Grading Road repair is a Land Planer the right tool

[rfc143]

In my opinion, a heavy rake, such as the LandPride LR37 series is the tool to use. You can angle it to pull material out of the ditch, you can maintain (or create) camber; if you hit a larger partially submerged stone, it will bounce over it; it makes a carpet out of just about anything but mud, especially if you have at least 3 or 4 inches of material to work with. Using a land plane might be useful once in a blue moon if your drive gets horribly rutted up, but with a rake, it never gets so. You can touch it up monthly with a pass or two and look like a master roadbuilder. My two cents.

 

[fried1765]

In my opinion, a heavy rake, such as the LandPride LR37 series is the tool to use. You can angle it to pull material out of the ditch, you can maintain (or create) camber; if you hit a larger partially submerged stone, it will bounce over it; it makes a carpet out of just about anything but mud, especially if you have at least 3 or 4 inches of material to work with. Using a land plane might be useful once in a blue moon if your drive gets horribly rutted up, but with a rake, it never gets so. You can touch it up monthly with a pass or two and look like a master roadbuilder. My two cents.

I don't recall ever seeing a "heavy rake such as a Land Pride LR37" being used on a "master road builder" construction project.

 

[Creamer]

I would prefer a back blade for this - or a grader blade like airbiscuit showed would be the best. A landplane does a great job of smoothing a road but this is more or a rebuild. The problem is that you do not have enough crown to get the water to run off the die of the road before it runs down the road. You needs to get enough crown to make the path of least resistance to the sides and you will not have washouts like this. I understand that is easier said than done in some hilly terrains.

I would use an angled backblade with a little more digging on the outside than in the center. I sometimes add a little extra weight to mine to make it dig and work a little harder. Just this spring I made it cut the edges off the driveway and bring them back onto the road because I was having the same problem you are - the water running down the road. A couple hundred extra pounds on the 6' backblade made a lot of difference on how much it cut.

 

[NonTypicalCPA]

I've got a Landpride grader plane and a 1/2 mile gravel private drive. It definitely will not maintain a proper crown, actually will remove it over time. I loved mine at first, but as time goes on not so much. It works great if you have a lot of material to work with, but if you're short on gravel, or the road is hard it takes some work and a lot of passes. We're looking to either pave ours or put down recycled asphalt, and I can't wait to sell my plane!