Rear Blade How to grade a driveway? Need help please

[JakesDad1]

I've been maintaining my driveway for years. Its 700' long on a 13% grade. For the first 15 yrs I used a 1948 Ford 8N. For traction I used chaines and wheel weights. For the last few years I've been using a 20 HP Nortrac with chains. I use a 72" grader.

With the significant slope, I have found it very important to maintain a crown on the driveway. The blade is always at a 45 degee angle and I start with the blade tipped down pretty significantly to dig out the gutter (pushing material to the middle). After several passes I reduce the angle and work my way partway across the driveway. Once I have things pretty roughed up, I reverse the angle of the blade and flatten it out, to the crown angle I want. I start in the middle and make multiple passes evening out the crown pitch.

Hope that helps.

 

[Trav City]

Hello again, I just wanted to thank everyone again and bring you up to date on my decision. I bought a Frontier LP1160 Land Plane today from Mutton Equipment. I should have it in a couple of weeks. They are going to ship it right to my house. I will let you guys know how it works when I get it.

 

[djradz]

Congratulations! I'll be curious to see how well it works to remove the woop-de-doops and keep a crown on the drive. Pictures, before and after would be nice!

 

[Soundguy]

angle blade with side to side til helps crown, that or a top in tilt, or you have to jingle with yer lift link adjuster

 

[Gordon Gould]

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

Thanks for the update - keep us posted

 

[djradz]

angle blade with side to side til helps crown, that or a top in tilt, or you have to jingle with yer lift link adjuster

The blade I know how to angle along with some tilt, but I was wondering if any angling can be done with a plane?

 

[Soundguy]

the only land planes I've used are big boys, and they are 2 trail wheels and a bog box with nothing other than cut adjustment up or down.. can't speak for any others..

 

[EagleTDL]

angle blade with side to side til helps crown, that or a top in tilt, or you have to jingle with yer lift link adjuster

No TNT for me, but as Soundguy suggests, I tweak my link adjuster to get it to tilt. I've got a 48" version of this and I really like it! Two passes down the center with the plane level and then one or two with a 1/2 bubble tilt (using a 4' level) and it will put a crown on the drive quite nicely!

Word of caution: Remember which side is tilted down, fixing your error if you don't is a bit time consuming... :ashamed:

 

[MtnViewRanch]

The blade I know how to angle along with some tilt, but I was wondering if any angling can be done with a plane?

Yes it can be done as long as the cutting edge is below the skids, but it is much faster with a rear blade, for me anyway.

 

[F250DSLPWR]

Hi I have been thinking about this and how to help with using the blade. Here is what I would do. Get two 4-5ft sections of 2"x2"x.25" angle iron and mount them to the outside edges of your blade so they act like skis. Bend each end of the angle iron up 3-4" so it will ride over any dirt and bumps without digging in. How to mount: I would probably build a couple angel iron tabs with bolt holes on them to weld to the ouside edges of the blade and then mount the "angle iron skis" to the tabs with bolts to each outside edge of the blade? does this make sense?
With the skis in place the blade will ride just like one of the grader blades. If you build it right you can have the blade forward or backward. Not sure how well this will work, but it is worth trying out. I have been thinking about trying this method out on my box blade to see if it would work instead of buiding guage wheels. OOps well I see where you ordered a grader congrats. Maybe this idea will help someone.