I’m mainly an excavator op, or so I tell my self. I want to take that mentality out of my head because I think that’s holding me back to be a proficient dozer op. I’m really struggling to keep a nice smooth grade any tips that can help me keep my blade level I know common tips like take it slow and not to adjust my blade as much but to also look at the horizon and not just my both ends of the blade I find dozers for difficult to master than motirgraders btw I’m using a D3K any tips we’ll be help full to me.
Experience is you friend, I am still learning how to be good with my 700J after 5-6 years. some times it helps to angle the blade slightly so it can't bite in. If you get washboards change you direction a little so you are not on top of the same bumps. Its easier to keep it level from the beginning than trying to fix a disaster later. old timer once told me, if your butt goes up lift the blade up, butt goes down blade goes down. just keep on trying to learn it will come to you.
Grading with a dozer is all about seat of the pants feel which can take hundreds of hours to become proficient. Angling the blade is a great tip, it will help to minimize the humps you make.
I have cat d5h and I just angle the blade and it make a world of difference
All D3s are a pain. They are short and the blade controls too fast. The isn't much horsepower. I liked the small Deere and Dresser dozers far better in all applications. Go into the monitor and slow the blade response down to the slowest setting. If you are fine grading, run about half throttle was well.
When fine grading I have found that it helps to start each pass with a little loose dirt in front of the blade.
I agree with bam1968, A load of dirt on the blade helps a lot.
D3's with hydro-static drive are an sob for finish grading. I ran finish dozers for twenty years before I had to run a D3. Sorriest finish dozer I ever ran. I never thought I would be running a dozer at reduced throttle because the blade is so damned erratic to control. I hope you have a an LGP model. If you would have had a chance to run a Deere or Case you never would have gotten near the D3. OK, rant over.