I feel a bit guilty starting this thread while my Canadian friends are still moving snow. I like to blade my gravel roads when they are frozen so I can move the loose gravel back onto the traffic area without bringing dirt. I especially like to do it when it's just below freezing at night and 40Fs daytime. The melting each day helps stick the gravel down. The last two mornings I've got out of bed around 0500 hrs and grade until noon. I've got 1/3 of my roads done. Should finish by the end of the week. It's working real well. My roads are in good shape with no ruts or potholes. Pretty easy running. This morning I got some dawn pics.
Need to teach that to about 90% of the rest of the County Graders in MO that!!!!
My grader is buried in the snow. Won't see any action till May or June. Is your dozer blade power angle? I have always wanted one. Be nice for knocking the tops off the piles while spreading.
No it's a fixed position blade. Was bought as a dozer blade for AG tractor. Had mechanical angle. I removed that part because it made it too far forward. I almost never use it with snow. Carry it because it doesn't get in the way and if I need it, it's there. We've actually got a 12ft hydraulic angle front blade that fits the toolbar. I haven't used it for 20 years. The roads have to be frozen solid before it can be used without the shoes plowing furrows in the soft roadbeds. We just aren't far enough North for it to be productive. Needs to be sold.
Depending on how cold we get tonight, I may get done tomorrow. I started at 0400 this morning but we had clear skies. Had to quit at 0930. I'll got again early tomorrow morning and hope for more clouds to extend the thaw. Tomorrow night our temps will plunge to 9F. Cool thru the weekend. Then back in the high 40s for daytime temps. Late next week the Weather "doomsday" predictors are saying rain for a day, then 3-5" of snow. We'll see.....
I am SO not ready for another 3-6" of the White Stuff. Know we still have rest of February and march before the potential diminishes, but the mud currently dealing with is just nasty.
Yep, you guys have had it rough. I on the other hand have had it easy. We are now predicted to get rain and 1-3" of snow next Thursday. If our trends continues, it will diminish to an 1" or less of snow on 1/4" or less of rain. It's 40F here this morning at 0700. Supposed to be 9F tomorrow morning at this time. That's been our story all Winter.
Our Winter has been so easy. My roads are in good shape. I'll put on my yearly gravel allotment in the next couple weeks. I had a few miles of roads to run so spent most of the day in the Grader yesterday. I cleaned a couple ditches where there wasn't any frost. Had two more to do but they were sod covered and it's still too frozen under that cover. These pics will show you how dry we are..... I'm worried about a possible drought. It's been Northwest of us, up in the Montana area for a couple years. A guy told me a month or so ago that it's now dry in NW Nebraska. I'm in NW Missouri.
69 here as of now Headed for 70s Got a couple damaged gates fixed and some grade work done to drive where can relate to rock allotment, need to have entire length overlaid, spring project as will need likely 8-10 loads to cover.
Did some more road maintenance Monday and Tuesday. My rock trucks were delayed. Rained .7" last night....... Probably no rock this week...... On a positive note, a Purple Martin Scout showed up last night. I watched him go to roost in one of the hanging gourd nests. I watched him come out this morning.
Still snow here, but the sun is getting stronger, and the days are getting longer, almost 13 hours of official sun up. Got my call for spring safety orientation for next week, and first aid refreshers will be soon as well. Hopefully no more storms, as they will soon be taking the winter tires of the loaders, and I'm kinda spoiled now. The heavy equipment show is on the 13th, and 14th. Wondering if my new grader will be there?
Delivered road rock, 1" minimal fines to a client yesterday, had to spread five loads three of which were Down Hill all with Power Lines cross the roads and Tree Limbs hanging low. Five 20-22 ton loads seven miles from quarry, then a 21 t stockpile dump. Had that done at 10:30. Local LARGE Money 'Ranch', 1100 acres of Wildlife Habitat a Wealthy weekend home and a caretaker, needed rock to spruce up the 'Look of The Place'.
2" rain yesterday, most of it came in a hour so driveway had rivulet damage spots, really need to recover with inch minus about a three inch spread once packed down. Figuring minimum four loads(20t), maybe up to seven but will have to await DRY and allow drive to solid back up.
We got .7" Tuesday night. Got this Wednesday night. My morning view.........
Only grass I'm seein is close to the trees, and what got peeled up last storm. That's a lot of grass to mow. Hope it's not with a push mower.
Oh Yea, snow.
We have a slight chance of rain Sunday eve. If we miss that the trucks will start delivering/spreading gravel Monday morning. Supposed to rain Tuesday night. Maybe they'll get 1/4 done.
Well I did a couple short roads last week that had gravel they turned out not to bad, surprised that they were as dry as they were, but living on the east coast next to the ocean the weather changes so quickly, Heavy snow fall warning for tomorrow and into Tuesday, calling for a foot of snow, that should be nice plowing the back roads now, any roads that don't have alot of gravel will be soup and mud up to my skid plate, the forecast for the rest of the week is giving cooler weather so the snow will stick around a lot longer, the good side of this is were done of winter works, now the department has to pay overtime.
We had a couple of sunny warm days in a row and sandy site was turning into a dust storm, was in city so they wanted water… well it rained instead there are a couple of NO DRIVE sink holes now haha
Spring is coming on fast. on the last couple ice storms, instead of calling the sand truck for the club roads, I picked up a load of 3/4 stone and used the loader to sprinkle it all over the ice and snow, provided good grip and as everything started to melt and get mushy, the 3/4 got stomped into the surface in most places. Having a couple damp days now and again makes reworking the top surface of the road so nice and easy.
