How to use a BOX BLADE - Fixing Ruts and Grading with a tractor and box scraper 

I'll bet he'd be proud to see you getting on that tractor and figuring stuff out!

We had a guy in the shop with a 25 or 30 year old Woods rollover scraper with a hydraulic control. Wasn't interested in selling, unfortunately...

Thanks! If you ever need a hand, just let me know- you got yourself a fantastic tractor

I see you've been working on your dad jokes. A solid effort.

It'll drag that stuff away, but a lot of dirt will come with it. A rake would sift the material a little, which might be less frustrating

A person definitely could do that, but in my experience, the water will then permeate the voids between the gravel, andit'll just turn into a muddy mess with gravel in it.. If it stays wet, and we really wanted to drain it, we'd make a trench that leads to a ditch or something and then the gravel would be helpful to give the water a path in which to travel. At least until the dirt works its way into all the gravel

There's really no reason to ever put soil on top of gravel. First time it gets wet, it will start washing into the gravel and you'll be forever chasing your tail filling more potholes.

No! The water will collect in that area and make more mud!! It would be much better to try to dig out the mud and replace it with fairly dry dirt and pack it in! Gravel, or better yet a layer of base rock works better if it is above the surrounding dirt ! Base rock is a mixture of gravel, sand, a little bit of dirt and some crushed up bricks or asphalt. In construction it's also known as class 2 material. That's what they use underneath of roadways and parking. Once it's spread out and compacted it also keeps most of the water out! They also use it for temporary roads in construction sites. I'm a retired Operating Engineer.

The rippers are very useful, but they'll loosen up the area you use them on, so you can end up with more potholes. If it's just a couple of potholes, the rippers might cause more harm than good. But if it's an old parking lot that constantly develops a lot of potholes, the rippers would be great to tear the whole mess up and then re-spread the material

Love the video. I have a box blade for my LS 3025 and it’s been great for building a 5/8 minus road on my homestead. I’m curious though. What is a land plane? Does it perform a similar function? Which one is better? Thank You in advance.

A land plane or grading scraper is like a box blade, but it has no back on it. Pretty cool tool for grading driveways and whatnot. They aren't as adaptable as a box blade, but they are way easier to use for smoothing driveways, and they can save you on gravel too

Don't use the ripper's unless you need to loosen up all the ground, then regrade it without the rippers. Leaving the ground with ripper marks is very sloppy work! If you need to use rippers then rip up everything and mix the material up good before grading it out and compacting it. If you don't then it will get worse quicker.

@@sublimesalamander nobody in construction uses a land a plane! They are not adjustable. They are made to smooth out driveways that have loose material on them. But their functionality is very limited. Scraper boxes are used throughout the world by professional landscapers, road and parking lot builders. They are used on the back of skip loaders and farm tractors, both of which have several similar functions.

I disagree- moist dirt keeps the dust down and can grade more evenly. Plus, I'm in Western Wa. There's some years where if you waited for the dirt to dry out, you might be waiting a year to do the job!

@@HomesteadBandwagon there's a significant difference between moist and muddy. I did a lot of grading in the operating engineers on skip loaders doing that. Several different soil engineers showed me how to check the dirt for the proper amount of moisture in the dirt for best grading and compaction conditions. Maybe the ground in your area is different than most other places. Generally speaking the best way to test for the proper amount of moisture is to pick up a handful and squeeze it in your fist, then open your hand flat and if it sticks together. If it does then it's not too dry. Then touch that ball of dirt with one finger very lightly and see if it easily crumbles. If it does then it's not too wet. This is perfect, not too dry and not too wet. Once again, it should be able to stick together but just barely. This is the perfect condition and should not be Dusty at all. My dad did commercial tractor rototilling for over 50 years and he used the shovel test. Be able to stick the shovel into the ground without too much trouble, pull up that shovel of dirt and turn it over on the surface and see if it crumbles easily without sticking together in large sticky clumps. Perfect condition for rototilling and will not be Dusty.

@@HomesteadBandwagon I am also somewhat familiar with the weather in Washington and Oregon because I have relatives up in Seattle and Spokane. On construction jobsites in California we used to joke about the circle test. If it looked like rain, someone would draw a circle on the ground, and see if a drop of rain fell inside that circle, and if it did we would call it a rain day and go home. And somebody else would say if that happened in Washington they would never get to work because it rained so often up there. 😁😉🙄

@@TF856 That's definitely ideal, but, unfortunately, it's rarely possible here. I can roll dirt into a ball into August or September most years. Then, October comes around and we're back to mud!

That could mess up all the pretty dirt!

It looked like that dirt was too sticky wet/muddy in his box. I can usually get the sticky stuff like that out by shaking the box up and down unless it's really muddy.

@@TF856 it'll come out. Only takes about a foot in reverse.

Thanks for the support, Jim!