Rear Blade ? Box Scrapper ? Land Plane ?

KYDan · Jul 7, 2013

Box blades are great and they are pretty versatile. However, I agree with the posts about not disturbing the bed if the drive is in good shape. Weeds are a part of rural living and there are several methods of dealing with them. I understand the aversion to herbicides. An earlier poster referenced a weed burner. This is most likely a propane torch that has a connecting tube and a large burner. They are available from various sources such as Tractor Supply and Harbor Freight. You attach the torch to a 20lb. propane tank and adjust the flame to your needs. They work pretty good. I would explore this possibility prior to attempting grading when it is really not needed.

Propane Torch

Bogi · Jul 7, 2013

My dad used to pull an old steel box spring. Simple, cheap, and effective.

oosik · Jul 8, 2013

Processed stone??? Do you mean crushed rock? If the driveway is in good condition other than the weeds I would definitely not use a 3pt device simply to remove the weeds. You will be loosing something that takes quite a while to achieve - compaction of the surface. I speak from experience - I have a mile long gravel (crushed rock) driveway and surface compaction means: the rain runs off, doesn't soak in and soften and the drive will resist rutting, gully washing etc. The questionable gains you might make in weed control will long be forgotten to the loss in surface compaction. Either drive on the weeds or burn them off with a weed burner.

jim_wilson · Jul 8, 2013

The other option you could look into is a Ratchet Rake - it just attaches to the bucket on your loader. It won't level off the driveway like a land plane will - but it's also a lot cheaper.

I have a gravel driveway - about 150 ft long. It's got about 8 inches of what they call "graded base" as the top layer. Graded base is a 3/4" crushed stone / rock dust mix that compacts very well. My driveway was pretty dug up this spring from clearing snow when the temps were too high for the driveway to be frozen solid. I ran the Ratchet Rake across it a number of times to mix up the top layer and level things off again - then I went up and down the driveway with the pull behind lawn roller I have. That leveled things off very nicely - and put a nice smooth finish on the gravel. I didn't see any serious loss of compaction , probably because I only really churned up the top inch or two of gravel. In fact I just had a tri-axle dump truck deliver another load of the graded base on Friday - and it left negligible marks on the driveway as it came down fully loaded.

I didn't think disturbing the upper two inches or so of the gravel was going to lead to any serious loss in overall compaction. I didn't have any weeds at the time - but I have noticed that I've gotten a lot less weed growth this year than I had for the last few years ( and I hadn't done this type of thing to to driveway for a few years) so circumstantially it appears that ripping up the top two inches has helped to keep the weeds down.

I got the lawn roller here:

Lawn Roller