Which is better to use on gravel driveway?

Geo-TH,In · Mar 23, 2020

A landscape raked or grader blade?
Grader blade wouldn't do anything with dirt rock mix in front of pole barn.
So using landscape rake in a way you may not thought possible , I was able to loosen it up.
Then graded rock. I wanted to use this mix to skim coat drive as a base. When I start mowing I plan to haul more rock from my no longer driveway at another property.

Then I wanted to widen another driveway.
So I removed sod. Leveled it a little. Then I used rake to remove grass that was growing in this driveway.

Rake did a fantastic job of loosening the gravel and getting rid for of the grass.

Planning on hauling white rock tomorrow. I'll post picks once it looks nice.

It takes both rake and grader to get the work done.
George

John in Mich · Mar 23, 2020

I used my rake for years to maintain my gravel driveways. The back blade would just skim over and do very little. Sometimes I even used the loader bucket to breakup the grass that would grow between the tracks. What ever works.

Geo-TH,In · Mar 23, 2020

Agree rake does great job loosening up the rock.

Roger Tomfohrde · Mar 23, 2020

Best I have ever seen was my dad who had Parkinson's really bad was in the field with a IH 3688 and a 18' vibra shank. He folded the wings but somehow did not get the rest up out of the ground and drove up the field road, down the county road and into our driveway maybe a 1/2 mile. We got him stopped shortly after and he was wondering why it seemed like it pulled hard on the road,sigh... I hope I don't get that bad and can't turn around to look at what you are doing. Any way we grabbed the back blade and leveled it back down, nice and smooth then.

showcrop · Mar 23, 2020

A hay customer had a very nice tool that I used to borrow from him now and then. It was a York rake with a set of scarifiers that you could drop down in front of the rake. There were probably 4-5 of them. You could make 2-3 passes with the scarifiers down to get it loosened up, then lift them up out of the way and and grade a good crown onto the driveway with the York rake.

grizz02 · Mar 23, 2020

spin that landscape rake around it will groom your gravel instead of tearing it up

JMOR · Mar 23, 2020

(quoted from post at 18:31:23 03/23/20) spin that landscape rake around it will groom your gravel instead of tearing it up

on built this from part of a box blade. It
is the best of any blade or box blade we have ever used. commercially known as land plane.

Fordfarmer · Mar 23, 2020

On a residential driveway, sure. On a farm driveway that sees (large) tractors, wagons, manure spreaders, quad axle milk trucks, etc., I doubt that rake would do much. I have to wait until after a good rain to get the scarifiers on a box blade to bite in.

MarkB_MI · Mar 23, 2020

I rarely use anything other than my 8 foot landscape rake. It has wheels, which I highly recommend.

Rkh · Mar 23, 2020

Geo-TH, what brand stone rake is that? Looks well made & I've been looking at stone rakes & they don't look as well built.

Geo-TH,In · Mar 23, 2020

Don't remember the brand. I bought it from Rural King years ago, $300. I think TSC may carry the same brand.

rustyfarmall · Mar 24, 2020

I grade my driveway, when it needs it, using my Farmall H with the McCormick #31 loader, and a blade in place of the bucket. I drop the blade and go in reverse. The blade will not dig in when being dragged backwards. It just skims along and does a very good job of leveling and smoothing. I use "Barrier" to stop the grass and weeds.

Determined · Mar 24, 2020

Being that I have a hay field that runs parallel to our driveway I have had the opportunity to try various implements out on the driveway.

Vibrashank with wings up just skimming the surface works great for knocking down high spots.

50 feet of diamond harrows smooths things over well but maneuvering is fun.

24 foot steel wheel press drill does a good job of finish leveling.

Bar rake knocks down and spreads out any high clumps.

V-rake just makes pretty patterns.

Tire drag fills in the low spots and small water runs.

3 point mower scalps high spots down by ditch but the sounds it makes are not so good.

Back blading with wheel loader works great for any major dirt work.

As long as you stagger where your wheels are a zillion trips up and down the driveway with the bale truck in the fall levels out the high's.

So my answer is it depends on what you want to do, what you have handy and how concerned you are about what the neighbor's driving by are going to say

Which is better to use on gravel driveway?

Geo-TH,In

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John in Mich

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Geo-TH,In

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Roger Tomfohrde

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showcrop

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grizz02

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JMOR

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Fordfarmer

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MarkB_MI

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Rkh

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Geo-TH,In

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rustyfarmall

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Determined

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