My sister lives on Oshawa, and she has been cleaning out her flower beds. I still can't see the grass here. Only close to the trees and along the edge of the driveway.
Second day of getting my gravel on. I'll cruise the roads that are done this evening. I'll get some pics. I want to show you guys our annual allotment of gravel...... We're supposed to get some showers this evening. If they don't amount to much the trucks will be running again by tomorrow afternoon. Only two trucks. Hauling about 12 miles from quarry to center of township. So they'll get 9 rounds per day with no problems. 35T per round. 315T per day. I get 3,100T. So ten days if everything goes well. I'm hoping they get done before any substantial rain. Shoulders are soft enough as it is.
Our blade man called me last week, frost out? Yup. Still a few soft spots, overall an excellent job (as usual). We had just enough rain so the stones got pushed in also. Ed
Went in today for the annual safety meet and greet......Nothing new really same old fire and brimstone. This is the last year for the consultant. Can't wait. She has zero personality an an ass like a pancake in a bag. Our own coordinator is taking full control at the end of this season, and she has some sense, and does not have a life mission to make men's lives as miserable as possible.
Been doing some grading the last 2 days for Superior industries. They are crazy busy, building and shipping something to Texas. I had one of the little Mauldin maintainers there, easier for going around the steel racks. Ground here is still a bit wet for grading, but their forklifts are having it rough. Thought I was done today, but he wants a bit of gravel down. Plowing snow is not like grading cause my neck is really sore from doing the chicken... right side, left side, forward, gauges... repeat. My new ride is supposed to be at the heavy equipment show in Moncton. Was kinda hoping it would arrive at the shop when I'm around, as I never get to take the paint off the blade, there is always someone else that wants to try it out. I'll try and get some pics of some kind. Maybe my daughter will let me borrow her phone. Been checking the Atlantic Heavy Equipment show's facebook page, but no pictures yet.
Definitely figure out a way to get pics of the new ride. I spent 4 days running a dozer thru last weekend. My neck was sore from the rough ride. Cut the top off a ridge to build a flat pad. After the first few hours was running of virgin clay soil. the slightest imperfection made for a rough ride. I really enjoy running dirt equipment of any type. My soul is in a grader. I started a thread in the "dozer" forum here.
I’ve started my spring work here in SE. South Dakota started discing road shoulders reclaiming lost gravel and removing the secondary ditch so water drains off the road nicely
So what do you do with the chewed up material, you just leave it on the shoulder? looks like in the pics that you run over it with your grader, I always grade right to the edge of the road where the ditch meets the shoulder, first round on my roads I have a bit of sod on the shoulder but my stinger blades break it up really well and I just mix it with the gravel, it dries up and blows away, leaves a clean shoulder for water to flow off, we use them discs attachment on a loader for chewing up the gravel/sods on our shoulders on our pave roads, pulls the shoulder on the edge of the pavement, one grader scrapes it off level, another grader finishes the graveled shoulder with proper slope and gets rid off any debris from the Discs, leaves a nice clean shoulder level with the pavement, we do it all as one long train operation effort in the spring on our pave roads, we do about 60kms -35-40 miles a day, 30kms down 30kms back up other side, we are starting next week I will see if I can get some pics of our operation. thanks for sharing some pics
I let the disc material set for a week so it dries out then I start pulling it in with the blade incorporating it all in to my road lot of the grass will blow away in the first couple times I blade and then I have a nice clean shoulder and a road that drains well will post pictures once I start pulling this material in.
I wish I had the "built" roadbeds and excess gravel material to do this kind of maintenance. Never gonna happen on a $1,000 per mile annual budget. Great pics. Post all you can. I'm always eager to see what others deal with!!!
Here are a few pics of our shoulder maintenance and gear we use, the sweeper cleans all the material off the pavement leaving a clean roadway after the retriever and graders finish pulling and smoothing out the shoulders, the roller smoothens and packs the shoulder, not the best pics but gives you a Idea.
DOT here had to become core certified last year. No more pictures like your 2 guys. See them in full PPE now. Hard hats, vests boots and glasses. I guess they got into a few incidents, and it caught up with them. Used to come up on their crews with no signs, flaggers, no PPE. Now they are full signs, and everything
Yeah, we are a moving operation on a low volume secondary road, so no signs just flashing sign boards and warning ahead boards on the trucks, we were on our noon hour lunch break when I took the pics, the sweeper was just finishing up, Its getting pretty crazy with the safety stuff, insurance companies have everybody terrified, that's the way they want it, they make more money that way, buddy in the roller pics was filling out the papers for the hazard assessment for the next road, he was bringing it to me to sign, lol
The consultant at the white hat training today said DOT in the province of NB have had over 2 million in fines, so they are pushing their certification hard.
I'm sooooo rural redneck. I don't own any PPE. My signs are old bent up signs I found at the scrap yard. Built some tripods from used steel fence posts to fasten them to. I've tried cones but the juvies steel them. Worst thing I hate about road closed signs is the shoulder damage everyone does driving around them. No pavement out here.
For years, I have pretty much ran the show on my crew, just because of experience. Now they have finally been able to convince me to do it officially. Doing the safety training I see why some of them can be the way they are. They shove how you are responsible for the people on your crew down your throat. I said to her, I am not a white hat, I'm just part of the crew. Not anymore. It is your responsibility to make sure safety procedures are followed. The guy that runs the shop had a break down when all this stuff started, and I can see why. They have started fining the company, and supers. There is an ongoing proceeding in this province because of a death on the jobsite, and the super is up against a possible 20 year prison term if he is found to be responsible.
