Landscape Rake the Best Option?

[schmism]

im really confused....

so you'll consider purchasing a $500-$800 landscape rake to "clean stones" but you wont put that same money into sand/chat for a proper riding surface? Sand in my neck of the woods is $10 a ton, 1/4-minus (or chat) is about the same. so $800 in material = 80 ton. that would be 6 tandem loads of material. google says 1.3 tons to a yard so thats roughly 61 yards of material. google also says most rideing arena's are 2" thick sand so so 61 yards over 2" thick would cover.....

just shy of 10,000 sq ft (9882) which is a 100' sq rideing arena? (i think my math is right on that)


I suggest you spend a min with google and determine what you need for a rideing surface. In the 10 sec of googleing i did, and follow 2 min reading forum posts about others building rideing arena's sounds like its common for a compacted gravel base to be used under the surface (dont know why, just what people say they do and they know a lot more about it than me)

I propose you figure out what you need in terms of surface and material and see if you really can budget it now. compact the surface you currently have and go for it!

 

[shibaura_4043]

im really confused....

so you'll consider purchasing a $500-$800 landscape rake to "clean stones" but you wont put that same money into sand/chat for a proper riding surface? Sand in my neck of the woods is $10 a ton, 1/4-minus (or chat) is about the same. so $800 in material = 80 ton. that would be 6 tandem loads of material. google says 1.3 tons to a yard so thats roughly 61 yards of material. google also says most rideing arena's are 2" thick sand so so 61 yards over 2" thick would cover.....

just shy of 10,000 sq ft (9882) which is a 100' sq rideing arena? (i think my math is right on that)


I suggest you spend a min with google and determine what you need for a rideing surface. In the 10 sec of googleing i did, and follow 2 min reading forum posts about others building rideing arena's sounds like its common for a compacted gravel base to be used under the surface (dont know why, just what people say they do and they know a lot more about it than me)

I propose you figure out what you need in terms of surface and material and see if you really can budget it now. compact the surface you currently have and go for it!

I have looked into bringing sand in but it was quite a bit higher than you have suggested. I don’t feel I will use the arena enough to justify the additional cost of sand. I too have searched arena surfaces, which is why I thought the previous owners might have brought the rock in to create some sort of solid base for drainage but didn’t finish the project. The rake seemed like it may have been a viable option for making my current surface function better. I have seen 6ft rakes for 400.00.... I thought I could have a quick cheap answer to the rocks and have another useful tool around. Two of my neighbors have dirt arenas and do not have a problem with rock... it's kinda strange. Thanks for replying.

 

[RDrancher]

im really confused....

so you'll consider purchasing a $500-$800 landscape rake to "clean stones" but you wont put that same money into sand/chat for a proper riding surface? Sand in my neck of the woods is $10 a ton, 1/4-minus (or chat) is about the same. so $800 in material = 80 ton. that would be 6 tandem loads of material. google says 1.3 tons to a yard so thats roughly 61 yards of material. google also says most rideing arena's are 2" thick sand so so 61 yards over 2" thick would cover.....

just shy of 10,000 sq ft (9882) which is a 100' sq rideing arena? (i think my math is right on that)


I suggest you spend a min with google and determine what you need for a rideing surface. In the 10 sec of googleing i did, and follow 2 min reading forum posts about others building rideing arena's sounds like its common for a compacted gravel base to be used under the surface (dont know why, just what people say they do and they know a lot more about it than me)

I propose you figure out what you need in terms of surface and material and see if you really can budget it now. compact the surface you currently have and go for it!

That may work fine for where you're at, but the arena the OP shows in the photo is typical North Texas clay. If you spread 2" of sand over the top it'll be gone after a few good rains. Our native sand is clay based that crusts and hardens after becoming wet and then drying. It takes a minimum of 6" of the sand to work in an arena here, whether it has a stone base or not and it has to be harrowed often. 10-12" of sand works better since you only harrow to loosen up the top 3-4" and the lower layer acts as a base with a bit of "give". Concrete sand is available, but it costs upwards of $500 per 20 yd load. Its really too light to be used in an outdoor arena here due to the high winds we get. A friend has a 200'x200' outdoor cutter training arena here that had 10-12" of concrete sand in it at the end of last summer and the base is already showing through in places.

I graded a small arena for my wife that's just loose soil. Luckily we don't have any rock on our property, so its easy to keep it fluffed up with scarifiers and a landplane. I did bring in 6" of native sand for her round pen. Placed over compacted clay, its still not deep enough.

