Let's say you have a 13' wide road you need to cut that is 260 feet long. Straight, no curves. You need to remove about the top 1 foot of top soil. There is no need for a centralized stockpile because it's a farm. You can literally just dump the excess dirt on the side, and then spread it into the nearby field. Mainfall is 1% decline, and the cross-slope will be 4% to the right, according to the orientation of this photo (this is toward the end of the road). The existing field is pretty flat. So what is the most efficient means to get this job done? I suppose there is a trade-off between time and gas & wear and tear? OPTION A: Start from the high point (left side), tilt the blade to create windrows to the right of the blade. As soon as the blade is full (as little as 20 feet?), immediately back up, and start a new line to the right, essentially pushing the dirt gradually to the right. Due to the fact that there is no need for a centralized refuse pile, you just dump the dirt to the right side of the road where you'll later spread it out into the nearby field. OPTION B: The going forward and backwards is more inefficient and it doesn't matter where you start. Just push the dirt all the way straight to the end of the 260 foot road, and then push it sideways into a centralized dirt pile. Your blade gets full at about 20-40 feet, but you carry it an additional 220 feet to the end of the road to create a refuse area. Also, due to the way the hydraulics work, if you try and push the dirt to the side and turn the dozer, you'll lose power. I think the primary logic is slot dozing. OPTION C? What would your technique be? From a newbie point of view, I just don't understand what the point is of carrying the dirt an additional 220 feet to the end of the road when you can just push it to your right immediately and be rid of it. Is it really more efficient to not just simply dump the dirt immediately when the blade is full at about 40 feet?
Welcome to HEF ! That is an easy one to do. Don't push it the length of the road and make windrows. Push the top soil from the low side to to the high side. That will prevent blocking drainage in case it rains. Probably push some of it to the low side so you can have there to fill in against the material on the finish grade. You can leave it in a windrow or spread it to whatever depth you want. Are ditches needed ? I don't know what you have for a machine. Dozer ? I could strip it in about 2 hours with a D6 size dozer. Are you going to bring gravel in to get it to finish grade ?
When I'm stripping topsoil for a road I make multiple piles off to the sides. I try to make them in convenient spots where I’m not pushing too far and it will be easy to either load out later or spread on the road banks/ditches. Keep the pushes short (50-100’ max) and plan ahead so the piles aren’t in your way and you can still easily get behind them to spread them out.
I think it depends on the machine you're using. If you had a grader you could strip it in layers the full length. You could strip it in both directions too and push the windrows out further and make ditches on either side with a crown in the middle.
Pictured is a D3 Dozer, latest generation.
In that case I'd follow Tinkerers advice.