Just so you folks know where I'm comming from... I accepted a job at a rural township road district as a boom mower operator. I don't see any problems with that this summer. However, their previous grader operator sometimes has doesn't do what needs to be done in a timely manner, if at all. So, the commisioners asked me if I can try to run the grader. One commisioner has never run it al all. The other commisioner is pretty good with equipment, however he is very busy with his dump truck & backhoe service. This is getting to be the busy time of year for him. Unfortunatly, we also need to get the roads taken care of as well before all the spring storms destroy what's left of our roads. I'm sitting on top of a 160H Gallion T500. I have no idea how to use the thing though. I've finally figured out the 8 levers on the column, and can normally grab the right one the first time. I don't know if it's important or not, but here they are. {L blade** {circle rotation** {scarifier** {blade tilt** -wheel- {blade shift** {circle shift** {wheel lean** {R blade** I haven't figured out the purpose of the circle shift. From my ignorance of the machine, it just slides the whole circle over some. Why, I have no idea. When I sat in the cab for the first time, the circle was all the way to the left, which makes it appear center with the huge "body (for lack of correct terms) that the front axel connects to and the various circle mounting is connected to. In this position, the left blade cylindar appears nearmly vertacle while the right one has a slight slant. Forgive me, I can't for the life of my visualize the direction of the slant. Another thing I notice, is that if you stand on the ground broadside to the machine, it appears that the side of the circle that is closest to the cab is higher in the air than the front side of it. I tried reading the manual for the machine, however it assumes you already know what you are doing and what the common components of it are called. My job with it will be to grade roads, cut out huge potholes, and potentialy recut ditches. The roads I'm working on ( again, please excuse my ignorance ) are mostly pasty gray rock that has fairly sharp jagged edges and some smoother more roundish rock of various colors. Below the rock is a very clay rich soil with huge ( in excess of 5lb ) rock typically found in the ground here in the Ozarz Mountain foothills. The commisioners need the roads to be crowned, which I understand to me slightly rounded so the water will runn off to the ditches rather than standing on the road. Here comes my list of questions. Everybody's gotta learn sometime... I just have the unfortunate hadicap of not having a person in the cab with me for a few hours teaching me. How do I cut out potholes that are in the tire path? The previous operator just filled them, then a couple weeks later traffic has knocked the fill back out. They need me to cut them out, them smooth back over. My first attempt at this was a failure. I droped the blade down untill I could tell that the front end would soon start lifting. This did nothing but scrape the hell out of the road and make a hell of a racket. My second attempt was to raise the left side of the blade, drop the right side near the ditch line and get a nice roll of gravel. This did two things... left a nasty looking ridge on the side of the road that looked like the start of a ditch, second, only filled the hole rather than cutting it out, and third took me forever to make the road decent enough for a passenger car to drive over again. Next, after I fix the potholes, I'll need to grade all the roads. It sounds simple enough, but after my horrible day today, I really need some discussion before I start destroying a road miles at a time. Third, and hopefully experience with the previous two will solve this one for me... it sounds like the district will be ordering more gravel. The last straw from the previous operator was he followed the dump truck throwing more gravel into the ditch than on the road. Will handling new material be a lot like grading, or is there special considerations with this. Finally, the blade itself makes me raise me eyebrow. My first order of business was to change them. I noticed that the inside edge of one of them was shoved further back that the inside edge of the other one. Following the bosses instructions, I put the new ones on ( THAT was a learning experience ). They looked nice, and the inside edges were both even. After running it for 7 hours today, I notice the same inside edge is drove back more than the other. Obviously I'm not at the machine right now, but frommy memory, it's drove back a good 1/2 to 3/4 inch. What's going wrong? If someone can point me to an effective operating practices ebook I can download for free, or sit down and write me a nice letter... or whatever needs to be done. The boss does understand that I'm new and there will be some mistakes; but at the same time, taxpayers are paying for it, deadlines need to be met, and if I can't get the hang of it pretty quick they need to find a replacement. Please help in any way you can. I have no clue what the fudge I'm doing.
