A boxblade comes home!

GunnyIa

Member
Had a late Christmas gift come home yesterday. Went to one of my favorite stores and saw box blades for sale. A 5' was priced around $650, and a 6' priced at $350. Now, knowing something looked strange with this, I called for the store manager, and told him I wanted to purchase the 6 footer (wouldn't you?). He said OK, I said whats the price, he said $350, I said "then, being a fair & honest shopper, can you tell me why a 5 footer costs $650, and a 6 footer costs only $350? He said "NO, I can 't, but it's tagged for $350 so I will have to charge you only $350!"

It came home with me.
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Now, being a good and fair shopper, I suggested to the store manager that I really wanted a 5' box blade. I offered a suggestion, I would trade him the new 6' for a new 5', with no dollar exchange. This way, he would not loose as much money on the sale of the 6 footer, and I would get my desired 5 footer. I had reasons for wanting a 5 footer. You see, this is the tractor that will be using the new box blade!

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As we already know, the 6 footer came home with me. Now, I have a dilemma. Do I KEEP IT and use the new 6 footer, or do I SELL IT and buy a new 5 footer with change to spare, or do I SWAP IT for another 5 footer with someone???

More questions will come on how do I USE IT on a 1 mile gravel road, etc.

Ok, friends, all thoughts & comments are welcomed & appreciated!

Gunny, in Iowa
 
I would try it first. It just may work. A 66" would likely be the ideal size for you but those are few and far between and especially at that low price point since they sort of an oddball size.

I agree that a 60" is more proper for your hp but 66" or 72" is better to cover your rear wheel track width.

If you not using it real heavy that 72" size will likey work just fine. Remember your 3 point arms are designed to pull not push so always do any heavy work going forward. That said light work can be done pushing in reverse.

You will learn the tricks of shortening and lengthening your top link as well as raising and lowering your one adjustable lower link by trial and error in use.
 
When grading, you may need the scarifiers to loosen up hard packed road material, and you'll want to grade it so that you maintain a crown in the road. I don't think 6' is too much for that tractor, should be about right. You would really have to lug down in soft material for that to be an issue, even then, take up 2 shanks when ripping, take less of a bite, make an extra pass or something. Its nice to have your rear wheels covered by the width of these implements as was stated below. I see you have a back blade, you can tilt it and angle it out, to windrow material from the side of the road bed once loose, to build up that crown, then carefully grade it smooth, paying attention to the material flow at the moldboard, lifting and lowering as needed to flow the material where it needs to be. With the box blade you are retaining material, you do the same thing when raising it to allow material to flow, but you'll have to establish the crown first, and I think that's best done with the back blade as you can windrow material just like a motor grader does. With both, you should be set now to grade that road, they are nice to have for this. Without that crown you will get a lot of potholes that can be stubborn to fix, our road at the horse stable was terrible, was flat and the darned potholes were awful to deal with, graded properly, would have been so much different.
 
Never had a box blade and know nothing about their yse. That said a 5' is not wide enough for your tractor, you need to be at least as wide as the tires are and 5' will not do that. The 5' is only for a small compact tractor with narrower wheel tread. Your tractor is 5" too wide for a 5" blade
 
Good info here!

I've been grading with the blade tilted, getting a good sloop to the road now with slight hump in the middle. Still have pot holes, but fewer than before.

Read where a user first went over the road with scarfers, then pulled the scarfers up and went over the road with just the box blade to move gravel around. Couldn't I use both together to loosen material, followed by the back of the box to spread the material and fill holes? I'm thinking to drop the scarfers about 2" below blade, then drag the box flat on the side pieces. Yep?
 
Gunny,

I have a six foot box blade that I use on my Ford 2000 tractor to "grade" my 1/3 mile long, crushed rock driveway.

I have no idea if what I do is right or not, but it's what I've been doing for the past 7 or 8 years since I replaced my scraper blade with my box blade.

I let the box all the way down and let it run on the two outside ends of the box. The amount of rock/dirt that gets picked up by the box is determined by the length of the top link on my 3 point hitch. The length of the top link will determine the pitch of the box, including the blade, and consequently how much rock/dirt is scraped into the box.

I try to crown the driveway by adjusting the length of the right hand three-point arm, but I'm not really very good at accomplishing that.

If the box gets full of rocks/dirt, I raise the three point and allow some of the dirt to trail out of the box.

Basically, you just have to use it and try different things to accomplish what you want.

Good luck,

Tom in TN
 

I have a pull behind box scraper that hydraulically tilts one end deeper than the other. It does a decent job of making a crown though it takes more trips back and forth to get the job done compared to a blade that can be angled.
 
Thanks, folks, for the good info! I thought I would need to experiment a little with it to learn. I 'll do that after the next rain or snow (we have NO snow now, some coming next week maybe?)

When you lower one side of the box blade to create a crown in the road, do you keep the side lowered on the second pass on the same side of the road? I tried that with just the blade, and it kind of cut another gully in the middle of the lane. My road is 20' ~ wide so I figured 3 to 4 passes for completion? I'm sure that's clear as mud!

Gunny. in Iowa
 
Keep in mind you are likely best not to use those scarfier rippers when the ground is frozen. Farmers do not plough (or plow) either when the ground is frozen.

