working on a road or building a road that is made of natural materials that need to be graded and as you mentioned, is cleared of trees, brush, rocks, roots etc. a LPGB (land-plane grader blade) would be easier and better in the long run than a box blade. LPGBs are simply a great implement to have when it comes to roads. I personally use either my dozer or my rear blade when building new roads. But If I didn't have either of those, I think that there is a good chance that I would use my LPGB before my box blade. Now of course there are conditions that the box blade would be the better implement for the job, but in general I believe that a LPGB would be the overall better implement to have when it comes to roads and driveways.

I am fairly sure that you would find that the people who have LPGBs have all but forgotten about their box blades when it comes to their roads and driveways.

I don't want people to get me wrong about box blades or implements in general. It's just that some implements are better at certain things than others. Even though there are different implements that will accomplish the same end result, that does not mean that they get that same result as good, as fast or as easy as a more specialized implement.

 

[Furu]

I have a Cammond Grading Scraper that does a wonderful job on my road. The thing I have noticed is that the "churn" between the two cutting blades tends to leave the larger gravel nearer the top and the fines further down. I would rather have a more evenly distributed fines and larger gravel (1.25 inch minus.) Is there a technique that will help this? I wondered if my cutting edges need to be lowered or raised from where they are set (Adjustable from 0-1 1/2" below side plates) in order to effect the distribution I want.
Any ideas from you experts?

 

[MtnViewRanch]

I have a Cammond Grading Scraper that does a wonderful job on my road. The thing I have noticed is that the "churn" between the two cutting blades tends to leave the larger gravel nearer the top and the fines further down. I would rather have a more evenly distributed fines and larger gravel (1.25 inch minus.) Is there a technique that will help this? I wondered if my cutting edges need to be lowered or raised from where they are set (Adjustable from 0-1 1/2" below side plates) in order to effect the distribution I want.

I don't know if the depth of the cutting edges will help out with that or not. :confused3: I suppose it should just because the deeper the cut, the more fines you would have and a better chance for the bigger stuff to get to the bottom. Only one way to find out for sure, lower those cutting edges and try it out.

Please let us know how it works out for you and good luck.

 

[Gordon Gould]

How does that work with a more packed road surface? My road is made up of very packed crusher run. It is hard as a rock. The only way I have found that works at all is to rip it up with the teeth of the box scraper and then smooth it out.

That is what we call 3/4" stamat ( or Stay-Mat ) in the picture. 3/4" and smaller crushed rock with plenty of fines. Some clay is added for a binding agent. Packs very hard. Harder than the CR we have here. As you can see the grader works very good but it is also pretty heavy for its width which is a necessity.