Gravel Is Expensive. Do This Instead

My tractor spends more time smoothing gravel on my driveway than anything else.
Thanks for the video.

Thanks for the tip about leaving the middle scarifier down to balance it when stored; that’s the biggest bugbear I’ve had so far. Box blades are awesome! (NZ)

I have to keep up a half-mile of road up to the house. All your guidance is spot on. My biggest advice when pulling material, smoothing roads, etc.. is that it works best when you can have the box blade full of material as you go... letting that material roll over in the box and be deposited out the back. I set my top bar so that the box blade is tilted slightly forward, with the front blade is biting a bit, and the rear up just a bit depositing the material and smoothing it.

Love driveway work, repairs, refreshes. Power Rake, box blades all of it, love the content.

I’ve found that asphalt millings are the bomb!! But my driveway is 150 feet long. Great video!!!

Like your dad I am also 71, it took me a little time to figure out how RUclips works, I started watching RUclips about 5 years ago. As always a great video!

Gravity is not your friend there, Joe! Looks like you got the road fixed up nice. I loathe putting on a box blade because I know I'm not the master at using one! Tractor Hard! 🚜💪!!

Your driveway would be a perfect one to illustrate what a land plane can do. I've never used one, but I'm in the process of deciding between that or a box blade.
Great video.

That storm that came through a couple of weeks ago done a lot of damage to our gravel road. I hooked up the land plane to the kubota and worked on it for 4 hours. It’s like a new road now. I’m eventually going to have to buy some more 3/4 minus limestone.

Hey good video, I had a back blade that was really useful in the winter time for pushing snow. My neck had a permanent cooking it from driving the tractor backward and looking up behind me I too ponder that idea of how to get that gravel on the side up to the center of the road and then found a bakblade which I hope to be able to tilt downward on the outside and a little bit angled so it would pull it up to the crown of the road. That's what I reasoned out but I never got there before I got injured. Love your content in videos take care

Good morning Sir, thank you always for all the videos you put out and information shared. (Do a little research on that sunscreen subject, cancer causing ingredients are being talked about and shown to exist in them. A little protective gear that doesn’t shed micro-plastics would be your best bet. Any SPF clothing that is super light that is airy and breathes is a no boino also, another topic to research.). Again, thank you for all you share on projects and equipment. 😊

Good job. I built the drive to my home 20 years ago. I had a low area near the front that always held some water and decided to dig some ponds there. After I removed the top soil I found silt. Kind of a course clay but not really sand. I put it down nearly a foot thick leveling it with my backhoe loader. That road held up to everything. Cement trucks, loads of concrete blocks, dump trucks of compost. The silt is pretty water proof. However it does wear as in holes and water flow channels after rains. Box blades don't work all that well on it so I use a grader blade on the tractor. I tend to grade down both sides letting the silt build up in the middle and then with the blade square I spread the middle down a bit leaving a flat crown in the middle. The main drawback is the dust in summer. That drive makes clouds of dust. It's cheap and durable but at 75 I finally had enough and topped it with loose asphalt last year. I also have a quick hitch but I gave up on it. It works well but each piece of equipment required me to reset it to fit the implement. Easier to simple hook up the implement by itself.

Good morning my friend! I have been waiting for a new Joe The Farmer video. I love doing this type of work with my TYM T474 and our John Deere 5103. I love this video Joe. Nice job and well done sir. Have a great day.

Gannon make a construction grade scraper with hydraulic rippers. It's expensive but with that and a hydraulic top link and 1 on the lift arm you can save so much time getting on and off the tractor itxs so nice to be able to adjust on the fly.

I use a dual blade angled grader. The blades are 6' long. About 6" wide. They are set a foot apart from each other. And are reversal. The blade sticks below the carry cage about an inch. The first blade keeps the rocks in and allows sand and gravel to fall over to the second blade. And that blade further levels. Passing over holes allows material to fill in. It does a far better job than a box grader. And you can pitch it on the 3 point to get water to run off.

Really good video, and pertinent as well because I will soon have a very long driveway that will need maintenance often. Love your videos.
From Southern Middle Tennessee, best wishes!

when your road is the low point the water will always collect in the road, you need to put ditches on both sides to channel the water off the roadway.,

Lol, I've never heard that saying, "We'll dance with the girl we brought" 🤣😂

When your driveway is lower than your shoulder, take your bottom plow and put a ditch on each side, and pull that dirt in your driveway. You can bott plow both sides to get all the dirt.

Good job with the box blade. All the best from Greensboro NC.

