Traction on ice

[WillyC93]

My road is approximately 1/4 mile of gravel and 1/4 mile of blacktop. There is timber on both sides of the road for most of its length and it goes up, down, and around. I plow snow with an L2500DT Kubota and a 7.5' Meyers snowplow mounted to the front frame. I was moving a lot of gravel to the side of the road, so I made a gravel saver out of 2' schedule 80 pipe, which saved the gravel. However, the gravel saver left 1" of snow on the road after each use and is worn half way through after 1 month of use. I removed it after the road was frozen. My problem now is approximately 2.5" of hard packed snow and ice due to traffic and the sun melting the surface during the day and the night time temperatures refreezing it. I picked up 2 yards of 3/4 minus gravel today and spread it with a shovel. At 74 I don't care to do that very often! My question is, has anyone modified a 3-point broadcaster or fabricated something to spread aggregate larger then sand?
Thanks in advance, willyC93

 

[RjCorazza]

I am not aware of a spreader that handles stone, but hopefully someone here has an idea. My only thoughts are "tailgating" the stone with a loader bucket,.... or pave the other half of your driveway and plow it down to pavement. Life's too short.

 

[JerryK]

If you have a woodstove, and burn wood without nails in it, you can spread the ashes across the drive every X feet [ depending on how big your ash supply is ]. The ashes aid a little in traction, and work with the sun to melt bands of snow off the drive some days in the spring. I leave an inch or two of the same hard packed snow you have on my drive and live with it most of the winter to protect my Afton stone driveway. The ashes get dispersed off the drive and add nutrients to your land.... Should not hurt your paved section, either... Here is a picture of mine just freshly cleared off yesterday.... layers of ashes underneath with more to be added about Wednesday after our next snow....

 

[olPete]

When it freezes in NZ, well down where I live anyway, they get out the 'bulky' trucks, which are 4x4 fertilizer spreading trucks normally used on grass, and put on grit with them. So I think a 3pt spreader would handle it, especially an older unit with plenty of real steel! You may not want to have it revving very high as it certainly flies a lot further than fert granules do, they usually slow the spinners right down on the trucks, anyway. Maybe the newer ones would handle it too, but they seem to make stuff with ever less steel and more paint and plastic.
I won't need to tell you not to load it to the top and then see if it works... even half a load of grit will be heavier than the load of fert it'd be designed for.
I'd see what farmers have lying around, that you might get going for very little

 

[lt190b]

Willy,I think you could use a small stone (buckshot) in one of these. They are for rock salt and melting chemicals, I have only used a product called "snowplow" in this one. That product works great in it and on ice. You could try dry sand, but you would need to close off the opening some.

 

[oosik]

Willy - not to worry. I'm over here in Amber - 25mi SW of Spokane - doing the sun dance in my fluorescent orange shorts. It won't be long now and the snow and ice will all be melted - ha,ha. Another "product of '42" here also.

 

[k0ua]

I use the FEL to spread the 3/4 minus gravel. It takes some practice. You only want to start with about 1/2 a bucket and as evenly distributed in the bucket as possible. Then slowly move forward with the bucket lip 2 to 3 feet above the surface, and slowly get the lip of the bucket to the flow point. As soon as some gravel starts to come out, instantly reverse your joystick to curl. In other words, just the instant the gravel starts to fall you need to curl to prevent a "wad" of it from coming all at once.

As soon as you find this "tipping point", you need to operate the joystick between dump and curl with a "Palsy" hand motion. Yes shake your hand as if you have a bad case of palsy. Keep observing the gravel stream as you move slowly forward and adjust your palsy hand motions so the the stream stays steady.

This all sounds more difficult than it really is. It becomes intuitive pretty quick.

 

[Deadman]

If you have R4 tires, thats half of your problem. They simply suck terribly in run down snow and ice. I mean like the worst tire ever. Mine gets stuck in 4x4 on my ice driveway just trying to move itself sometimes! lol

 

[450]

Willy,

If nothing else you should be able to make one out of a old pickup rear end. Flip the rear end so the yoke is pointing up, make a spreader plate to attach where yoke is mounted, build a hopper and then add tow bar to pull. As the tires turn while pulling it will spin the spreader plate in return spreading gravel.

I haven't built one yet but I have put some thought into it. I think it would work.

 

[aczlan]

Willy,

If nothing else you should be able to make one out of a old pickup rear end. Flip the rear end so the yoke is pointing up, make a spreader plate to attach where yoke is mounted, build a hopper and then add tow bar to pull. As the tires turn while pulling it will spin the spreader plate in return spreading gravel.

I haven't built one yet but I have put some thought into it. I think it would work.

That's how they used to make rotary mowers, only they would have the pinion pointing down and mount the blade carrier/stumpjumper on that.