 

[shibaura_4043]

Maybe till a little bit at a time to loosen and then till the final time extra deep to do the job. Easier on the tiller that way. Or maybe have someone cultivate it six inches deep and then till the already loosened ground. Either way is same result.

After the ground is tilled and packed with a very heavy packer, it's still soft in the sense it's not rock hard. Here's a photo attached of very hard ground that was tilled and then packed. It's soft now but will firm up a lot after a rain. Yet it's not hard in absolute sense. It's "soft" as it sandy, even though it's clay but it's not "hard" as the ground on the left. This arragement would look very similar in softness/hardness to most arenas I have seen over the years. I'm not that versed with horses and behavior and while I owned one in the past, she always left me baffled.

A lot of this is subjective and my personal opinion is based on experience over the years on stuff I learned the hard way. This is an art form as opposed to a science so it will take a while to figure out what you want. I could teach my method but it would take 25 hours and then could be challenged by someone else with a he-said, she said kind of thing. Don't buy anything until you think it out. The $$ will still be there and you'll make fewer mistakes. You'll still make them, just less of them.

Thanks for all the very helpful information....I wouldn't be disappointed at all if my arena turned out similar to the pic you posted. I guess in my head "packing" was going to really compact the surface. I too have gone through trial and error, the arena drag I built embeds the rock ok but it could be a lot better. I needed fresh perspective from you guys on the forum. Sounds like I definitely have a couple different directions I can go. Thanks again to everyone who posted on this thread.

 

[petes]

I suspect you stirred up the rocks from the sub-base when you disced. Before considering rototilling it, dig a hole (by hand) and see what the layers look like. If it's got a gravel sub-base, you'd kick yourself for stirring that up and burying what sand/dirt you have on top. If you dig into clean dirt, then by all means stir it up.

I've been trying to clear rocks off an area covered with 10-12" of glacial till (consisting of softball sized rocks down to sand) to make a riding area. I picked up a 6ft landscape rake thinking it'd help. When angled, it does do a reasonable job of windrowing the big rocks, and much of the smaller ones >1" or so, but can also moves a lot of the small stuff along with it too. I used it to get most of the big rocks out of our 20x60ft paddock that was gravel and fill, but ended up spending a day hand raking it to get all the smaller stuff out and clean as I wanted it.

I think the rake will be great for fluffing up and leveling the surface for maintenance and be a usefull tool to have around the farm, but it wasn't the answer to all my hopes and dreams. I'm still planning to bring in 30 yards (2-3") of sand for the footing and hope the rocks stay down... which of course they won't. I'll probably build a screened landplane or fine-toothed FEL rock bucket to "sweep" up rocks out of the sand, or possibly a gravel trommel (rotary screen sifter) and load it with the FEL. I need once for compost sifting anyway, so dual purpose helps the justification.

Looking at your photos, I'd lean towards hand raking to pick up the surface rocks whenever they pass the threshold of acceptable. Yep, it'll take awile, and they'll keep resurfacing for awhile, but it's good excersize! Try not to go deeper than 2-3 inches when harrowing/leveling/fluffing and eventually you'll pick all the rocks.

 

[shibaura_4043]

That may work fine for where you're at, but the arena the OP shows in the photo is typical North Texas clay. If you spread 2" of sand over the top it'll be gone after a few good rains. Our native sand is clay based that crusts and hardens after becoming wet and then drying. It takes a minimum of 6" of the sand to work in an arena here, whether it has a stone base or not and it has to be harrowed often. 10-12" of sand works better since you only harrow to loosen up the top 3-4" and the lower layer acts as a base with a bit of "give". Concrete sand is available, but it costs upwards of $500 per 20 yd load. Its really too light to be used in an outdoor arena here due to the high winds we get. A friend has a 200'x200' outdoor cutter training arena here that had 10-12" of concrete sand in it at the end of last summer and the base is already showing through in places.

I graded a small arena for my wife that's just loose soil. Luckily we don't have any rock on our property, so its easy to keep it fluffed up with scarifiers and a landplane. I did bring in 6" of native sand for her round pen. Placed over compacted clay, its still not deep enough.

agreed... I just realized you're in the great state of Texas too:thumbsup:. I just checked out the distance between us, too bad you're about 1.5 hrs away I'd probably be better off hiring you to come out and take care of the rock problem, with your experience and nice setup should be a piece of cake..lol.

