On my mountain roads i cut i installed "water Bars" every so often to run water off. Usually at a point were the adjacent land was lower than the grade of my road
I learned this from the loggers who cut paths to haul the logs down off the mountain. sometimes i had to cut a trench from my road to a ravine to get the water off and flowing.
Yes a machine with out tilt is a challenge to cut out a side hill--i generally work the high side of the cut to start and gravity helps the soil roll sideways to the lower side--I also wok from the top downward as it is more efficient with the extra power going down hill

"BobPV15" wrote:

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!

From what I can find where I live, I am looking at maybe 10 inches of rain a year.

I have known old hands at cutting roads into hillsides that liked the solid blade, at least over a tilt that had much wear so it moved on it's own. But they have all pasted. Just take your time,nobody learned it all in a day. Use gravity to your advantage.

One of tricks that really helps is keep a berm on the down side. Then put the lower track on top of the berm to lean back into up hill side. Without tilt you may have back up much further than you want to. So keep it rather narrow with that lower berm to tilt you back. Once you get a "trail"that is more or less level widen to your hearts content and take out the berm if you wish.


In lower rainfall areas it was common to have the whole road all lean to the low side so water never built up on the road at all. But even in low rainfall areas this is wrong if you have the sugar type soil.

As you mentioned always consider the final grade for how steep your road is. It really helps me to get back were you can see the whole hillside to see how steep your grade needs to be in regard to what you have to work with. For some this much easier than others.

Here are a couple photos of my property to give people an idea of what I am working with.

You can use the house in the distance as a sort of reference point to get an idea of my hills and how steep they are. I find it quite difficult to really get the feel of my hills in a photo.

The shadowy area is the ravine and the lowest point pretty much. I estimate it is something like 200-300 feet to get to that ravine. There are basically two ravines, the one closest to the house in the distance and then the one close to me. The ravine closest to the house in the distance is basically the edge of my property. So I have that nice big hill between them too to work with.

"Ray54" wrote:

I have known old hands at cutting roads into hillsides that liked the solid blade, at least over a tilt that had much wear so it moved on it's own. But they have all pasted. Just take your time,nobody learned it all in a day. Use gravity to your advantage.

One of tricks that really helps is keep a berm on the down side. Then put the lower track on top of the berm to lean back into up hill side. Without tilt you may have back up much further than you want to. So keep it rather narrow with that lower berm to tilt you back. Once you get a "trail"that is more or less level widen to your hearts content and take out the berm if you wish.


In lower rainfall areas it was common to have the whole road all lean to the low side so water never built up on the road at all. But even in low rainfall areas this is wrong if you have the sugar type soil.

As you mentioned always consider the final grade for how steep your road is. It really helps me to get back were you can see the whole hillside to see how steep your grade needs to be in regard to what you have to work with. For some this much easier than others.

When I go out to look at my hills, they always look pretty steep until I go out walking on them, then they don't look so daunting. However, there is a spot or two that are basically cliffs.

When they put the blade on my dozer, I think they decided that nobody could ever possibly want to have a dozer blade that can be adjusted in any way. Hehe.

What is sugar type soil? The soil on my property, I would say, is pillow soft like powdered sugar until it gets a little water and turns into almost concrete.

"Neil" wrote:

I've never built a road but one tip I have from my days as a logging truck driver is to keep the corners flat (or flatter) than the straights when putting in a road up/down a hill. When pulling uphill on a graded corner, the outside drivers lose down pressure as the trailing load pulls from the side as you turn, and you lose traction, and then you create ruts, and then you lose more traction, and then the logger has to come down the hill with his skidder to push, thus losing his productivity : ) If you can't flatten the corners, then neutral or a little negative camber helps. On a straight and level upwards grade with firm, not dry dirt, a loaded truck will climb surprisingly steep, but is more easily defeated by corners.
My brother who has decades of experience creating forestry roads always preferred to put the road in with a dozer, and then let a digger take care of the culverts, water tables, and tidying up the batters. The reason he gave is that the to-and-fro of a dozer gave good perspective on the grade compared to an excavator.

I think I understand what you are talking about here. Basically level off the turns or have it so you lean out of the turn a bit instead of the usual leaning in when going around a corner. Makes sense.

A dozer is pretty great for building roads. Basically just dig in and push forward. The road is done. hehe. It just gets slightly more complicated when you want a road that is wider than the blade.

when you have that much elevation to make up in such a short distance...aren't you forced into switchbacks....something that is more easily climbed although more distance...
- i like the idea of the ends, corners flattened and widened...

Hi Team,
this LeT. book, Form No O-136, has some great tips on using a straight rigid dozer blade.

In the Fleabay link below the page 4 shows how to start an angled cut with a straight blade by setting one side of tractor on a berm.
We were taught this at Army Plant Operators Training Course if we needed extra angle beyond the tilt available on a dozer blade.
I have one of these books here but I cannot post pix anymore due to BB upgrade taking away my pic post allowance.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Eddie B.

www.ebay.com/itm/LeTOURNEAU-DOZER-Owner-...ractor-/201701435911

As the others have said, with a fixed blade, build a berm to get the bottom track up.
Start well above where you want your finished road surface to be or you'll end up trying te eat away at the bank above you.
In the steeper ground, stay on solid cut and not on the soft fill.
Take small cuts as this type of work is hard on clutches and brakes.