So, I have a hill face that ranges from something like a 20 degree angle to 60 degree angle. (Maybe more in some places.) It is probably something like 200-300 feet to the bottom of the hill if I go down in a straight line.

The blade on my D6 5R is a straight blade. There is no angling, there is no tilting, there is only up and down.

I am trying to figure out how to tackle my hills. My property is made up of hills and it basically has a nice deep ravine in it.

The other day I taught myself how to make a terrace. It's probably the best job so far I have ever done making a relatively large level area on my hill. I made an "upper" terrace and a "lower" terrace. Basically I made the first terrace and then went down my hill a bit and made the lower terrace. I was having the problem where the tractor was tilted, so my lower terrace was angled downhill still. So, after pushing enough dirt for the lower terrace to be wide enough to my liking, I went back to the upper terrace and decided to face the lower terrace from the upper terrace and dig down deep and basically drive over the edge of the upper terrace into the lower terrace. Pushing a large amount of dirt at the same time, which I used to make the lower terrace level instead of angled downhill. Once I had enough dirt in the lower terrace, I just started pushing the dirt in the lower terrace to get it to my liking, where there is now more of a 90 degree drop from the upper terrace to the lower.

Doing that has me wondering if it is better to work from the bottom of the hill and work your way up or the top of the hill and work your way down. It also has me wondering if I may have better success building a road across a hill by working perpendicular to the direction of the roads travel.

I may be able to cut a road straight to the bottom of my hill, but the roads angle would be pretty steep. Probably at least 30 degrees. I also have some concern that my tractor may not be able to get itself back up the hill if the hill is too steep.

I am probably going to make a winding road to the bottom so the road isn't too steep. I have quite a bit of property that I would like to be able to access easier, so I gotta figure out how to cut some roads around it.

Anyone have any experience, suggestions, road building testimony? Maybe an idea of how steep is too steep for a D6 5R to climb or go down?

"Neil" wrote:

I'm looking forward to the replies to this thread - thanks for asking this BAC!

Yeah, I hope there are people with input.

On my way to asking my questions, I seemed to write a story that I figured may be interesting to some people. hehe.

I try to look for videos on people using a dozer to take on a hill, but I swear that most everyone has the flattest land that could be or their hills are not much taller than their dozer.

Hi, BigAgCat.
One way of getting started on something like cutting a terrace on the side of a hill is to start by working down the hill first to cut yourself a flat area to work from. It only needs to be maybe 2 or 3 dozer lengths long, just to give you a start at cutting the rest of the terrace. Start at the point where you want the top of your cut slope to be and push down and out to make a flat bench to start from.

It doesn't matter if you don't get right down to the desired grade with this bench. It's just a starting point to work from.

"Kwestyun": Does your straight blade have a working screw tilt brace on it that would allow you to tilt the blade one way or the tother? Or have they been thoughtfully welded up by some resourceful soul before you acquired it?

Just my 0.02.

Once you get your flat areas made you should consider making them a little high as you go out from the hill, then cut a ditch along the hill side and run the water some where it will do no harm. That way rain water will not wash your flat area down the hill.

"Deas wrote:

Hi, BigAgCat.

"Kwestyun": Does your straight blade have a working screw tilt brace on it that would allow you to tilt the blade one way or the tother? Or have they been thoughtfully welded up by some resourceful soul before you acquired it?

The bolts are thoughtfully welded nice and good. So thoughtfully that it is almost as if they were cast in to the whole blade if only to give the facade of nuts and bolts.

"BobPV15" wrote:

Once you get your flat areas made you should consider making them a little high as you go out from the hill, then cut a ditch along the hill side and run the water some where it will do no harm. That way rain water will not wash your flat area down the hill.

Yeah, I was thinking a sort of back slope to, perhaps, collect the rain water. A rain water collection and storage system is one of the things on my list of things to do. Being one of the reasons I want to get a road cut to the bottom of my other hill. The ravine is such that I could pretty much just build a dam at the bottom of the hill and throw down some pond liner or something to have a pond or lake for water storage. Minimal digging and all the rain water would flow down into it.

But, I may just be dreaming thinking I'll get much water by collecting rain.

That depends on where you live, here we get an average of 150 inches a year, so you learn fast to plan for the rain or you pay the price!

"BigAgCat" wrote:

Yeah, I was thinking a sort of back slope to, perhaps, collect the rain water. A rain water collection and storage system is one of the things on my list of things to do. Being one of the reasons I want to get a road cut to the bottom of my other hill. The ravine is such that I could pretty much just build a dam at the bottom of the hill and throw down some pond liner or something to have a pond or lake for water storage. Minimal digging and all the rain water would flow down into it.

But, I may just be dreaming thinking I'll get much water by collecting rain.

- i think you're on the right track with the ravine idea....that's the perfect start for a pond...a lot of the work is already done and of course it's going to catch Spring thaw runoff, rain, etc..

-i've got a couple small ravines on my property, that's my plan of attack:rain:

Using a fixed straight blade to side cut is very difficult for the most experienced operator, getting set up and keeping a berm on the outside to back the outside track onto to tilt the inside corner tip down into the hillside, invariably there is enough slop in a blade that it will eventually get away from you if you are not diligent in maintaining/keeping the outside high. 60 degree and higher you are into serious side cutting territory with very high batters, I suggest you get the turn braces fixed so that you can tilt the blade, will make life so much easier and save a lot of time and fuel as well as you will not get near as frustrated with things. I spent 15 years side cutting a 30km road for a few months each winter, highest side cut was 76 feet to get a road width of 24 feet.

Happy side cutting.

Wombat