I like to tilt the box way forward, then put the ripper teeth all the way down. Tear up all the gravel around the pot holes first. I have found that just filling the pot holes will work for a time but the new gravel doesn't Bind with the original gravel. If I use the ripper teeth first, all the gravel Binds together and stays smooth longer. We use Class 5 gravel here in Minnesota. A mixture of small stone, sand, and clay. The clay packs in very well and lets the rain run off to the ditch if there is a crown. Thanks, Russ. Esko, Minnesota

A nice place in the woods definitely requires maintenance. For someone that doesn't use the box blade often, you did a great job.

use the scarfiers to break up the pot holes first then blade the rock will hold up longer

Nice to use around d house n yard makes thing little easey just what I need

What ya need is a land plane it’s a perfect tool for driveways

Like Russel said, you have to rip those potholes and puddles open before you pot gravel into those spots or they will come back in short order. Get those ripper teeth down and tear them up first. Once that is done, up the teeth, tilt the box back somewhet and make things smooth. If you just pull and push gravel into those spots, the stuff will just sir on the hardened surface but will not bond to it and will get pushed out of there pretty quick. If you rip it forst , all of it will pack together when ypou drive over it. Hope that makes sense

Definitely need to drop the scarifiers and break it all up especially the holes. Then level it. Without breaking up the holes they will continue to come back

You need a quick hitch bushing kit for your attachments to mate to the quick hitch.

I like the video, love box blades and watching the road improve with each pass.

Well done. Looks good. I know how difficult it is to grade the drive and keep it looking good and feeling smooth driving in and out. Used a box blade and grader blade for 20 years on a drive about as long as yours. Eventually the biggest complaint of mine was was loosing gravel off into the grass on the sides. Mower hated me in the Spring. About 3 years ago I broke down and bought a land plane. WOW! As said by Thomas earlier, it's the greatest for the job of straightening out a drive. The land plane, patience, and beer is the best. Repeated runs up and down, back and forth. Eventually the land plane will start dragging and spreading the gravel the whole length. Don't try to move the gravel in one or two swipes. The land plane only drags about 4" gravel in front of each blade before the excess piles over the top smoothly. The landscape box drags way more than you can even pull eventually. Just sit back and go from the road to your concrete apron and then back to the road over and over while enjoying the view (and the beer). Hard to explain, but well worth it to me.

Hello from Alabama. Got a 790 JD nothing runs like deere. God bless and be safe.

I always enjoy a good box blade video. I have the 60" version of that box blade for my 1025r. I just bought it last fall so haven't used it to much. It was really dry out so our driveway was pretty hard. I used the scarfiers to break up the gravel and then tilted the box back and pulled those up for raking it out. I'm not very good at it yet but it was fun. Pallet forks are what I'm saving up for now. I turned 55 this past summer and my back doesn't like me lifting heavy objects anymore. Blessings.

I know it’s another cost and implement to have but my experience with gravel driveway maintenance a land plane is the only way to go. Rent or borrow one and you’ll retire the box blade unless you have a lot of material to move. I have seen driveways that look like they need gravel for the driveway and after the land plane does it’s magic no gravel is needed. Just another opinion.

I heard that if you don't scrap the bottom of a pot hole it will come back. Next time, take the back hole bucket and scrape up the pot hole. Then scrape up the rest of the driveway with the box scraper. Tractor Time with Tim has an episode about how to repair your gravel driveways. Love the video's keep up the good work and god bless and stay safe.

Looks like a lot advice already, didn't read all but some good advice. Ripper shanks down break it up and bring gravel to surface. Also I would start on end and continue to end in straight swaths fill box,, rather than trying to go back and forth . Take crown out and tilt box so you can taper edges. Drive looks lower than surrounding property maybe why so much water drains onto drive. Ever consider cutting small ditch on each side so water drains off. Thanks for Sharing fun to watch

Rops... I thought you were going to forget. In one of my buildings I have a sign I made and hand it in the middle of the door to remind me.

It looks like the rippers should be used to bring up the rock. The only way to fix the holes and dips is to grade out the bottom. Just adding stone to a hole only make it look better for a while. The stone is pushed out by the car wheels.

The key to a good driveway is a good base if you put gravel on top of mud the mud will work it’s way through there is fabric that is used in wet grown but it expensive. We bought a house two years ago with a paved drive but they put pavement over mud so it didn’t last. Last year I dug up 150’ of it. I removed 3’ of mud and replaced it with a good gravel and its much better now.

I have a 400' dirt/gravel driveway which developed more potholes than your driveway. A friend would bring his skid loader over twice a year to help me with driveway maintenance. One day I got the idea to buy 200 used bricks, some solid and some hollow core. I spent a few evenings after work smashing the bricks into pieces a bit larger than a golf ball. And, of course, there were lots of smaller pieces. Big and small pieces were mixed together in a wheel barrel. When the holes were dry I filled them with broken brick up to grade level. Each hole got a bag of playground to fill gaps between pieces of broken brick. Then I raked gravel surrounding the holes back up and on top of the holes. I drove my pick up back and forth over the now filled pot holes until the bricks/sand and gravel merged and reached grade level. My friend then came over and graded the driveway. That fix worked for four years and would have lasted longer but a company doing road repairs offered to asphalt the driveway at a very fair price. I always felt the broken brick and sand firmed the holes.

