Was doing some finish work on the flat track after the grader put an angle on it. I pulled a landplane around 4 times to try and break up the clay lumps as much as possible but some were almost like rock. Then I used a landscape rake and raked most of the larger ones off. What do you do with these lumps when you're doing finish grade and need it smooth? I can't remove all of them as it would take too much material away. I figure a good watering might help for the remaining small ones and after letting it soak in driving the dump truck around and packing everything. I don't have a packer so am open to other ideas. I'll probably build a roller in the near future.
Give it a static roll to break up the clumps and drag it off again.
Do you have a simple three point blade? face the blade backwards and tilt it way forward, see what that does to the clumps, and whether it sharpens the cutting edge, or wears off your bolts.
The landplane uses 2 grader blades and the material gets turned a lot eventually flowing over the blades. https://www.muttonpower.com/product/1477/frontier-7-land-plane-lp1184
Smooth drum steel roller is what I have used. It is a 5 foot long, heavy wall 10 inch steel pipe full of concrete. I put channel iron brackets on each end and welded 1 inch X 8 inch grade 8 bolts to them for axles. Pillow block bearings hold it to the hitch. It is a beast on clods of dirt and for smoothing my yard. I pull it with a zero turn lawn mower.
Yeah, I know what a landplane does. You need a roller of some sort. Plain three point blades are much more common and cheap, I thought you might have one available. run it backwards at a dragging angle so it crushes, it wouldn't be as good as a roller, but it might work. Clay lumps are so variable, you might just have to try a few things to see what works.
I've got an old rear blade too. I thought the rolling and mixing was more likely to break up the lumps but they are hard to break with a shovel. That's why I think some water or a good rain might soften them some. Maybe back blading with the skid steer would have more of a crushing effect? I'd drive the track loader on them but that's too much driving. I don't want to wear out the undercarriage breaking lumps. LoL I'll try driving the dump truck around a couple laps and see if it does anything. I think the tandems will keep it fairly level compared to the single axle water truck.
I have a lot of clay and water works best if that is feasible. Right after a rain the clay is actually pretty nice to work with. Shape it the way you want it and it dries like concrete where I am, at least until it rains again. You can understand why sculptors (like an artist) use it. It is easy to work when wet and dries very hard. I use the really big clumps to fill in ruts and then drive over it with something heavy like a skid steer or backhoe and it will pretty much fill it completely.
I drove the dump truck around and it compacted and/or broke up a bunch of them. If it doesn't rain, I'll fill up the water truck and soak it really good. Then do a final grade the next day after the water soaks in but is still moist. It needs some compacting anyway.