Stirring The Sod

[shortarc]

Anyone else have to deal with messes like this?

Haven't been at this too long and just wondered if anyone had a good way of dealing with sod. Township work work and can't afford a loader and dump truck so stir it back and forth to get some of the rock out of it then push it off and grade it up the side.

 

[RDG]

About all u can do is roll it around in windrows to shake the stone out of it and work it to the water table and then flick it out on the grass, or leave it in the water table then hit it again in a couple of weeks after it has broken down a bit and roll it around some more, eventually it breaks down. Been there an done that. Cheers RDG.

 

[grandpa]

Well situation's like that are not fun but sadly to say operator's are faced with them.

One thing I do is on my initial cut I don't allow the sod to discharge of the end off my blade. I cut with the toe and raise the heel high so it deposit's the sod in the middle of the blade. What this does is helps to cut the clump's into smaller piece's faster. Cut's down on the amount of trip's one has to make up and down the road.

You still have to deal with all the trash, but it makes the process go a little faster. (make's for a bumpy ride in the grader for sure). Hope this technique works for you...... Grampa.

 

[ovrszd]

As RDG mentioned, you just gotta roll it around until you wear it out. We are extremely dry now so I'll start cutting mine loose. Lets me get the sod without rolling up wet dirt. I'll windrow the debris and leave it for a month or so, then in mid November I'll try to run everything again. I'll still have a smaller windrow of debris but I'll have all the rock worked out of it. When I push snow the first time I'll take if off with the snow.

It's something that's unavoidable and everyone blading country gravel roads faces it.

Where you located in Missouri?? I'm in the Northwest, Harrison County.

 

[shortarc]

Thanks all. That's pretty much what I've been doing. Just thought someone might have magic bullet that would turn the sod into rock

ovrszd. I'm in the western edge, right up against the Kansas state line. Vernon, Co.

 

[ovrszd]

Thought it looked like you were South of me, but kinda hard to tell on a limited picture.

I started running a township grader in 1989. My township owned a CAT 12G, totally worn out grader. In 1990 my township board bought me a new grader. A John Deere 670B. No Air Conditioning, ran with the doors open but I loved that machine. I ran that machine seven years. Been in Deere machines since. Our old JD670B is still running, owned my Carroll County if I remember right.

 

[grandpa]

As RDG mentioned, you just gotta roll it around until you wear it out. We are extremely dry now so I'll start cutting mine loose. Lets me get the sod without rolling up wet dirt. I'll windrow the debris and leave it for a month or so, then in mid November I'll try to run everything again. I'll still have a smaller windrow of debris but I'll have all the rock worked out of it. When I push snow the first time I'll take if off with the snow.

It's something that's unavoidable and everyone blading country gravel roads faces it.

Where you located in Missouri?? I'm in the Northwest, Harrison County.

I really don't know what the winter's are like in Missouri, but I like to trim my sod here in Minnesota in March. Those first days of spring, when the road tops are just starting to thaw. At that time of year when the frost is still in, but kinda rotten, you can reach over the edge and cut that little lip of sod that stop's your runoff. I stand the blade all the way up, side shift out and cut that little sucker right off. The frost holds onto the roots so all you get is little fragments. I only flip it about a foot up from the shoulder on both side's. This doesn't imped traffic and does a marvalous job of eliminating that lip... If your ground freeze's hard, that's the time of year to do your shoulder trimming....... Good luck, gramps

 

[ovrszd]

Our problem down here is if you don't do something with the growth during the Summer/Fall your roads will be haired over with only the tracks still showing exposed gravel. It's an all Summer battle.

I've done a lot of sod cutting in the late Winter as well. I don't quite to it like you do but close. You mentioned earlier about raising the heel of the blade and letting the sod go under before it reaches the tail end. I've never tried that. Can't quite figure out how you keep from cutting the shoulders off and creating a steep angle toward the ditch.

 

[grandpa]

Our problem down here is if you don't do something with the growth during the Summer/Fall your roads will be haired over with only the tracks still showing exposed gravel. It's an all Summer battle.

I've done a lot of sod cutting in the late Winter as well. I don't quite to it like you do but close. You mentioned earlier about raising the heel of the blade and letting the sod go under before it reaches the tail end. I've never tried that. Can't quite figure out how you keep from cutting the shoulders off and creating a steep angle toward the ditch.

Now matter what method you use Richard, sod is not a blademan's friend...lol. I was looking at your video on your other thread and i can see what you mean by " Haired over"... add all that hair and then a foot of fallen leaves and it wouldn't take much for me to become a full time fisherman.... lol..... I enjoy your post's and video.... i'd do more in that aspect but am quit illiterate when it comes to posting pix and vid's..... Grampa.

 

[shortarc]

grandpa. Thanks for the tip, I'll have to try that this winter.

I have a lot of roads that look exactly like the one ovrszd posted in his video and others that have been neglected for several years and there is a five or six foot strip of sod and berm between the road and the ditch.

 

[grandpa]

grandpa. Thanks for the tip, I'll have to try that this winter.

I have a lot of roads that look exactly like the one ovrszd posted in his video and others that have been neglected for several years and there is a five or six foot strip of sod and berm between the road and the ditch.

Wow,,, five or six feet? Im sure glad im not you...lol. That much might take a couple of extreme winters...lol. Good luck.

 

[ovrszd]

Grampa, I know what you mean about posting pics and videos. I used to be that way too. I finally decided I'd learn how. Just about the time I had it all figured out this website changes it's format a little. I had to relearn.

Pictures are downloaded directly from my computer to this website using the "go advanced" icon below your typed message, then scroll down the page to "manage attachments", click on that and it will guide you on how to copy the picture from your computer to this website. After you do it a couple times it becomes fairly easy.

Videos are more complicated. I set up an account on "youtube". I have to upload my video onto the youtube website and then "copy" the internet address and "paste" it to my posts here. So when you view the video you are using the youtube website. The video I shot of the new JD770G took four hours to load into youtube. The grading video took 2 1/2 hours. Yeah,,, it's slow....

When I started running our township grader our roads had been severely neglected. In three locations there were fence posts standing in holes in the middle of the road where tubes were washed out so the traffic wouldn't drive into the holes. A lot of my roads were simply two gravel tracks, the rest completely covered with sod. To meet, traffic had to idle down, ease off into the weeds, pass each other, then move back to the center of the road and continue. The road in my video is the least traveled road I have now and the most covered.

Shortarc, keep carrying your camera and post pics of the work you are doing. I really enjoy seeing other's work and always learn something.

We'll depend on Grandpa to get us some good snow pictures this Winter!!!

Edit: Oh wanted to also add, if either of you want to post an Avatar picture by your name send me the picture thru PM and I'll size it to fit as an Avatar and send it back to you.

 

[562C]

We try to not let it get that bad, but you're doing about the only thing you can with what you've got to work with. Something I have used in the past was a one way disk that mounted on the grader in place of a front mount wing. Somebody's got a patent on it.... we rented one from the next county over. If you do it when the road is REALLY dry, make one pass that cuts about 4 feet wide and go as fast as you can. It tends to pull all the weeds to to the top and everything else falls underneath. Leave it there long enough and the weeds dry up and blow away, and then grade. Works like a charm if the berm is mostly gravel/sand, not worth a damn if the berm is clay. I think it's called an "Eliminator" The other thing we've done (but it costs) is hire a local guy that built a machine that's really an oversize roto tiller with a set off belts and a screening plant attached. Wish I had some pics.... 2 belts off teh back, one has sod/dirt, other spreads reclaimed gravel. He can load the dirt straight into a ruck on the fly or spin it out on the back bank of the ditch or in the field.