you certainly have been thrown in the deep end, go to the thread "motor grading techniques and read through the info there, but disregard the bit about back blading, that is a bit advanced at your stage. also click on the link on page 3, good luck
mr james: Thanks for this resource! I was also finally able to find some youtube training videos that almost helped. One question that still lingers, and it may indeed be the biggest source of my problems, is cutting through the hard crust. Sadly, this machine doesn't have the scarifier attachment, nor do we have the carbide blade that have it on them. If I move the control to the point where the hydrolic bypasses, the moldoard looks almost exactly like the ( on my keyboard. I don't know if the term is right or not, but I'll call this 90-deg. If I move the control all the way to the other bypass, the top of the cutting board swing out in front a lot more that I would expect, about to where I'll call it about 30-deg. Somehow I had it in my head that if I wanted to cut our giant potholes, I wanted to run the moldboard at 90. These potholes aren't just little dips in the road to collect water... these monstrosities are every late bit of 3" and deeper with hard edges just waiting to pop some unsuspecting drunk kid's tire. After reading and trying to google the things I didn't quite get, if I understand the thread you sent me, if I wanted to make an aggressive cut that will get me down deep enough, I would want to tile to about 60-deg or so? Along the same question... when I drop my blade down, do I want to see the slight bulge in my front radials go away indicating a ton of weight on my blade, or am I better off having the maching moving forward when I start digging in? I don't plan on trying it, but by my seat, there is a red metal cover. Under it is a switch you step on with your heal. The warning sticker says sadle release. Is that the thing that would allow a ~real~ operator to move the whole circle in such a way the blade is almost standing on it's skinny edge? Ive seen a few pictures of that. Why would a person do that, anyway? Yes, I have indeed been tossed in the deep end. After seeing all the pretty road pics in various posts and diagrams, I think what I'm working with would be more accuratly described as a wide ATV path, that has had seeral seasons of a not helpful guy filling the ditches with rock, plowing the crown of the road away with the snow, and nobody that really knows how to use the grader all that well. It was pathetic, the first couple hours of me in it had a printout of which lever did what taped to the windshild.
How dry are your roads? Sounds like the material has alot of binder or somthing and is dried hard, been lime stabilized, etc?
Sadly, I don't know enough to be able to look at it and know for sure whats in it. From what I believe, that is indeed a sand like size of lime. Right now, the ground is soft enough that a 300lb man very similar to myself can shift my weight to one foot and leave a heal impression. There is standing water in some ditches. I just took a paper towel outside and put it so a bare spot in the yard, the towel got damp. I don't know of a "scale" for knowing how dry or damn a road is, hince the illistrations.
Cut the potholes while taking your pass with the moldboard in an angled position rolling material. If you had a scarifier, I'd say to hit the potholes first. It's important to remember to cut to the bottom of the potholes completely but not any deeper than necessary.
As long as your not seeing dust there should be enough moisture is kind of my rule of thumb. Sounds like some wicked material, not sure what to say. How wide is your blade and does it have an extension? If its say a 12' blade with a 2' bolt on extension making it a 14' blade you could pull the extension off and it should give you a little more cutting power. ( hypothetical based on what your blade is)
Here are couple of 'good reading' sites. http://www.michiganltap.org/sites/ltap/files/workshops/materials/Gravel_Road_Maintenance.pdf And another one written by Ken Skorseth (along with others). I dont know him personally, but he is 'THE GURU' of gravel roads. http://water.epa.gov/polwaste/nps/upload/2003_07_03_NPS_gravelroads_intro.pdf These will get you a good understanding of what needs to be done to get some great results. Hope it helps!
If you can post some pictures of what you are trying to explain, that may help. I struggle trying to explain somethings and if I can show someone it makes it much clearer.(at least in my mind).
I dont know if you have a slopemeter in your blade, but here is a picture of one. This is what I use to maintain the proper crown on the road. On my roads I try to shoot for 5% crown.
I just gave up running our township grader and the new guy has never run one before either. I will help him a little at lest show him how to get started. It sounds to me that your roads must be in very bad shape and will take some time to get them in shape. You will maybe have to correct things a little at a time. You will have to cut out potholes as it is almost impossible to fill them and get it to hold. There is a crust in the bottom of the pothole like on the road surface and the loose material will not bond with it so you have to cut it out and break it up. The circle shift will enable you to shift the blade farther to one side or the other. The saddle shift will do that also but is used mostly for sloping a bank when cutting a ditch. If your ditches are holding water you may be able to use the saddle shift and reach out far enough to cut through the plug and get them to drain. Once they drain and dry out you can get in and cut the ditch properly. One thing that I learned is that there isn't just one correct way to do things. Once you have an idea what you want to accomplish you just have to try different things to achieve it. What works well one time may not work so well the next. There may be a difference in the soil from one part on the township to another and the moisture content will also affect how it will act. If you look on the internet there are a number of sites that will give you a lot of useful information. Enter gravel road maintenance or something like that and you should find a number of good sites. It just takes a little practice and as I said don't try to do it all at once.