I now use a landscape rake more than the box blade. But you are a pro on that boxblade

Imagine if you had ditches for the water to run off instead of down the driveway.

Have a good week Joe. Good video of Box Blade use. 👍

You totally miss the point of that thing. You need to turn those things over and dig down and raise up the stone that has been pushed down from driving on it. Then the blade smothers it out. The small fines settle down and the larger stone stays on top. Looks like new...

I like this kind of content. ;)

On some of our properties we build a small terrace or berm to help channel the water in a certain direction. This helps prevent the water from running down the road or driveway… just a suggestion and you probably already know that.

Great video Joe! Thanks for always putting out great content.

That rut tells me that you need ditches to control that water washing away your gravel.

Another fine video from you sir,....Thanks...

Joe. I enjoyed watching your video on how to level your driveway. Are you retired from the work force and working on your farm everyday? You have a nice piece of property to maintain. Bernie from Virginia Beach, Va.

You might want to try/consider this. Your small (top) gravel looks like it needs to be pulled up, out of the dirt, and “fluffed”. You said you did t want to use the scarefires, but that is what they are designed to do.
I tried this on my old irrigation road, and found 50-75% more gravel than I even knew I had that was buried in the dirt! It also took my ruts out 100% and packed in much better than scrapping the top surface only.
Second, looks like you need fines (sand) to lock that loose gravel together. We (in Idaho) call it road mix, locks it in nice, but doesn’t look as finished, but then you can add some nicer looking gravel later.
Just some suggestions, I have 800’ driveway and know the struggle, worst of all I have geo-matting and needed bigger rock first but it didn’t happen so I need to do a lot of work to get it back to normal.

Land plane, we call it a Road Boss, 10x better for maintaining road/driveway than a box blade. Use one once on that drive and you will never use that box blade on a road again! I love mine! I have both

Check out crushed asphalt rather then gravel for your driveway. It comes from a lot of re paving road projects and is a lot cheaper then getting it paved with fresh asphalt. The summer heat will warm it up and driving on it will re compact it but it holds together a lot better then gravel does. Perfect for the duty cycle of a driveway.

Good video

Hey Joe!
Nice work! That's why I paved, gravel roads are so painful. I'd rather mow! Cheers Buddy ; )

After you grade it up you should spread crushed concrete over it then try to pack it in using a big heavy roller. I did that with my driveway 5 years age it’s never washed out or scraped out when pushing snow

A suggestion -especially in the problem areas make a one time investment of geo grid as a retainer structure to then preserve your investment in gravel and labor, it wont wash away so readily

Awesome job

water bars and a trench?

If it's made right it should only need maintenance twice a year once after spring thaw to repair any plow damage and once in the fall to prepare for snow

What did you do with the Kioti RX7320?

I find it always funny when someone tells me your driveway is rough you need more gravel, then proceeds to rip out of my driveway at Mach 5 speed . I have 1/4 mile of driveway. So I get it.

Looks great

I know it might cost a bit to do this but why not slope the road to run on either of the high spots to the right or left of the road? I Truly am curious if that is a future possibility.

OK I'm older I didn't know that when you subscribed it was free. So I understand why he might of been confused. Get ready for more rain last week was beautiful. 🇺🇸

You really need to put in some ditches to manage your water problem. A crown is important to have the water in the drive to flow to the side ditches. Box blade with no angle possibility is not your friend. You also don't have good gravel for packing such as our limestone gravel that has fines. You have lots to learn in your road future.

Land plane for the gravel roads. If you ever use one, you'll never use the box blade for that again.

Just get medium rocks from riverbed and throw them on the road.

Get a roller or compactor and compact compact compact!!!!!!!!!

you have no base rock underneath the stone and improper drainage

Heavy equipment is expensive

I hate the box blade. Cant seem to get the hang of it.

Interesting video. The face time, not so much.

If you can get used asphalt from dumpsite after roads are decommissioned by your local road works you could get it if they have dumpsite and pour asphalt instead of gravel.

your fence looks fantastic. do you have a vidja? I thought sub means you are buying also lol born 1967

I really dislike geo fabric or whatever you call it. It's almost a scam - most times it's not needed. It makes micro plastics, and drains my account.

huge improvement. they are calling for some severe weather here tomorrow and again wednesday so i would guess that i will be repairing the driveway at the farm pretty soon. my problem is not having time. next weekend we have to go to gatlinburg tn for my daughters cheer competition then the following weekend we leave for florida for a week of national cheer competition. i will get to turkey hunt opening day though so thats good. anyway, lookinf forward to seeing all of the projects yall have on the agenda. stay safe