You will drive yourself crazy trying to follow and enforce every little detail that they want you to do on a job site, every jobsite is different and everybody involved doing the work are not robots they are human and we make mistakes and **** happens, nobody can for see a incident that turns into something bad happening, you just can do what's called "reasonable within the circumstances", just make sure your paperwork is filled out to the letter, in the end that is all they are concerned about, it seems they couldn't care less what happens on a jobsite just as long as the paperwork is filled out right and the work gets done, this keeps the upper management from getting fined, so they think, you look after number 1.
Getting rain today. My rock haulers are slow as molasses. They've been hauling five weeks and only delivered 1,500 tons. Half done. Based on the forecast they'll probably not haul at all next week.......
Raining here as well. Snowed yesterday and this morning. Didn't amount to anything. Snow is pretty much all gone. A few parking lots where it was piled remain. Streets are a mess of pot holes
We got 1.75" over the past 24hrs. That'll stop my rock haulers until mid week. It's forecasted to rain again Wednesday so next week may be a wash.....
20/80 I see your fellow Nova Scotian is cleaning up on Jeopardy. I never watch it, but the radio station and news talks about her a lot.
We ended up getting an 1.80 and I pulled shoulders on 2 miles that didn’t turn out the best starting to dry now hopefully get out and rework it and get it packed in before the next rain here is picture of road after rain just took blade out windrowed slop off so it was passable.
I've done similar a few times. The only time the weatherman predicts less than what you get is when you do this. My rock haulers are getting closer. Gonna get rained out tonight. Should finish late next week. Our weather is going to turn from cool Spring to hot Summer. Today it's 57F. Sunday will be 78F. Tuesday will be 88F. 80Fs all next week with no rain. The farmers will be in a hurry by Monday.
Yes, she's doing all right, over half a million now she has made, 22 rounds and counting, she will get knocked off soon I.m afraid though.
Lol, that happens, you will be surprised how quick that will dry up though, won't take much to fix that up, thanks for sharing the pics.
Was on one of my roads today that's 15 miles long into the wilderness, it is a wide road 20 meter that was built for log trucks in the 60's, a few settlements in the back end of the road, very remote, we put new gravel on half the road last fall before winter works, this was my first time grading it, recovered the gravel build up on the shoulder from the plow wings, graded it up and put around a 5% crown in the road, was a very nice day, here's some pics.
Very nice. That's a funky looking slope meter. Looks like degrees on top and % on bottom. I think it works out to because 9% crossfall is 5 degrees. So according to your meter, that's an 8.5% crown. No water on that puppy
Got my road that I pulled the shoulders in on got it to turn out really good hard as asphalt now
Lol, for the life of me I never thought of that, not use to the gauge never had on my H series, I like checking my crown now to see where i'm at for a %, a narrower road would not be at 8.5%, alot of our new graders have these gauges, lol, thanks
That turned out really nice, great job
This is the slope meter I have in my machines I run 4 to 5% crown on my roads had great success with that I figure a half inch of crown for every foot of road you have
I have been putting in a crown now by eye without a gauge for so long that this gauge is showing me where I have been at all these years, I can't watch the gauge all the time when i'm spreading and put a crown in that way, everything is still by eye and checked afterwards now with the gauge, just old school I guess.
I do the same as you also I put my crown in all by feel and the eye I just have the slope meter for a reference point and it’s nice when doing finish work.
Good looking job. Same here used feel and eye asked for slope meter but foreman said not necessary. I was doing finish work before seal coat I would use magnet torpedo level on window frame to give me ideal how close I was (poor man has poor ways). One grader driver would make 3 passes one from each side to middle then last pass blade straight down middle he called it "flat blading" his roads worst in county full or pot holes water wouldn't run off road. Always hated when others would blade my assigned roads and cut my crown out. I miss running grader but not the drivers that would not listen or want to do better job. Our engineer told me to stay at it like an ant I told him I live like a grasshopper.
Great pics and dialogue gentlemen. I love it. I've never used a slope meter, just seat of the pants. My terrain varies so much that I can't slope all of my roads the same. Sometimes I'm the dog, sometimes I'm the fire hydrant in my guessing. I've never had an opportunity to maintain roads with as much material as 20/80s pics. I'd have a large smile on my face the whole time. Cat 140s road turned out awesome. I'm more familiar with that combination of dirt/gravel. On 50% of my roads I need more maintenance right of way. By law I only have 40ft. You can't build much of a road with the drainage ditch, road bank and road bed all within 40ft..... Where land owners give me the space I am using more like 60ft. But then you have land owners that will stand in the middle of the road and measure out 20ft and build a fence.....
I grade using the 3 pass method. But I leave loose material under my blade on the last pass, which leaves a crown. And leaves my gravel in the center. Most of my roads have one set of tracks right down the middle. I am an "ant". Repetition rather than plowing a road a couple times a year. My roads get bladed an average of 10 times a year. Here's an example of a narrow one.
I have lots of roads like that in your picture, we own 33ft from center on each side for our right of way, some roads are more, the gravel in the pics was 20 years of waiting and grading without, I wish all my roads were graveled like this, the gravel you see in the pic is some of the best I worked with, But the next road may be done with gravel that's 1 point off being rejected which would be just garbage, different contractor wins the bid we get gravel from another pit in most cases are trash, here's a pic of a little rock that was in the middle of the one of my roads sticking up from the frost pushing on it, was about 6" high out of the road that I pulled out, I have lots of rocks like this to deal with.
So you generally have a 66ft right of way. That would be a great improvement for me. Us Grader guys always want more!!!!