Ok, there are several compounding factors that to be need mentioned. First the grader w/o scarifiers isn't usually the sole piece of equipment necessary to fix a road. Here is how I fix dirt roads. first I rip the entire road bed up with a toothed trackloader bucket, a scarifier, or a toothed box blade. My goal is a workable road bed material that has been loosened down below the bottom of the potholes and or ruts. Then you must remove oversize rock that is in the road bed. This can be by hand, via a stone rake, or however, but get anything bigger than #4 and preferably #3 out of the road way. Now you have a workable base similar to 2a gravel, grade that out, & crown it out, now before all the twp residents drive all over it, roll it, restoring compaction. If you leave compaction to residents vehicles, they wil miss the center it will hold water then your back to square one. And of course this is all for naught if you don't have a working ditch, remember water only flows downhill, and in the easiest course.
Brad, A word to the wise...when you release the saddle pins, or circle pins, THE BLADE MUST BE IN SOLID CONTACT WITH THE GROUND BELOW. With the pins unlocked, use the blade lift levers to reposition the pins. This side shift feature is used in ditching and sloping. I primarily used it for delivering my windrow between the tires, a neat little trick that lets you control excess material spillage near an edge and do a nice clean job. As a general rule, you will want the saddle sideshift centered for most flatwork.
I'm no operator having a whopping 50 hours in a grader, but this seems to work for me.. We have a lot of bentonite in our roads here, so this may not apply. My first pass I go down the middle of the road cutting out the washboard ruts (we don't get potholes because I live in a high desert that sees very little rain). Next pass I cut an outside edge putting the loose stuff in the middle. Third pass I cut the other edge again putting the loose material in the middle. Forth and final pass I straight blade down the middle - knocking down the pile I put in the middle. I try to keep an equal amount of loose stuff coming off both the left and right side of the blade.
The problem with making a pass down the middle with a straight blade is that you will have a flat center of the road. It may work in your area as you say that you get very little rain. In areas of higher rainfall you will have water stand in the center of the road.
I agree with farmer45, when you make the pass down the middle your are making quarter crown's in your road.... something you may get by with in arid lands but not in my area.
Yeah, it leaves a 3'-4' flat spot on the top of the road. If we get rain it would gather there, that's why I stated that we get very little rain.
Brad, I "replied with Quote" Farmer's post because I feel it best fits your situation and needs. Sounds like your roads basically lack maintenance. Meaning they haven't been ran enough thus the condition you found. You are not going to fix this overnight. If you had a scarifier you could speed up the process but you don't. So for potholes, you need to be on the roads when they are damp. As damp as you can run them without creating mudballs. This increases the chances of the loose material staying in the potholes. Move as much material as you can manage. This again gives you an adequate amount of material to fill holes with. You should always have a blade load of material shifting across the moldboard so you always have something to fill the hole with when you get to it. If filling holes or shaping crown I want a blade full of material at all times. Potholes are usually caused by a roadbed that does not drain, hence a puddle of water. I hate potholes. So I design my roads with a crown. I never have a pothole on a crowned road. if one develops it's always at a location where the crown is gone or maybe at an intersection. I maintain 50 miles of gravel roads and usually have half a dozen or less potholes in all of that distance. Sometimes in the Spring when it's constantly raining that number will increase. But as soon as the weather permits I get it back in control. I started running an old CAT 12 in 1989. I didn't even know how to start it (Pony Motor). My first day I put the grader in first gear and let out the clutch, then lowered the blade til it made contact and adjusted from there. I've constantly learned more about running a blade every day since. One other thing, I never set my blade on the ground and then start moving. All that does is create a bump in the roadbed. Always be moving before making contact with the roadbed if at all possible. Exceptions would be finishing against a bridge or up against pavement. There's three things you need to know about blade operation. They are PATIENCE, PATIENCE, PATIENCE. Once you have that figured out you will quickly improve. You can tear up in 5 seconds what will take 30 minutes to fix. Patience my friend. Welcome to the World of Blade Operation.
Here's another thread that has links for videos on grader operation