Can a skid steer be used to level a gravel road

Depends on the skill of the operator. I've had a good Bobcat guy do a couple of very long mountain driveways with roadbase and they turned out very well. If you were thinking you could do the work yourself, I'd be a little concerned.

I have never operated a skid steer.

i

Sorry, I odn't know, but what's that blue thing? What goes down and what goes up?

With a good operator and a road that only needs regraveling? Yes. A road in your condition with big potholes? No. What your road needs is something to first loosen what is there down to the bottom of the potholes, then regrade and add more gravel if needed.

If you spread more gravel over the current condition, your potholes will be back in short order.

Harry K

Depends on operator skill. Which probably means that if you have to ask, have fun cleaning up after yourself (experience at being the unskilled operator on some different machinery - where everybody starts sometime...) Exactly how hard it is also depends on things like if the blade is 6-way or only 4-way, and whether you happen to have a handy and expensive rotary rake attachment (which can nearly eliminate the need for hand raking I'll mention below.)

It's pretty much exactly not what you want in a road grader (blade sticking out front of a short track, not supported between wheels on long frame.) So you are fighting the normal tendency of the machine to get the work done. I've had a guy use one to pretty good effect on road work - but that's what he does a good part of the day, most days. You need a good eye or a lot of fiddling with survey equipment to pick the right high spots and how far to cut them - a grader helps you do that, a skid-steer leaves it all up to your ability to know where the blade is even as the machine tips this way and that.

It's a good idea to have and know how to use a manual rock rake, and to know at what point you are better off fixing things with it, than to try to get things all the way done with heavy equipment, when it's the wrong heavy equipment (but presumably what you either happen to own or are thinking of buying...) - I've seen people who should know better spend 4 hours dragging a york rake around trying (and failing) to fix things an hour of intelligent hand raking would have fixed.

If you don't already own the skid-steer, that one (looking at the scale) would be better attacked (if allergic to having someone with a grader and vibratory roller [I wish the town road crew used one of those, but they don't] fix it for you) with a rock rake, shovel, wheelbarrow, and pick (to break up the hard stuff for shoveling and/or raking from the high points.) Then drive your truck over it a lot, or hire someone with a roller, preferably a vibratory, which packs the base much better than a plain roller.

Even if you don't intend to dig much, might be a good idea to call dig-safe before you get started, lest there be any sketchily buried wires/cables out there.

I think you should try to smooth it a bit using the bottom of the bucket and dragging it backward. That way you will not dig into the hard base, but fill in the low spots. You can also use that method to move the gravel from the building side of the road back into the holes with water.

A pro can use the scoop blade and remove the hard humps in the road and make it as smooth as the parking lot in the background, but I can't and neither can you. So try the back pull method and see how that goes.

Paul

As others have said, it's not the ideal machine for road grading, but it can do the job it you know how to run it. That said, a few years back I resurfaced a deteriorated ~100' gravel driveway using a regular wheeled S175 Bobcat. The driveway was solid enough, but it was rutted and had some large rocks poking up where the gravel had packed down around them.

I started by breaking up the big rocks, or at least the upper problem part of them using a hydraulic breaker on the Bobcat which worked wonderfully. After that I had a load of 3/4" gravel delivered and roughly distributed by the dump truck. After distributing the gravel around a bit better using the Bobcat bucket normally, I leveled the gravel by back bladeing with the bucket, pulling out the high spots as I moved back. This requires a lot of paying attention and manipulating the bucket height as you move since the machine tilts on the uneven surface and you have to compensate for that.

It took me about 15 minutes or so to get the hang of that bucket manipulation and the driveway still looks good today, so depending on your skill level with the machine, it's not an impossible project. I'll note that I did not do anything to disturb the well compacted base beyond decapitating those few big rocks. I didn't have any drainage issues, the driveway had a modest slope in the proper direction anyway. You will need to more carefully look at the slope and where you can drain water to. It may be a case where you really need to install some drain pipe, even the basic filter fabric wrapped 4" flex stuff in order to collect water heading towards the building and move it to a proper drain area.