Yes that's correct, some roads have more of a right a way, I get alot of property owners that extend their lawns right to the edge of the road, some fill in the ditches for their lawns, then they like to phone and bitch when the road in front of their house is flooded with water and mud, they really don't like what I do to fix that, lol, that's why we have a right away in place.
Ahem, *my dad*, ahem. He filled in a ditch and the ends of 2 different culverts between his 2 drives when he paved them, years ago. Now the road and ends of the drives flood with every rain. Being on a short, dead end street doesn't help because you never see the county down there unless they are plowing snow in the winter, or applying chip seal once every ten years. All of the ditches om the south side are due for maintenance and the shoulders have grown up higher than the road. It's gotten bad enough that the water doesn't want to go to the ditch anyways. We have a good county road crew, but there's just a lot of work for them to do on a limited budget so a lot of the lake drives get passed over.
I am often shocked at how little some people know about the effects of gravity. Gravity is why water doesn't run uphill. They just don't get it..... I am very Blessed that almost everyone in my township that lives on my roads have a good understanding and a good working relationship with me. I gladly offer to improve their driveways, farm field entrances, drainage areas. But I always lecture them concerning what I'm about to do. Making sure they understand where this is going. For example, they want to build a new drive that because of drainage requires a culvert. It's sometimes hard for them to understand that if we install a 15" culvert they are going to have at least a 24" deep drainage ditch off both ends of the culvert.
I've heard stories from grader operators over the years about things like this. Most of those stories, here on HEF. I'm sympathetic with the operator who takes the stand of "he filled in the ditches, that's what he wants, that's what he gets". Your Dad probably fits in the category I described above. If the county road crew came in with dump trucks and end loaders and cleaned out all the ditches he would probably be upset. So they'll leave it alone until someone complains. Not picking on your Dad in any way. It's just a common problem.
Funny thing is, I dont think he would be mad today if they did that. 25-30 years ago, he might have been a royal ass about it though. Times change, and 25 years of your driveway partially flooding have a way of helping you see what you did wrong.
we had a guy bitch and phone the office all the time about the road in front of his property flooding, one of our road engineers finally went out to investigate and found he filled in the ditches and built a garage on our right away, the engineer said he would have to move his garage so we could ditch the road properly for it to drain right, haven't heard from him sense, just a friendly wave now when I grade the road in front of his property,
Awesome!!!!! One time a land owner whom I get along with very well flagged me down as I graded past his property. He wanted to meet me down the road where there was a very steep hill. So I graded myself there and got out to visit with him. He owns on both sides. I barely have a ditch on either side and just rely on the crown to keep the runoff to the outer edges of the road. Fairly steep up banks on each side. Down at the bottom the road is elevated above the surrounding pastures. Heavy rains will wash some gravel to the bottom of the hill where I recover it and push it back up where it belongs. He said why don't you cut the ditches out onto my property at the bottom so that gravel doesn't end up in the road at the bottom of the hill? I said are you going to put a gateway on each side where these ditches will dump onto your land? He said no. I said then how am I going to reclaim all that gravel out of your pasture? After a pause of staring at me he said I get it, you know better than I, I just thought if you wanted to ditch onto me you could. I told him how much I appreciated his support and suggestion but that we were probably better off to leave it alone. We visited for another 20 minutes or so and parted ways.
Sometimes you get somebody that just was wanting to make your life a bit easier when grading roads which is nice, but most times grader guy's takes lots of abuse from these so called arm chair foramens, for some reason think they are are grader experts and are signing your paycheck, but has never sat in the seat of a grader in their life, I don't usually stop anymore unless its a buddy of mine, they just ruin your day, working for the the DOT you can't lose it and explode on these guy's, the department frowns on that. lol
Many years ago I was grading and went by a farmstead where an elderly couple lived. When I turned around and came back by for the second pass Dean was standing in the middle of the road. I stopped and got out. He started telling me all the things I was doing wrong and how I should be doing it. Wasn't a yelling match, just stern lecture. I pointed at the grader and said "Dean why don't you get in there and finish this road, I'll sit here in your yard and wait for you. Then I'll know how it should be done". He puffed up and said "Richard I don't know how to run that thing!!!". I said "Well Dean why are you trying to tell me how?" He puffed up again and as he stomped away said over his shoulder "Do it however you want then".
My Rock Hauler called me this morning and said they would be finishing my CART rock today. Had about 100 Tons left to haul. They started on the 18th of March. 3,100 tons total. What an ordeal it's been. The local trucks are in a bidding war. Under cutting each other every year. My haul rate is $1 p/ton cheaper this year than last. Now with fuel prices up they are losing money daily. I fear we will lose a few independent owner/operators after this year. Keep it up and we won't have more than a couple trucks left in the County. Pretty sad. I saw this happen in the 80s too. Can't remember if I mentioned this before. My haul rate is $2.43 p/Ton. A truck/pup combination hauling 27 tons is paid $65.61 p/load. It's 18 miles from the quarry to the center of my township. If they really hustle they can get one load per hour. Don't even need a calculator to know that won't work.
Yes everything is going up except for the rate of pay on our paychecks in our department, Rates for private contractors doing work for us will increase for sure, the department will have to pay it or do it ourselves, we just don't have the gear we had years ago to do big jobs anymore, sold a lot of the gear off for big jobs due to cut backs, they are paying through the nose now, I always use my own truck to get to my grader in the mornings, not any more, it cost me $11.35 a imp gallon in Nova Scotia Canada for diesel in my truck, they have to run me to my grader every morning and pick me up in the evening now, you think your fuel prices at the pump are high, lol
The bid haul rate for my CART rock this year was $2.43 p/Ton. I talked to a local truck about hauling spot rock for me as the Spring progresses. He quoted a haul rate of $6.50 p/Ton.