I have the 5' version for my 1025r works great no issues as long as you aren't trying to move the world all at one time. The trick is as many have said drop the scarifiers down tilt the blade so it is level or even a little less aggressive and make enough passes to bust everything up real well. I would also say make long passes the length of the driveway. Once it is loosened up adjust the blade to be more aggressive and again make long passes the gravel will end up where it needs to be. If you have a low spot pick the blade up some and "dump" the box over that spot. Then come back with the blade set back so that it doesn't collect anything in the box this works very similar to back blading but much easier. My drive is 1/10 of your length but 3x as wide. I tune it up about once a month unless there is snow on it.

It looks like you have a water drainage problem, I would be taking care of that first.

Enjoyed your video. A hydraulic top link makes using the box blade so much easier to use as you can move the box back and for to dig or to drag once you get the hang of it its a awesome tool. I use mine a lot.

Don't put roadway fabric down now. That goes down first on dirt if you don't have a clay layer, then base layer, then medium gravel, then finish layer on top. Road fabric is to prevent the base layer and above from sinking into dirt if you don't have clay. Some will say the dirt works up through the gravel. Either way, if stone sinks into the dirt or dirt works up. The fabric prevents that by giving it support. If you have clay this prevents the same thing and road fabric isn't needed. It doesn't appear this is your problem as you don't have a muddy driveway. You have pot holes that keep returning. David Phillips is correct, use your scarfiers first to break up the pot holes or they will just continue to show up. Think of your pot holes as a bowl. They will hold material for a little while but as driven over and with water it will "wash" the material right out of the bowl again leaving the original pot hole. If you break it up there is no longer that bowl effect and will prevent future material from being washed out as you drive over it. Crown the middle so rain water will flow to the sides and not stay in the driveway, this will help also. When I use mine, once I get it pretty much the way I want it, I then leave the box blade tilted forward like you have it, but then I drop it all the way own and use the back blade on the box and push going backward. This will take out any humps you have fill holes or low spots in nicely and gives it a good finish look. This works well because the rear blade is slightly up off the ground and you are riding on the front blade, which can't dig in because it is going backward. High spots are cut down by the rear blade slightly off the ground and easily fills in and then the front blade just slides over it riding on the top of the surface. Just another observation, you need spacers for your box blade for when you use your quick connect. Or, if you look at Good Works Tractor, they sell a quick connect that doesn't need spacers, they are made for Cat 1 pins. Spacers will prevent slop, damage to connector pins, and noise / rattling.

Loved that "Tractor Parking Only" sign. :))

Try to drain the water and de mud the wet area's in the future. Might have to dig an area on the side of the driveway just to lose the water but it'll help the driveway a lot in the long run. Fighting water and mud is an uphill battle. Keep up the content we love it 👍

I just got to the point where you talked about never using the rippers. That’s the 1st thing you should use. Rip up the whole driveway and through the pot holes. Then lift the rippers and use the box to spread and crown the driveway. This will prevent pot holes from forming for longer and keep you from purchasing gravel.

Great detail in your video ! Happy New Year. Really enjoying your channel.

Ideally you dig down to a hard, clean surface. Usually only takes a few inches. Then put down the fabric. Then put a layer of larger stone (about 2 to 3 inches). Then add a layer of crush and run (it may be called something else in your area). It has fine stones and some dust. This allows it to pack in tight and spread the weight of your vehicle across the larger stone underneath. You can put the fabric across an existing stone drive then add the crush and run. But, i would suggest 2 things first. Level your drive at the least. Start by ripping up the pot holes with your scarifiers. Then drag it level. But, the problem you are having is standing water under the surface of the stone. You need to build your ditches and drains for this water first and foremost. There are many videos on youtube showing how to do this. Best of luck and have a happy new year.

Lol, I got the same sign (x 2) for Christmas. One from my wife and one from my youngest daughter.

Nice job with the driveway. A box blade is tricky to use until you get the hang of it, but you serem to have some answers already. It would be nice to have rear remotes and a hydraulic cylinder ti adjust the angle of the blade. Thank you for the informative video.

Your conditions are a little wet there, but I understand wanting to flatten things out before the snow gets there. The box blade will do a lot of things, but some implements will do it better, and faster. You could use it's scarifiers to break up the pot holes (which is a must), then hit it with a land plane. You can and should get the land plane with scarifiers if you buy one. You won't believe how much faster it is than a box blade AND does a much better job. You also need the pin bushing kit for your implements to properly fit the quick-hitch. If you don't have them, it can bounce and slap around and cause undue wear as well as potentially popping out during use. It's happened to me, bushings on everything including the top link. Keep up the good work and good videos ..... Montana Dan

I could be wrong but you want the crown in the middle to help the water drain away off the sides and not collect. Also lower the scarifiers and angle the blade left to right and keep making passes, the first few passes will seem like it isn’t doing anything but just keep going and it will all fall into place. But I could be wrong just what I saw others do. Love your videos and I’m also in NE Ohio !