 

[schmism]

It takes a minimum of 6" of the sand to work in an arena here,

You certainly know your area better than me. I pulled the 2" number off recommendations is saw frequently in posts asking about surface for rideing arena.

It seems to make sense that 3" of base gravel over the clay and then sand ontop of that is still way cheeper than 6" of sand or even a foot.

It also seems as if the arena rakes shown on youtube only disturb the top 1.5-2" of material which corresponds well to the 2" layer of sand recommended by other riding forums.

 

[shibaura_4043]

I suspect you stirred up the rocks from the sub-base when you disced. Before considering rototilling it, dig a hole (by hand) and see what the layers look like. If it's got a gravel sub-base, you'd kick yourself for stirring that up and burying what sand/dirt you have on top. If you dig into clean dirt, then by all means stir it up.

I've been trying to clear rocks off an area covered with 10-12" of glacial till (consisting of softball sized rocks down to sand) to make a riding area. I picked up a 6ft landscape rake thinking it'd help. When angled, it does do a reasonable job of windrowing the big rocks, and much of the smaller ones >1" or so, but can also moves a lot of the small stuff along with it too. I used it to get most of the big rocks out of our 20x60ft paddock that was gravel and fill, but ended up spending a day hand raking it to get all the smaller stuff out and clean as I wanted it.

I think the rake will be great for fluffing up and leveling the surface for maintenance and be a usefull tool to have around the farm, but it wasn't the answer to all my hopes and dreams. I'm still planning to bring in 30 yards (2-3") of sand for the footing and hope the rocks stay down... which of course they won't. I'll probably build a screened landplane or fine-toothed FEL rock bucket to "sweep" up rocks out of the sand, or possibly a gravel trommel (rotary screen sifter) and load it with the FEL. I need once for compost sifting anyway, so dual purpose helps the justification.

Looking at your photos, I'd lean towards hand raking to pick up the surface rocks whenever they pass the threshold of acceptable. Yep, it'll take awile, and they'll keep resurfacing for awhile, but it's good excersize! Try not to go deeper than 2-3 inches when harrowing/leveling/fluffing and eventually you'll pick all the rocks.

Im sure I did stir the rocks up I disced pretty deep, I didn't think it would be an issue at the time, man was I wrong! I've dug a hole about a foot or so deep, doesnt appear to be rocky at all a little deeper, it really seems to me like the rocks/stones were brought in, It probably was a base and I screwed it up big time. It was nearly impossible to tell(at least for me), when I started setting the arena back up the grass was 2ft tall throughout the arena. I assumed nothing had been brought in based off the condition at the time. If you build a sifter or screened landplane, please post it I'd be interested in something like that as well, thanks.

 

[RDrancher]

agreed... I just realized you're in the great state of Texas too:thumbsup:. I just checked out the distance between us, too bad you're about 1.5 hrs away I'd probably be better off hiring you to come out and take care of the rock problem, with your experience and nice setup should be a piece of cake..lol.

It's probably be cheaper to buy the sand than pay me!

If that was my arena and I didn't have the equipment available, I'd try to get as much of the stone out of there as inexpensively as possible. You might want to try using a 6-8' width of chain link fence for a drag. I would set it up attached to the bucket, not the back of the tractor, so it could be picked up, moved to the edge and then back-draged. You'd have to experiment with added weight, but a RR tie or timber wired on top of the trailing edge of the fence just might start collecting stones. Its worth a try to get a handle on the surface stones.

From the photo, for sure you need to break down and grade the edges for better drainage on the low side. That will get you back in the arena faster after it rains.

 

[shibaura_4043]

It's probably be cheaper to buy the sand than pay me!

If that was my arena and I didn't have the equipment available, I'd try to get as much of the stone out of there as inexpensively as possible. You might want to try using a 6-8' width of chain link fence for a drag. I would set it up attached to the bucket, not the back of the tractor, so it could be picked up, moved to the edge and then back-draged. You'd have to experiment with added weight, but a RR tie or timber wired on top of the trailing edge of the fence just might start collecting stones. Its worth a try to get a handle on the surface stones.

From the photo, for sure you need to break down and grade the edges for better drainage on the low side. That will get you back in the arena faster after it rains.

Lol... Thanks. I definitely need to grade the back edge just haven't got around to it yet... The chain link fence sounds like its worth a try. Ill probably give that a go first.