This is what they put on our graders. It's ok. I hade one on my old Champion, and it was dead on. Even had the surveyor check it. Same one on my Volvo works as a guide, but not near as close. The one on the Mauldin graders are tricky with only 4 wheels, as you only have to have one rear wheel on a hole, or on a high spot to throw it off. We are right back into prep season. I am off for first aid yesterday and today. Going to start grading the peat moss bogs Saturday. One location for the next 3 Saturdays. Dusty and hard packed. Checked out a job they are pricing for a road that hasn't been graded in years. Inside the city limits, but no one can agree who's responsibility it is. It fell under federal at one time, as it went to a light house. The light house is gone, and now it's cottages. I told one guy that came out as I was exploring with a pick to look at the material, just stop paying your property taxes. Whoever comes, is the owner of the road. If I can do it cheap enough, most of the home owners are going to chip in and pay. There are a few, that filled in their ditches, that refuse to pay. Why bother if everyone else is going to do it for you right? I figure I can shape it up in 2 or 3 hours if it doesn't get too dry. Roll the snot out of it, pull the foot high windrow of sod in, pick it up with the loader, load it on the truck. One guy wants the fill on site. Add a bit of material for the really bad areas where I won't be able to gather enough to fix it. I suggested some of our milled asphalt. I think 4 of 5 tandem loads will do it. Give it another quick rub, and a roll and boom. No way of crowning it, but like most older roads, one shoulder is higher than the other, so there's that.
We had those meters on a few of our Champions, not a big fan of the milled asphalt, we call it Rac, I find depending on the mix it will go wash boardie on you, also it wants to go back to the pave state and hardens up into big chunks of pavement again, real pain if you ever have to grade the road again, we use to use alot of Rac on roads, the department thought it was the greatest stuff only because they thought they were saving money, can't count how many roads had to be tore up and the big chunks of asphalt that hardened up hauled away, they now mix 50/50 with gravel to use it up.
The bad stuff is when they only take a few inches off the top. Depending on the mix. Full depth mill has a lot of material mixed in. The stuff we have has been in the yard for years, and works well for this kind of thing. It packs, but is easily graded. No one wants to pay 30 bucks a tonne for it, so it's great for jobs like this. The road has holes in the center in a few spots that would eat up a full load no problem.
Was off for First aid Thursday and Friday. Had asked if they could put the grader on the float at the end of the day Friday, or at the very least have a truck hooked up to a float. Got to the shop yesterday morning at 5:30, and all the trucks hooked to their dump trailers, and the truck I mostly take for weekend work was hooked up to the crusher. Spring weight restrictions lift tonight so I guess they want to start moving the heavier stuff to the Quarry Monday morning. So I got on the road a bit late. Started grading. The material is a hard packed sand stone, and is dusty as all get out. The kind of material that rounds your cutting edge up a good inch after 12 hours of grading. Been really hot out the last 5 days. About an hour into grading, I hit the AC.... nothing. After another hour, I had to open the doors..... By the time I loaded up, and chained up, I was a dirty gritty mess. Glad I picked the dirty truck. Got back to the shop, split the float. I was dirty and tired, and something I never do when I uncouple the float, is lay the air and power cord on the deck. I always put them down in the hole in the deck. My phone rang, and I dropped them. Unhooked, walked back to the grader on my phone, climbed in the grader, and backed over the lines. Crushed the male end of the power cord, and broke the red glad hand. Lucky for me, there was a spare glad hand in the truck so I could move the float from the middle of the yard. I parked in the lineup, put the truck back on the trailer I had found it on, and by the time I got back home, it was 9:45. I have a spare power plug in my father's old tool box. I'll run up this morning and replace the one I broke in case they want the float early. One Saturday down, and one peat moss site graded. Lets hope next Saturday goes better.
Here our a few pictures of me pulling shoulders on a mile working up nicely now
I take it have Pressure DOWN on rubber roller frame. Readable?? Or by 'Feel'?
I am able to have down pressure on the packer and it’s all by feel it’s pretty easy to tell when you take to much weight off your drives love having packer really speeds up the process
Will that stuff hold up in the rain? Almost looks like topsoil. Probably dusty and harder than the hubs of hell when dry though. That stuff I beat over yesterday is that tight packed sandstone. The cuttin edge hisses while you go, and all you get are rocks and powder. I work all day to do what I consider a ****** job, but they think it's great. Every now and then you meet one of these babies taking the whole road
Looks really good
It’s a mixture of topsoil some clay and gravel it will go to crap when it rains but after it drys and I can rework it it sets up like concrete I plan on putting new gravel on it anyway so not concerned out dirt it’s getting covered up anyway.
Running with a packer makes all the difference in the world On our All American like yours we can run on float normally can add pressure as necessary On the walk and roll and handy hitch packers I set up an adjustable relief and accumulator runs about 400 psi in the ripper cylinder works well normally
Thought you may have been towing a roller, looks really good, a roller makes a big difference with the layout of your road and how well it holds up, there was talk of us getting a roller for our machines, 20 grand for one, you must have lots of room to turn around, does the rollers lift up when your traveling any distance? thanks for sharing the pics
My roller pins right on to my ripper pins on in the big ripper shanks so very portable I just pick it up when I want does make machine a little longer but nice being able to pick up and turn around pretty much anywhere and yes I’ve seen a huge difference on using the roller and not using it
With a project like that how much gravel do you add? Is this an every year rebuild or how often? Do you decide which roads get this rebuild by their condition?
