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Stone Driveways
Hello:I need to re-stone about 500 feet of driveway. I have a JD4100 tractor with loader and a back blade. The stone supplier will deliver the stone and unload it in one big pile. What is the best method to spread the stone and grade it? Should I get a york rake?
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John, my method would be to get the stone dumped near the middle of the drive if possible. Then I would use the loader to distribute buckets of stone starting from the far ends toward the middle. After I dump each bucketful I would backblade it roughly with the bucket (1 pass) to approximately the desired depth. After I had distributed the length of the driveway, I would use the rear blade to get final grade and desired crown or slope. A landscape rake might make the job a little easier in the final grading, but not enough for me to go out and buy one. If you can borrow one, that's an different story. I don't have any experience with either rear blades or rakes yet, so experienced folks on this board may give you better info. I have, however, spread stone over driveways and walks before using just a tractor or skidsteer loader and this distribution method seemed very effective to me. (I got real good at backblading with a bucket - practice, practice, practice) Another way is the "bulldozer" method where you keep pushing material away from the pile to roughly the desired depth working out towards the ends of the drive. Maybe someone will have a reason why this works better or faster.
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John, if the stone is to be delivered by a dump truck it is far easier to have the driver spread it for you. Almost every truck I have ever seen has a chain at each side of the tailgate, this is to control how far it opens when dumping. Any driver with even a little experience can set the chains and drive forward while tipping the box, spreading the material at a surprisingly accurate rate, and in a nice, neat, approx. 9' wide path, all that is left is to 'massage' it into the exact location. Best of luck.
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Hey, John, just start like Murf said and finish like JeffM said; nothing to it.  Like Jeff said, I suspect those rakes are nice to have, but I don't have enough use for one to buy it, so I'd just use my front end loader and box blade.
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Murf, you just saved me a couple of hours of loader work this coming summer when I'm going to put in a new driveway! So obvious, too. I just have to have my excavation work done before the stone is delivered. See, that's the difference between us hobbyists and you professionals - you'd go broke having fun the way I do!
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Around here, the stone is delivered in single or tandem axle dump trucks. The drivers are pretty adept at dumping it pretty evenly along the whole driveway.
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I have even less experienc with computers and keyboards. Spilling your stone as you back up might be easier if you have to fill in some areas. If you can borrow a york rake with wheels to gauge your pitch it will cut the learning curve down to a couple of minutes. Finish off by dragging a metal bed frame over the drive several times and you will be amazed at the quality of your work.
Good Luck JT
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Stone??? Is that the same as gravel? If so, I'd have the dump truck drop it along the drive.
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I don't know if this is a first tractor project or not. However, drives that need dressing material often need other maintenance as well. Things re-crowning, ditching and widening eroded areas of fill need to be done periodically. There may be some other projects that need doing before the stone, and they might be even more interesting. All maintenance can be done with a loader and back-blade, but I prefer a box scraper for grading. The trouble with a blade is that if you have to make a cut, most of the cut material comes off the blade ends, and you don't necessarily want it dumped to the side. End plates on a blade cures this limitation. Many blades also don't have enough weight to cut compacted material, but extra weight can be strapped on top. York rakes are good at final smoothing, but not so good if cutting is required. Spreading with a loader works best back dragging with the bucket floated. If appreciable new material is added, then compacting is a good idea, and compacting can be done with a loader. Back-drag a fairly flat bucket while holding down-pressure. When compacting, there's very little front-wheel steering, and brake steering has to be used. Spreading with the dump truck is a good idea that I'll bet saves more than 2-hours. After a time or two you'll just know how long something takes. In the meantime, think that a tandem load is 15-16 yards, and maybe 12 yards would have to be moved an appreciable distance. Figure the number of bucket loads from the bucket size, the average distance moved and the average speed--including loading and dumping. I don't know the answer, but I'll bet the distance is around 100' and the speed is 2-mph or less. I imagine the result is quite a bit longer than 2-hours.
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Alan: There is a formal system for classifying aggregates that I really don't know. However, common usage depends a bit on where you're located. Here, stone generally means a clean glaciated stone, and the size depends on usage. For example, septic stone is smaller than cobbles. Gravel is a mixture of sand and small stone (also called pit run I believe), and most larger aggregate is called crushed rock (maybe crusher run). If it’s graded, there are terms like pea gravel to describe size. Most people around here use gravel because it compacts and freezes. The excess sand washes out and leaves a fairly durable layer of small stone. Appreciable amounts of crushed rock are avoided, because it doesn't compact or freeze well, and often more of it ends up in the ditch than on the drive. Actually aggregate is very specific stuff. A curious side-note is that several mid-eastern desert countries import sand from Australia. Desert sand cannot be used to make concrete because it is too rounded.
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