Rake York rake, blade or box to maintain gravel drive

[robjoereed]

I want to know if a rake, blade or box is best suited for maintaining a gravel driveway. I have a 1000 ft gravel drive and I want to be able to put the gravel pushed out of the drive by a snow plow back into the drive and then level the drive. Which attachement will work the best. I also have a horse pasture - dry lot - that will need to be leveled.

 

[dangerdoc]

I use all three.

The box blade is better for taking out ruts and filling in potholes.

The blade is better for moving material back onto the road.

The rake is better for bringing rock back up to the surface of the road.

If you have to choose, I would start with the regular blade for drive maintanance, then buy the box blade later for the pasture. Then get the rake later, it is better than the blade for touching up the drive when you have it in good shape.

 

[Lloyd_E]

rob,

I maintain my own 790' drive with class A plus another 2000' drive with class A. I have a blade and box blade plus the rake but I only use the box blade. In the last 1.5 years I have spread about 14+ truck loads(12 yards per load) of gravel.

The box blade acts like a plane and you can dump gravel with the loader and go back over the rough load to smooth. As I near completion I set the depth of box blade to desired height and do several final passes.

I use a chain harrow for my horse fields. Many passes...

Hope this helps.

 

[Gordon Gould]

I use a rear blade and a land plane/grader on my very long gravel road. I think the rear blade is the universal road tool, it can do almost any road maintenence job, but many people don't like them. They take some practice. It is all I used for ten years.
For road surface maintenence nothing beats the landplane and it is very easy to use.

 

[zzvyb6]

You said 'for maintaining' so here's my recommendation. I have all three but really only ever use the rake. But there is one stipulation. The rake needs to be wide enough so that at a high angle (45 deg), the path covers about 1/2 of the driveway an you need gauge wheels so the tractor does 'hill' sections of the driveway. At this angle, the rake washes stone away from the edge and towards the center. I use some extra suitcase weights on the rake to make it dig if the ground is hard. After combing both sides, I run the rake down the center at zero angle. Then I have a perfectly flat topped crowned roadway. My rake is 8'.

The trouble with the box blade is that it tends to gouge out a path. Yes it fills holes but the rake does to. You need to angle it for best results. This can add some tilt to it too. That gives you the crown. And you need a 7 - 8' boxblade to do a decent job, imho.

I'll be trimming my drive soon. Pictures of before and after can follow if you are interested.

A straight blade is terrible unless you use gauge wheels.

 

[TDVT]

We have an 800'+ driveway that I have to grade several times a year as it's all on an incline but one section is quite steep. I have all three of the implements you mention though I got the box blade a few years after the other two.

In the end I use the box almost exclusively but when I want to really do it up, I'll use the box first then a few light passes with the rake.

I rarely use my regular blade anymore. I've never used a grader but they look like that would do the whole thing in one shot.

 

[JB4310]

Love the rake and box, hardly ever use the RB for anything other than snow on pavement.

I made such a mess with the rear blade one time, trying to cut a swale, I almost rolled the tractor over on it's side in there.

JB.