Anyone ever used a pull grader like this before for road maintenance? https://metalcraftscrapers.com/equipment/#grader Seems pretty slick!
When I do a project like this we put down 3 inches of 3/4 surfacing gravel that around 2100 ton a mile and we pick 4 miles a year to pull shoulders on and put new gravel on ideally once we have shoulders puled in and new gravel on we won’t have to redo that road for 6 years so we just work our way through the township with 4 miles a year.
That’s definitely not for gravel road maintenance would flatten your roads out and from what I see no way to put crown in the road that would be useless for me I’d say that designed for a haul road on a big earth moving project I even have my doubts it would work there.
That would definitely make a good road!!! Using our normal maintenance application it would take me 32 years to put on 2100 ton per mile. If you are doing this every 6 years you are applying 350 ton per year. It would take me 5 years to put on 350 ton per mile. I'm always amazed at the amount of gravel used in some areas. I'm also amazed at what the budget must be. My Annual budget is $1,145 per mile to cover everything. In addition I'm given 65 ton of gravel per mile by the State and County. I can only "dream" of having your budget.
It's like a snowmobile drag. The peatmoss plants here use them, but still have to hire me with the grader once or twice a year to recrown the road.
I’m pretty spoiled we have a budget of 450,000 to work with but we also have a lot of people living in the township and with that comes lots of traffic I average 300 to 400 vehicles a day so that’s why we put the gravel on we do and the maintenance plan we have.
Yep, huge difference. My heaviest traveled road might get 100 a day. My average road is closer to 25 a day. Another huge difference is weather and soil type. I even have a large variance in soil type within my township. I really enjoy the pics and stories you guys are posting on this thread. Really shows the differences we all have.
It claims it can tilt to crown, and I'm sure you could maintain a crown on a gravel road if you have the time to do it exactly when needed. It's not going to cut like a grader or have the flexibility. I see six way pulled grader blades here and there, mostly for third world conditions, or townships with a few paved roads and mostly native dirt roads. It's just going to take too many passes with a pull type like that on hard packed gravel roads.
They use them at the peatmoss plants. I was at one today and crowned up the road. Now for the rest of the summer, they will use the drag. By the time I go back in the fall or next spring, they will need to be crowned up again.
I'm not saying they are not useful, it probably depends on your skill, and what you plan to do with it. I've seen guys that can do a lot with a box blade on a tractor.
Peat bog number two in the books, and another rounded cuttin edge to be cut. That road was 9 miles long and about 30 feet wide. Woven geotec under the whole thing. That's a lot of money. They just started harvesting the peat this week, and have put almost 2 million into developing the site. Must be good money in it. Would loved to have had 140's tow behind roller. All this rain probably washed my fines away. That's two down, and one more next Saturday.
How do they harvest peat? Like sod?
similar strategy to this if it's that sort of peat, milled peat. Peat MOSS is harvested also, more like making hay.
They use to have and may still have a peat moss plant in Foxy River on PEI, My buddy was a supervisor there, said most of there product went to Florida, they would lose a tractor ever second year or so to the bog, when he took me on a tour of the plant and grounds it was in Feb, everything was froze, lol, he pointed out the antenna's just barely sticking out of the ground where the lost a tractor, no way to recover them without risking losing the recovery vehicle, not sure if it still happens, that was 30 years ago. great vid
I carry a Box Blade on the rear of my loader tractor most times. I have a hydraulic top link and a hydraulic side link. With some patience you can easily create a crown in a roadbed with it. Remember I said patience.
Speaking of cutting. For 32 years I have always swapped my cutting edges to maintain a relatively straight cutting edge. Earlier this Spring I decided to try the "cut" process. My edges were rounded 3/8". I clamped a straight edge on the edges and used it for a torch guide. My edges are 5/8" thick. I am 100% certain I could have rotated them faster. I'll not do that again unless I run a set too long and round them badly. Way too much hassle and mess compared to rotating.
It probably depends on how comfortable you are with a cutting torch, especially if you only use one occasionally. I can cut a straighter line with a torch than I can draw a straight line but I've had to do a lot of torch cutting. Accurate cutting beats grinding any day.
I'm very comfortable with a torch. I have a Victor model H315FC with a sharp tip. The straightness of the cut wasn't an issue. The mess and time it took was. I'll continue to swap my edges when needed and minimize the need to cut them.
Berger peat moss has some videos on harvesting. They vacuum it up. The machine in this video has the harrow attached, but most companies here have the harrow on another tractor. They ditch sections to drain the bog, then they crown up between the ditches. That harrow puts the moss in little windrows, and when it dries, they vacuum it up. Must be a lot of money in it as they seem to spend lots. There is no hooking and unhooking attachments, every attachment has it's own tractor. They even have water tanks on tractors in different areas in case of fire. Peatmoss i flammable, I did not know that. The company that hires our grader, Berger, just bought 35 new tractors for vacuuming. They hired our 470 Hitachi last year to dig and pile sandstone for their roads. They paid rent on it for 6 weeks at 2 sites
We cut them. They say they will break when you cut them, but I have never broken them. I do find they wear out faster when you cut them. One thing I have taken away from doing work for these guys every year, is that if I am going to buy a four wheel atv, it will be a Honda. They use them for getting around, and they are light enough to drive on the bog. They tell me that have tried every brand, and the Honda's are the only one that last. One guy has one that is 5 years old, and has almost 80,000kms on it. He said they bought a side by side one year, and it was toast in one season. It's so dusty, they look like Mad Max with their goggles, and bandanas over their faces
We like to run carbide blades in the summer they stay strait all season. I believe finish guys do like to have the sharp edge of steel? They do the peat vacuums around here its quite an operation it used to be a drag line piling job boss talks about falling into burnouts underground caverns from past peat fires when they would have dozer and hoe out there ditching in the winter
I misspoke earlier, all of this fine stuff is called peat moss. The fresher longer stuff that's raked and harvested more like hay is SPAGNUM moss.
