# Why am I not scraping down to pavement?



## JFon101231

So I am relatively new to plowing. Had a truck two years ago, and after using a few times for my driveway and my in-laws 10 mins away, I sold it. Got one over the summer, an 88 K2500 (LD), with a Fisher 8' conventional full hydraulic set up. Truck is non-posi, and I have 660lbs of sand in the bed (reg cab, long bed, single rear wheel).

This year started talking around and picked up a driveway in the neighborhood for $45/per push. Its pretty long (10-11' wide), but plenty of room by the garage to move around. So with this last storm, I plowed at 6p on Sunday, and everything seemed fine. Went back around 1p the next day to plow the inch or two additional accumulation and quite a bit that had blown in the wind. My problem is that on the 2nd trip, it seems only the middle of the driveway I got down to tar. I have an 8' blade and only single rear wheel, so i'm not sure why this is happening? I think they may have driven over it, but still don't think it should have caused this. I had the plow full angled, maybe I should only angle it a little? Or am I driving too fast or too slow? Almost seems like maybe the snow rolled off the edge of the plow, but hit the mound that was there from the night before and fell back onto the driveway before my wheels passed over it? At the end of the day, I took a little off the price because I felt bad when I saw it wasn't completely scraped and I wasn't sure what else to do. I didn't try it, but the only other thing I could think of was to try and go back angling towards the middle of the driveway so the leading edge was hitting the side that wasn't coming up...

Any thoughts/comments/suggestions appreciated!!!
Jeff


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## cubanb343

Do you have shoes on your plow? If so, lose those. Or maybe the asphalt is uneven?


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## geer hed

cubanb343 is right about the shoes, without them it will scrape better. However it's not uncommen for a little bit of snow to be left behind (like a dusting). There are alot of things that can cause it, like uneaven pavement, the crown in the driveway, the way your cutting edge is worn, the weight of your plow, even the type snow, and if it was driven on and packed down. The angle of the blade SHOULDN'T make much of a difference unless your trying to push a lot of snow at one time where it wants to lift the plow, and single or dual rear wheels doesn't matter, you can have 6 wheels on the back but it won't help the plow scrape any better. Now speed can make a differnce but onless your doing a 1/4 mile or more long driveway I doubt you will go fast enough for speed to be an isue.


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## Runner

It is hardly ever going to clean down to bare pavement, unless there is some weird conditions that exist like real warm ground temps that cause the snow not to bond. I can tell you one thing that will help the pavement to be clear, is salting. It is not just a matter of melting down the remains of what is left on the surface, but it becomes a chain of prevention, also. the salt (or whatever is used) residue creates a barrier that keeps the snow from bonding - creating an easy scrape. This is especially helpful on sidewalks. When something like calcium/magnesium acetate is used, it makes the next snow shoveling feel like the walks are lubricated to the shovel. They are not slick to walk on, but the shovel just glides real easy.


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## shovelracer

sounds like a crown in the driveway. Very common around here. The driveways are not installed the best and the cars only drive the same two tracks leaving the middle higher. If it is wide enough to get 70% to the side of the crown you can usually get most of it. I have a few that leave an inch or two. I have seen ones that are easily several inches of crown, to the point you wonder how a car does not scrape. I turn those down now.


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## WingPlow

the chances of you scraping down to bare blacktop are extremely rare 

scrape off what you can and let mother nature or else salt if you salt do the rest

just take a look at the roads when it snows...they dont normally scrape down to bare pavement unless they were pretreated first


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## KMBertog

unless it is pretreated it is hard to clean to the pavement... you can take the shoes off of the plow, and that might help.


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## snowman91

Driveway crown or probably just a smile on the cutting edge. Its not going to be perfect everytime but after a while of plowing with the blade angled it will develop a smile or curve at the bottem of the cutting edge


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## STIHL GUY

WingPlow;1176957 said:


> the chances of you scraping down to bare blacktop are extremely rare
> 
> scrape off what you can and let mother nature or else salt if you salt do the rest
> 
> just take a look at the roads when it snows...they dont normally scrape down to bare pavement unless they were pretreated first


none of ours get down all the way to the pavement and i have a brand new cutting edge on the plow too. when the sun hits the little bit left or if e put a little ice melt it takes care of it


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## JFon101231

geer hed;1176686 said:


> cubanb343 is right about the shoes, without them it will scrape better. However it's not uncommen for a little bit of snow to be left behind (like a dusting). There are alot of things that can cause it, like uneaven pavement, the crown in the driveway, the way your cutting edge is worn, the weight of your plow, even the type snow, and if it was driven on and packed down. The angle of the blade SHOULDN'T make much of a difference unless your trying to push a lot of snow at one time where it wants to lift the plow, and single or dual rear wheels doesn't matter, you can have 6 wheels on the back but it won't help the plow scrape any better. Now speed can make a differnce but onless your doing a 1/4 mile or more long driveway I doubt you will go fast enough for speed to be an isue.


Probably mostly the crown, because it is a little bit of a narrower driveway. The cutting edge is almost new, no wear on the edges. Also do not run shoes. I guess I should clarify and not say that I necessarily expected bare pavement, I know "dusting" level is normal, but there was still some packed snow and I felt like it should have come up since it wasn't icy. I'd say it was at least an inch, maybe 2". I felt bad charging the full quote I had given him, if that makes sense - I felt it looked unprofessional? Seemed worse than those who had snowblow'd their drive, though I feel better after these posts. The dual wheel comment was to say that it wasn't like I was running over my windrow by not having a blade big enough.

From the sounds of it, I guess its to be expected and nothing to get bent over.


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## theplowmeister

Possibly the plow A frame is not level and so the plow (when angled) does not sit flat on the ground?


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## JFon101231

Well hmm. The plow is current pinned in the lowest hole, which makes the rams parallel to the ground when the plow is down. But, I say hmm because I know the blade is higher on the left if angled full right when raised, but I'm pretty sure that is normal...


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## slave2lawns

Runner;1176710 said:


> It is hardly ever going to clean down to bare pavement, unless there is some weird conditions that exist like real warm ground temps that cause the snow not to bond. I can tell you one thing that will help the pavement to be clear, is salting. It is not just a matter of melting down the remains of what is left on the surface, but it becomes a chain of prevention, also. the salt (or whatever is used) residue creates a barrier that keeps the snow from bonding - creating an easy scrape. This is especially helpful on sidewalks. When something like calcium/magnesium acetate is used, it makes the next snow shoveling feel like the walks are lubricated to the shovel. They are not slick to walk on, but the shovel just glides real easy.


I think that's great advice. I'm going to try it at a few my Dunkin Donuts stops and see what happens.


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## theplowmeister

JFon101231;1178893 said:


> Well hmm. The plow is current pinned in the lowest hole, which makes the rams parallel to the ground when the plow is down. But, I say hmm because I know the blade is higher on the left if angled full right when raised, but I'm pretty sure that is normal...


That is normal


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## harddock

I'll catch some hell for this but I'd bet if you did that same area with a Meyers or a Western it would scrape it almost bare. Fisher unless it has a real good cutting edge won't scrap to bare as well.


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## KGRlandscapeing

harddock;1209372 said:


> I'll catch some hell for this but I'd bet if you did that same area with a Meyers or a Western it would scrape it almost bare. Fisher unless it has a real good cutting edge won't scrap to bare as well.


yup your gonna catch some hell but the older fishers are heavy as heck but they had a far more layd back cutting edge


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