Aaron Z

 

[450]

aczlan,

I did not know that, learned something new today after all. Thanks

 

[PILOON]

Willy,

If nothing else you should be able to make one out of a old pickup rear end. Flip the rear end so the yoke is pointing up, make a spreader plate to attach where yoke is mounted, build a hopper and then add tow bar to pull. As the tires turn while pulling it will spin the spreader plate in return spreading gravel.
I haven't built one yet but I have put some thought into it. I think it would work.

Have seen a commercial version that used a Jeep differential driven by small wheels (12")
Worked quite well!

From my experience using a seed broadcaster for sand you'd want the differential locked otherwise the one wheel slides and no spinning.
But locked on a snowy icy road is forgiving on the tires. Otherwise maybe tires should be studded.

 

[jb1390]

My road is approximately 1/4 mile of gravel and 1/4 mile of blacktop. There is timber on both sides of the road for most of its length and it goes up, down, and around. I plow snow with an L2500DT Kubota and a 7.5' Meyers snowplow mounted to the front frame. I was moving a lot of gravel to the side of the road, so I made a gravel saver out of 2' schedule 80 pipe, which saved the gravel. However, the gravel saver left 1" of snow on the road after each use and is worn half way through after 1 month of use. I removed it after the road was frozen. My problem now is approximately 2.5" of hard packed snow and ice due to traffic and the sun melting the surface during the day and the night time temperatures refreezing it. I picked up 2 yards of 3/4 minus gravel today and spread it with a shovel. At 74 I don't care to do that very often! My question is, has anyone modified a 3-point broadcaster or fabricated something to spread aggregate larger then sand?
Thanks in advance, willyC93

Do you have chains on the tractor? Often times I find that just roughing the ice up with chains increases traction pretty drastically. The ice is only slippery when it's smooth.

I'm a little surprised that your gravel saver is leaving snow that deep. For wear - get some strips of hardox plate and weld them on. If you have them sliced into 1" pieces, you can wrap the cylinder pretty well for the bottom 1/3 or so, which is the part of the pipe that touches.

 

[RNeumann]

First I want to commend you for spreading two yards by hand on ice at age 74!!! BRAVO!!

Two solutions and one problem come to mind. Any broadcaster will have to be hand loaded since it's on your 3 PT unless you have another tractor to load it. Not for me!
I got a load of material last fall and have used the BB with hydraulic top link to lay down the material. The box holds more than a bucket so it works well. I also use the BB rippers on my gravel drive when everything is frozen- it has produced good results by creating groves for traction and or removing ice.
The other option is a 4 in 1 bucket or similar so all you are going is scooping and opening the clam shell a bit to meter material as you drive. They make dedicated bucket type devises for spreading but they were more expensive from what I recall.

Edit- great to hear from another TBNer from N Idaho! Check out Idaho Implement if you end up purchasing a different type of spreader. They are just north of you in Sagle.
If you find the magic cure let us know. It's been tough at my place as well.

 

[Deadman]

You could probably hire a local contractor to sand it for fairly cheap. Then you don;t have to built a spreader, buy a spreader, store a spreader, store materials to spread, attach the spreader, and then spread it all. They could come in and be done in 5 minutes and you might not need them again for years….

Depends how much you enjoy working…..

 

[joeyd]

Willey- Welcome to Idaho winter/spring road conditions, are you asking about traction for the tractor or your personal vehicles? With or without gravel savers plows/blowers are going to leave a base that turns to ice when it gets rained on or starts to melt with warmer temps. Chains are your best friend when this happens for both your tractor and vehicles. The newer chains for your truck/car are fairly easy to put on and after a few trips on the ice it chews the surface up and makes it easier melt. For a good price on chains try Bluejay Industrial in Hayden.

 

[RNeumann]

I've thought a lot about this today and I'm wondering if you have feet on your plow? You shouldn't lose the gravel in our climate with feet. The other thought is in regards to the asphalt section. The advantage of the asphalt is you can scrape without worry of removing material. I'd take that gravel saver off and cut to the asphalt.
Both of these are basically options for next year at this point. With rain tonight and then some cooler temps it will be hard to make much progress unless you hit it hard while it's raining.

What do you have on the 3 PT?

Good luck!

 

[Deadman]

I can't even imagine how much snow would pack down with these gravel saver devices…...

 

[Oldoak]

I believe spreading aggregate of any size other than sand will quickly wear out the spinner plate in less than one season. It will wear just like your 2" pipe had worn. Stone against steel, doesn't matter if it is the steel that is moving or it is the stone that is moving.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I cleared my parking lot with a blade the other day, and when done, the glazed surface was more slippery than any ice I can remember! I have a couple of truck loads of lime stone screenings which I spread mostly by hand up to christmas, but it is frozen solid now, and I won't use salt anywhere near my equipment.

I used to use a disk to scratch up icy roads and parking lot to good effect. Especially, if it ocasionally can stir up some gravel. Our municipal graders put teeth on the grader mouldboards in the winter to achieve the same effect.