I haven’t used a traditional set of steel edges in 10 years I run carbide edges year round normally rotate them end for end and I have been getting 2 to 3 years on a set absolutely love them then I keep a good set for blading and a chipped set for the winter here is a picture of new compared to old edge.
I like those a lot!!!! I use the standard 5/8" x 8" cutting edge. I've also got a set of SanVic carbide rotating teeth edges. I use them once or twice a year depending on weather.
I use the carbide SanVic( stingers) year round, I beef up the ends an between the teeth with hard surface weld before installing the blades, get 3-4 years out of a set changing the stingers as I need to, not everybody can use them.
I don't have enough gravel base to use them year round. My base is so thin it's easy to cut clear thru to dirt. So I only use them in late Summer if my roads get "track grooves". The SanVic cutters reclaim the rock and reshape the road very well in dry conditions.
It started a light rain mid morning. Supposed to rain all day today, all night tonight and most of tomorrow. Expected total of 2-3". Sure glad I got my gravel on.
I have alot of roads with very little gravel base to next to none but the stingers are good at finding old gravel, there is a nack to using them though, if your used to straight blades you would probably find stingers very frustrating, pulling lots of rocks out of your road bed putting them in your windrow, this is a common complaint with first time and unexperienced users of them on low gravel based roads.
The reason we pull the carbide cutting edges in the winter is we have blacktop road and parking lot to cut ice and snow pack off the carbides are just to rough on it. Actually to bad we cant use them for that its not uncommon to smoke a steel blade in 12 hrs when your standing on it on blacktop and frozen gravel all day I have seen the double carbides run 1200-2000 hrs once they become chipped out and wore beyond use I snap a line and torch them strait and run the steel part down The old way to straiten steel blades was to reshape them on the blacktop doesn't take long to grind them strait in road gear a few grass fires might have been stated that way of course you loose material compared to rotating
Over the years I've used my SanVic cutters 4 or 5 times on ice. They work great for cutting the ice loose and windrowing the excess at the roadside. This is only done when we have a serious ice storm with an inch or more of ice on the roads.
Most all roads I have are just mud roads with gravel shaken on top of them, I even hook the odd old stump that was used in building the road back in the day, up in Labrador in far eastern Canada has what I would call gravel roads, all made out of rock from top to bottom, about a foot and a half of class A sitting on top of all rock sub and lower base, 30 meter plus wide.
View attachment 260118 Dats why dey call er da "Rock" by
LOL, Yep
Running back over my roads now, prepping them for dust control, have the dozer blade on now been doing some ditching where its not to wet, had to get a little tug
It looks like you're in there pretty good.
Was a easy pull, lifted my front end up out of the hole, backhoe pulled the frontend around, literally drove out. wasn't my first day at the rodeo, lol, have been in a lot worst situations, doesn't happen to often but it does happen to the best of us when you do a lot of ditching.
did some grading on Saturday for Arbec Forest products. Today was their opening day for receiving wood. When I see how much wood they go through, I am amazed there are any trees left. They take everything, hard wood or soft. Some of it looks like broom handles. New Mauldin arrived today. I stopped at the shop to take a quick peek. They have a few things to do in order to get it ready, and Sancton equipment is sending a tech to give it a once over. Took me 15 min to figure out how to raise the ripper. Double click joy stick control B to activate loader control, toggle front toggle switch all the way right or left, then use inside toggle to raise or lower ripper....***. Once we get it out on the job, I'll get my truck driver to take some pictures and send them to me to post. Here is a stock photo.
Controls sound like they could be a nightmare if they act up.
It probably looks worse in the pic. than it actually was. Sometimes you get stuck just trying to do the simplest things. Not that you really did anything wrong, 6 inches over too far and you get sucked into the mud. Have had this happen a few times with the skid steer and once with a loaded dump truck. The dump was only bad because the next door neighbor wanted 150litres of diesel for pulling me out with his excavator. $175 seemed just a little high for helping your neighbor out. I won't be asking him for help in the future. I would have tried to pull it out with my track loader but it was about 3/4 of a mile away in my other neighbors back field.
It happens, the key is not to make your situation worst then it already is, most will know you will need a little pull right off, your shop can send their own gear like in my case the backhoe for a little tug , but some will dig and spin and chew there way into needing a wrecker which costs money, pride sometimes gets in the way. lol
Oooppss.. I've only been stuck once. Was cleaning out a ditch and when I broke thru the top crust it became a swamp. Remembered after the fact that when I was a kid you could hide a car in that ditch..... Graders don't like their nose downhill....
Yesterday I started over all of my roads with a maintenance grade. Most of my gravel has been on over a month. We've not had any damaging rains. But we've gotten small rains a couple times a week for two months now. Farmers still aren't done planting. I'm getting quite a few chug holes. Also vegetation growth on the shoulders in in high gear.... I ran 7 miles of roads yesterday. Brought the grader home with me last night. Intended to run roads near my farm today. Rained 1.5" last night. So while I'm here I'll give the grader a bath. It's the dirtiest it's been since we bought it. Been cleaning out ditches as I go when possible....
