leveling area for round pen

[bigballer]

i picked up a new Woods GB65 BB yesterday and started working an area that will become the roundpen. the area was pretty sloped and had some dips and humps and on the downslope side had a wide depression, most of the work i did was pulling dirt from the top of the slope towards the bottom to build up the downslope. it's looking alot better but i am still unable to really tell how level (or unlevel) it is. i think this is mostly due to the slope. from one side it looks like it slopes away from me, from the other side it appears to be sloping opposite the other, iow i think there is an illusion going on here. i guess my question is what's the best poor mans method for determining levelness (is that even a word??) of an area other than by eyeballing it?

NEW TOOL:


STARTING WORK:


LOOKING BETTER:



btw, that GB65 is a beast and works much better than i ever expected! it's built so well i think i'll be passing this one down to my grandkids.

cheers,
bigballer

 

[BTDT]

Wood stakes, clear tubing, water, string. Put couple stakes on uphill side, put a mark on stake, tie one end of tubing to stake above mark. Put other stakes down hill. Tie other end of tubing to one of the downhill stakes. Fill with water till the water level reaches the mark on top hill stake. Now go to downhill stake and make mark at water level. Repeat with other stakes. Now tie string between uphill and downhill stakes at the marks and you will know how much fill you need. Hope this helps. I'm sure it can be done for a lot more money and gps and laser equipment, but that is up to you.

 

[sandman2234]

Since your probably talking quite a distance, you can use a garden hose and just attach clear plastic hose or pipe to the ends of it. Probably a little cheaper than that much clear hose.
Laser's have come down in price alot, so check them out before you buy all that hose.
David from jax

 

[bigballer]

thanks btdt and sandman, i used a garden hose with the clear pieces on each end, it started out a 22" drop from top to bottom over 50 feet so i moved some more dirt and have it around 10" now. it drops 1" from one side to the other. so given it's a 10" drop over 50ft that should make it roughly 1.6% grade. is this a reasonable amount of drop to consider for drainage? i plan to put a 4" base of 5/8 minus and 2-3" of sand for the footing.

cheers,
bigballer

 

[Mike120]

If you are using a metal round pen, you might want to put skirt boards on the frames and dump a load of sand in the middle before you put up the round pen. It's easier to relevel the sand when the horses compact the dirt around the perimeter than it is to haul in sand/dirt after the round pen is up.