Kip,
I recently purchased the DR Power Grader. http://www.drpower.com We have a 1000 foot gravel driveway on our property as well as about 1/3 mile shared gravel drive to the road. The road had potholes and washboarding pretty bad. Prior to getting the powergrader, every year the neighbors and I would have gravel put down to "cover" the potholes, etc. (which didn't really work very long before the washboarding came back) and with the cost of gravel going up rapidly, this gets quite expensive. After using the powergrader, which I pulled behind my JD Gator, the gravel drive and road is SMOOTH. Potholes and washboarding are GONE. This unit really works! It costs more than the other options that some of the other folks are suggesting, but this thing is built like a tank, and I expect it to last many years. What's nice is that you can adjust the depth of grading into the gravel drive with the electric actuator while on the move. This gives you ultimate control in moving the gravel around. Definitely check this thing out. I swear by it. Michael
I use my 60" Yanmar pto rototiller after a rain to loosen up my drive. I run it backwards to attack the stone+dirt. That way it doesn't just bounce all over the place. Then I use a narrow tined rake (Arps 8') at high angle to comb the edges and then flatten the top. It goes very quickly once you are convinced that the tiller won't complain. I use low range selector and reverse gear to get the jpb done at crawling speed. Works like a charm.....
I'm looking to rake a 450' gravel (3/8" stone) driveway and the only equipment I have is a Scotts (Deere) lawn tractor. I need to attach a rake and wonder if anyone has seen such a rake (nothing on the Deere site) or have any home-made ideas?? driveway is currently getting awfully bumpy and starting to pothole...Thanks!
Reference the link you listed.
I bought one recently and my suggestion is, "Don't do it!"
Read every post in this thread and heed. You can build (or have built) a much better groomer, much cheaper.
1. The assembly instructions are terrible. They appear to have been written by a 10-year old.
It starts outs, "Place the 2 weldments facing each other."
What the heck does that mean?
And the pictures are worse than the instructions.
I spent a couple frustrated hours putting this thing together only to take it apart and reassemble until it worked.
I was a technician for 35 years. I can follow written instructions and drawings.
The instructions, alone, with this groomer is bad enough to justify not purchasing it.
2. Extremely poor quality. Within 1 hour of first using this groomer I had to park it then drive to the hardware store and purchase 60 dollars of quality hardware.
3. The "Riser" they sell you at an additional charge is a piece of bent sheet metal. It is supposed to "hold" the gravel and move it. In less than an hour the simple weight of the gravel had totally deformed the sheet metal riser and it was popping loose from the bolts.
4. The chincy little pins and clips holding the chains to the bar didn't last 30 minutes.
5 The main part of this unit is the frame and it is bent in many places after only a couple hours of use.
If I had it to do over I would talk to the local welding shop. They probably have enough scrap steel out back to make a lot better groomer than this POS.
I don't know where they got all the glowing testimonials on their web page but I suspect they wrote them.
Too bad it didn't come with a set of Ginsu knives. Then at least you would have gotten something for your money. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
Actually, when that was first posted, I looked at it and thought it was pretty wimpy for a tough job like maintaining a packed gravel driveway.
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