Don't take long to get dirt on them messing in the ditches, was just prepping that road for new gravel, didn't have the dozer blade on so got down in the ditch a bit to far, front wheel went down over a little bank, and there I was, lol, came back the next day with the dozer blade on finished the ditching, ditches are still a bit soft here yet, do alot of ditching in August much drier then for that, just finished my second round and all my roads now are sprayed for dust control, that's 120 roads sense the last week of April.
More grading at Arbec with My Volvo in the morning. Put 3 days on the new Mauldin. Great power over the older model, but man I am hating the electronic joystick control compared to my old directly on the valve controls.
Pics of the new ride. A video to, not sure if it loaded
I’m all done with my spring work have the roads I pulled shoulders on all ready for gravel in a couple of weeks here here are a few pictures of last road I worked up also trying some new cutting edges out trying the cat style triangle bits I like them so far to nice job mixing material
I also had a rain day recently so took the time to wash and wax the Deere machine I operate still looks brand new
Nice job, those are top of the line stinger bits compared to what they get me, are they carbide tips? mine are suppose to rotate when grading but they never do, those bits would be great for iceblading to, just noticed you have a extender insert in your blade, did your 140 come with a 12ft blade?
Do your cats have the joystick controls? If so, do they have feed back? My Volvo has the rack controls, as well as all the other versions of the grader I posted. This new little Mauldin is single joystick, and I don't mind the buttons and toggles, but there is no feeling in the joystick, and I find it hard to judge when the movement will start. It was a joy to get into my Volvo this morning and feel the little feeling of the valve opening in my hand.
Video wouldn't post. They were on my facebook
Yes they are carbide bits they do a really nice job very happy with them and I run a 16ft moldboard on all my machines use a 2ft left hand extension and as far as the machine yes I have joystick controls and there’s some feed back takes some getting used to that’s for suer.
Nice, a extra 2ft would make a difference for sure, there is some feedback but very little compared to the racks on the H series, you can feel the hydraulics coming on in the levers in the H series, not so much in the M with joysticks, its electric over Hydraulic
I agree definitely can feel way better with rack controls the joystick controls I still operate a rack control machine have a 2019 cat 140 nice machine and in my opinion for doing road maintenance 16ft moldboard is only way to maintain roads easily I have 22 To 24 ft roads and I can easily 2 pass them.
My neighboring Township to the North uses 16ft moldboard. I use 14ft. My roads need a lot of dozing and upgrading before I could use 16ft. Our terrain changes a lot here also. The Township to the North is much flatter and open. We are still getting at least one rain per week. Several acres of fields not planted yet. Supposed to get rain again mid week. Not much benefit in planting anything past the first of July. Really sucks for the farmer that's paying cash rent for land and not getting it planted. I wax my machine once per year.
Started putting down new gravel last couple of days on the roads I pulled shoulders on this spring I put down 3inches of gravel when we do a mile thats 1900 ton a mile a belly dump goes 69 feet and about 84 loads a mile here’s a few pictures I took.
How do you like the packer?
I absolutely love it definitely makes laying down gravel go much faster and nice to be able to compact in lifts only thing I dislike is it’s not and independent axle packer like the walk n rolls and handy hitch packers but having this is better than nothing at all
what kind of gravel is that? Crushed, or screened? Looks like it would be muddy. We used a sandy river rock for years, and still crush it for some jobs, but mostly quarry now. The quarry makes better agg for asphalt, and the 1 inch minus is a byproduct, so it is cheaper than the river rock. Packs harder than concrete, but really hard to do anything with after the traffic hits it.
This is 3/4 crushed gravel has a good amount of clay in it think the plasticity rating is around 8 so it’s some sticky material I love it you get it laid out right and get a couple of rains on it and it sets up like concrete only con is you pretty much have to have moisture in order to work with this material.
You're flirting with disaster with a missing cutting edge bolt.
As far as I’m aware I’m not missing any bolts?
In the pic. with the stinger edges, a bolt is missing right by the 2ft. extension.
I see what your talking about there’s not a bolt that goes in there just a hole i the cutting edge
Because of the versatility of the aftermarket blades it's common for there to be a hole in the edge because there's not a matching hole in the moldboard. Move the edge to a different location and that hole might be used. Mine are the same way.
Finished pulverizing a stretch of road last week. Going to start graveling on Monday. Not sure how many trucks, but it's a 4 hour round trip from our quarry, so hope they found lots to haul. Not a lot of belly dumps around, and lots of overhead wires on the job, so I can imagine it's gonna be a mess. 4.3 meters between the stakes, so not a lot of room for bad dumps.
What's the chances of that going well.....
It was not too crazy. A few belly dumps, and a lot of those belt unloaders. They managed to get 29 trucks. By the time number 29 dumped, you had about an hour before the first truck in the round returned. They got 3 rounds each a day, and were happy with it. Wonder what the rate was? Took 2 days to get the tonnage down, and they stock piled for shouldering later on. About 4 days to fine grade, and they started paving this morning. Back down in the morning to float the road ahead of them, and then help mark out center. If the rain holds off, they should get the first lift on, then I won't have to go down there and grade on the weekend. 1 1/4 quarry, flat tires galore, and when you grade out the pot holes they just drive faster, and get more flats.
They got her paved Friday. I'm off Monday, so the new guy is going to shoulder. Good learning spot, it's only base, so won't be too big a deal if he marks it, but I told him to make an effort not to mark it for the times when he has to shoulder for the seal coat. $500 a pop for surface defects.