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When you need the weight of the machine you have to do it that way, but on final grading you can use "float mode". When you push the height control pedal all the way down it should click in and allow the bucket to float up and down for back grading. Hit it again and it will release.

Is it actually all gravel, or is it mixed with asphalt binder? You can grade gravel with a skid steer, but bringing more gravel in and spreading it would probably give you a better result. If you disturb the material that's there now it will take a while for it to pack back down and you may see more rut's, etc.. Also, an appropiate mix of gravel and fines will pack down pretty well, all one size will not compact.

I agree with Robert Neville, the machine is capable, but only with a qualified operator. Skid steers are very back heavy to compensate for the lifting weight. Because of that it's difficult to use down pressure to do grading or back blading. Personally I've found it much easier to do with a compact 4WD backhoe loader.

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Float mode won't do a lot to level out fresh gravel, you have to be able to hold the blade at the desired grade high (compensating for machine tilt) to level it out. Float mode will just apply bucket weight wherever it is and on freshly deposited gravel which is all pretty much at the same density it will just ride the contour scraping a bit off of both high and low spots.

Igor, I don't know about the machine in question but I do know that it takes a lot of learning to operate a machine like that. Several years ago I bought a Case Consrtuction King backhoe. It has a digging depth of 14 feet and a loader on the other end. I bought it to install my septic system. The ditches needed to be flat and level within 1 inch over the

3 by 50 foot size of each ditch. Getting the flat and level part was very hard to judge when I started the first ditch. After getting some good advice from a real backhoe and dozer operator I was able to make faster time but I still had to constantly check my work. I can't count how many times I climbed on and off that machine digging those ditches. So I'm sure you could probably develop the skill to opertate a proper machine but the time involved for a novice, along with the weather right now, might mean the road doesn't get fixed until the rain stops. I bought my machine mostly because there were no reputable septic installers that could install my system in the time frame I needed. They were all booked out months. Now I don't regret buying the thing because it still gets lots of use by myself and my neighbors and it is lots of fun to operate. Eric

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It's a dust collector. fans pull the dust into the hopper, and it falls into that 55 gallon drum under it.

On 12/1/2011 9:44 AM, tnik wrote: ...

And a sizable one at that...

Guesses on fan motor hp, anyone? :)

From the pic -- looks like you need to direct that water away from the building also. That is another challenge. It does not seem like you can raise only the road bed, else you will trap water against the building. And it's not clear what is on the other side of the road. If you get the water off the road, where does it go?

In general, you want to get the road bed built up, with ditches to each side and a path for the water to run away from the road and towards an area where it can runoff or harmlessly pool. I have a 1/2 mile driveway and have issues where the steepness of the road makes it hard to direct the water off the road.

Don't get the cart before the horse. Your roadway needs repair. Go find an operator/owner with a sheepsfoot roller and get the sub-base compacted and repaired according to the type of soil conditions you have. You might even be so bold as to to get the light road specs from your county building inspector department and use those as a guide. With the time and money you will save after that your property can be upgraded to match the nifty driveway.

Joe

I have a gravel road that deteriorated, has huge puddles when it rains, and the water enters the building from the side.

The problem, I think, is that the slight grade that is there, is kind of ruined and so the water does not go down along the road towards the rain sewer. Instead, it puddles and some goes into my building.

Can this skid steer pictured here:

be used to rearrange that gravel a little bit to restore the grade?

Or is it too light duty?

thanks

I used a York Rake on the back of a four-wheeler to smooth out a bluestone driveway. A few passes and it was like new.

JAS

Iggy asked:

Ig... so far (unless I missed it) nobody has hit on the basic reason for your problem.

Unless the gravel is bound by some cementaceous substance, re-grading the gravel won't do a thing for your water drainage. Gravel is highly pourous to water -- it's used in things like percolation fields and French drains to allow water to enter without allowing larger debris to penetrate.

Re-grading the gravel won't cure the underlying problem: And the problem TRULY "underlies" the gravel.

Scrape ALL the gravel aside, and re-grade the earth below it. THEN replace and smooth the gravel, and you'll be fine.

LLoyd

10 hp