steel grating for smoothing dirt

[capt_met]

has anyone tried dragging a sheet of steel grating behind a tractor for finish grading? i was thinking it would work similar to a harrow rake and be good to bust up clods of dirt. if it wasn't heavy enough it would be easy to attach a couple weights to it. any input on this would be appreciated.
take care,
metin

 

[theonlybull]

i've used a 4' x 4' peice of grating behind my 3 wheeler, worked great, leveled things off, and rolled the rocks out on top....

i've heard of old box springs being used too

 

[George2615]

I did some light grading by dragging a piece of chain link fence with a couple cinder blocks on the fence behind my 4 wheeler. It did so - so But that was before I bought my 3 pt. rake and back blade.

 

[EdKing]

I use a section of chainlink fence wrapped around 2 6 ft 6x6's. I have a short chain attached so I can lift it off the ground using a boompole on my 3ph. Works great for the final smoothing of any dirt project.

 

[LBrown59]

I used a spike harrow 35 years ago

Really broke up the soil almost as fine as sand.

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[RobJ]

A wood skid or 2 with some weight will work to.

 

[Farwell]

Almost anything that has a surface area that has some rough stuff fastened to it should do okay at smoothing/leveling a surface. My favorite is what Eddie Walker uses. "A log wrapped with commercial chain link fencing" I use old fashioned bed springs, angle iron, and weighted plywood sheets with angle iron bolted to the tail end, or anything I find that is handy and can be pulled by my tractor.
Farwell

 

[EddieWalker]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( My favorite is what Eddie Walker uses. "A log wrapped with commercial chain link fencing" )</font>

Thanks Farwell,

Here's a picture of my log and fence drag. I cut a section of an Oak tree I took out to 8 feet. It's around 18 inches thick. The fence was from a neighbor when I lived in town. He took it down and was going to through it away.

I did buy the chain, so that's my total investment.

It works really good as smoothing out the rough edges in a field and blending it all together.

It doesn't work very well at filling holes or taking down high spots.

I really like to use it on a field before I plant seed in it. After I get all my stump holes filled and take out the high points to where I like it, than I just drag this around for awhile until it looks nice and pretty. I also like to drag it along my dirt roads to smooth them out a little.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

My neighbor had this built to deal his land. When the pines were planted, the land was cut into these valleys and ridges about a foot tall. If you drive with them, they are nice and smooth, but driving over them is a nightmare.

He used C Channel and drags it behind his tractor. First few passes were very hard because of the constant bouncing, but it quickly smoothed things out.

After I took this picture, he said he added some more steal to it to make it more aggressive and now it works even better.

The advantage to this over the log and fence method is this thing cuts high spots and fills slow spots really well.

After seeing this, I hooked a chain onto my pallet forks and draged them around on their sides. They are almost too heavey for my 35 hp tractor, but do a better job of cutting down the high spots than the log does.

Eddie

 

[PILOON]

We used this type of 'grader'to maintain out gravel/dirt roads pulling iy with an old willis jeep.

To grade we mounted the middle cross pieces at about 25 deg angle to the long pullers with one angled to the right and the other angled to the left.

The angled crosses were also about 12" shorter so that the material would travel from left to right followed by right to left.
The end spillover would be caught by the rear for a final finish.

Generally we'd make only one pass and all the highs would be chopped and all lows filled.

Also to ease the strain on the pulling vehicle we'd loop the chain through an old tire with a second chain to the vehicle.

The tire made for a great 'shock absorber'.

Also we mounted a box for added weight, usually some rocks.

We used that rig for 10 years until the city took over our road but it worked so well that they continued using if for 4 more years.