Nice job and I liked your No Parking sign 😉

All that water has to have some place to go. You can keep doing what your doing but it will be a constant battle until you create better drainage. Also, I think you need more gravel instead of just stone on your drive. What your doing is fine and it gives you some tractor time, so its not all bad!

Dressed out well. Nice work, just in time.

Doing this right now. First time with my new to me 1026R. Then videoing it for my channel is all a challenge. First few times I just felt I was messing it up more than helping. Practice makes perfect. 😀

Limestone 304 is good for filling in those problematic low areas because it compacts and doesn’t move easily like loose gravel.

You would need to address the issue of standing water on your driveway, maybe a side ditch would do the trick but the water needs to drain off the drive as it rains, I am no expert but something you may want to consider. BTW thank you for your years in the fire service.

Problem with gravel is evrytime you drive on it. You push off to sides, get a blade that will turn in to pull gravel back from edge and towards center. Do both sides several times and then use your box scraper to even out drive way. Looking at your video your gonna need stone for finishing touch. Repeat a few times a year and your drive way will be even and no pools of water.

If you’d like some constructive critique I offer you the following. Obviously, if you’d rather not get other opinions, just skip this. You stated you’ve never used your scarifiers. Your driveway is beyond using only the blades on your box. You said the potholes always come back in the same places. Here’s my recommendation on stopping that. Pick a nice warm dry day. Tilt the blade toward the tractor and put down your scarifiers; not necessarily all the way down unless there is enough gravel down that you wouldn’t be digging up the dirt substrate; only about as deep as your stone. Start with the chuck holes and thoroughly rip up all sides of the holes in different directions. Once that’s done, start at one end of the driveway (not in the middle). Drop the blade with the scarifiers still down and SLOWLY drag the entire length of the driveway multiple times in both directions. You’ll think you’re destroying it but that’s ok; it’s normal. Once you’ve got all the driveway ripped after multiple slow passes, raise the scarifiers all the way up. Tilt the box back to a level position and begin multiple full length runs again. The name of the game here is work SLOWLY. After multiple passes, you will then need to move some stone to lower areas. You do this by dropping the box and feathering the height with your 3-pt lever slightly raising it to drop stone in the lower areas. Once you do this for a bit you will be able to see when the box is loading, when it’s holding the load and when it’s dropping stone. This is not a quick job. Plan out the bulk of a day to do it right. Then lower the right side of the box and make a few soft passes to create a slight crown in the middle. When finished, use a lawn roller or even just your tractor tires running back and forth to compact the stone before there is a bunch of vehicle traffic on it. If you do this correctly, you’ll find yourself doing far less driveway maintenance in the future and then using just the blade without the scarifiers will suffice, at least for a good long while.What you are doing now is only making it look nice for a little while then you’re back to where you were. I hope you take this the way it is intended, which is only to help you out. I’ve done a LOT of box blade work on multiple driveways including one of mine that is 1,500 feet long. I now only have to smooth it once a year or sometimes once every two years. Good luck and have fun on your tractor.

I spent 20 years fighting a gravel drive (quite a bit shorter) but poured it this year, about 40 yards.

As someone else mentioned, it appears you have a lot of standing water next to the driveway. That indicates a drainage problem. I suggest installing a field drain so the water has someplace to go. It's hard to tell the lay of the land from your videos, but it looks like the property generally slopes down toward the road. If so, perhaps a field drain along the edge of the driveway could carry the excess water to the drainage ditch along the road. Whatever the lay of the land, you need to provide somewhere for that water to go.

Maybe ask Mike Morgan from outdoors with the Morgan`s about what to do with your driveway. He seems very knowledgeable about this sort of thing!

Dig out the potholes first .. you gotta rip down below the potholes.. otherwise the holes will comeback quickly… take your time and do it right.. it actually takes awhile…

You have to get your pot holes to drain or they will come right back. Cut the side out of the pot hole then use the rippers to break up the holes

were box blade the water is runs into driveway i would tilt box about 10 to 15 % and dig a ditchalong side to a low placr it could empty into ditch at street, that should slow washout .

Do you need bushings for your box blade since you have that quick hitch?

Looks like you need more rock on your drive

Trade box blade for a Land Plane and will do a much nicer job and is a lot easier!!

I'm not sure how well asphalt would hold up in your area and honestly I hate to see the estimate to have that done that's quite a long driveway.

You need bushings

I'm pretty sure your making a huge mistake. The driveway will not be hard packed anymore. And when you plow the snow. You'll be dealing with a lot of stone in your grass.

This is painful to watch. You don't use the box blade when the ground is wet.. You also want the crown in the driveway to allow the water to move one side to another. You need culverts and Swales guide that water to where you want it. The rippers are designed to bring up all the stone that's been pushed down.dont use the rippers when the ground is frozen..

I don't think a box blade is good for final grade

have you looked at bitchute? with everyone bailing off of youtube check it out.