Frozen ground just puts a whole not more unnecessary strain on everything - tractor and the blade. And even if you get it to break loose will be lots of frozen clumps that will be hard to work level like you want.
 
Once you windrow some material,if you have enough in the road bed, from the side, you'll want to pretend you are a dozer or grader operator, and spread that windrow as needed. Now maybe you could make a 2nd pass to retrieve more off the side and double the windrow. Grading is just like painting as I see it, 'cept you are spreading gravel, so once you have loose material to work with, you will need to be attentive to the tilt of the moldboard/cutting edge, you won't want it as tilted down for wind rowing, but you don't want it flat either. The pitch of the moldboard/cutting edge like has been said, is adjusted from your top link, and you may not want it as aggressive as when cutting to gather up material. Same will be true with the angle of the moldboard cutting edge, you don't want it wind rowing material when grading, you want it spreading material evenly, which means you must keep material in front of the moldboard/cutting edge at all times or you will have voids and it could get messy, though usually easily fixed once you have loose material. So the angle you use should spread the material evenly, but without excessive ridges or windrows either side of the blade. You may get a few of those, depends on your eye for it, the ability to control the blade and that is all manual out of the seat adjustment except tilt, so you do want to go slow at first, speed plays a role here for making corrections. On dozers we can usually grade loose material with a little zip, even top off little ridges, but you have so much more control over the blade then you do with an N and rear implements. When we would grade the sides of ponds, we usually start low and work our way out, leaving excess towards the high side, same with a swale or large ditch, where slope and grades are important, spoils that come out, go elsewhere, grade is maintained.

Now from a flat hard packed road wear course such as crusher run stone or screened gravel, it could be aggravating to use this arrangement, or these implements having no down pressure, or breakout force, at that point it just might be better to rent a dozer with scarifiers, rip, grade, add material as needed, get that road graded correctly then use this to maintain it.

Now if the road bed is crowned and close to what you need to have it drain to the ditch on each side you either have loose material that you were able to rip up and windrow or you have added material and that is best done off the truck by chaining the tail gate to allow a uniform thickness to pour out over distance, instead of working off a pile. Using these implements will then certainly be easier with loose material that just needs to be graded. The fun part about this is that if you have even the slightest sense of what I am describing, you'll easily pick up on it and learn how to adjust the back blade and or box blade to get it to do what you want. I can remember learning these things in my early days of running a D3 on a long gravel driveway, aggravating at first, but then it became easy as I could finally cut with out scalloping, and grade with the blade without making a mess. It was also fun to watch someone on a motor grader, sure helps you understand the basics of road grading. Those old tow behind graders with the big wheels for adjusting things, still very useful today, I watched one towed by a crawler at a tractor show, amazing at how these same skills were needed then as they are today, though we do have GPS for dozers.

If you look in front of the blade on the dozer and this is almost comparing apples to oranges, but you can see the blade has material in front of it and I am favoring one side to fill, (placing some nice run of bank gravel for a sub-base). The finished side not being filled, I am controlling the blade to fill to the left and keep the grade on the right.

Long winded LOL ! but a great topic for these implements, which are simple and really inexpensive tools to have for maintaining a long gravel driveway.
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Box blades pack with snow and it won't fall out when you lift it up. The wetter the snow the worse it is, stick with the back blade without the sides. My two cents worth.
 
There's a simple solution to your dilemma. Keep the scraper and just buy another bigger tractor. A man can never have too many tractors.
 
I have one just like it. And it pulls ok on our 2N but I use it on a B275. The only issue I've had with it, and I'm not sure why it happens, it will push out, or mangle the hitch pins that hold the 3 point lift arm pins in, so all of a sudden the blade falls off the arm. So far it's a mystery what's causing it. Never happen to be looking at it when it happens

I'm sure glad to see the tips to use the thing in this thread. I found the top link adjustment to be pretty sensitive and it's been tough to learn because I've been using it in ground that has a sod layer.

I tried it on the driveway and that's a lot easier but there's some huge loaf I'd bread sized rocks that are just under the surface and that complicates things. I intend on getting a landscape rake so I can sift out these rocks from the drivaway material after pulling it all into fluff with the teeth on the box blade.

I had a very good friend who has a lot of farming experience that was coaching me on the use of some of my stuff, he was goin to show me how to make a w ditch and how too shape the ground for drainage. I'll tell you that there is no substitute for experienced eyes on what's in front of you. He passed away last week and I'll sure miss him. He was a great friend. Lots of people are willing to help most of the time and they are great. but he truly wanted us to succeed at what we were doing.
 
Using a box blade for snow seems questionable to
me. I have both a box blade and a back blade. I
use the back blade for snow and the box blade to
smooth the gravel road.
 
(quoted from post at 03:14:37 01/02/15) Using a box blade for snow seems questionable to
me. I have both a box blade and a back blade. I
use the back blade for snow and the box blade to
smooth the gravel road.

Actually a box blade can work quite well for snow in a pinch. Now clearing a long lane like you have or a road not much good there.

That said a lot of the smaller lightweight tractors really get pushed around on slick snow when you use an angled blade without chains on the tires. Use of the box blade and you adjust your travel patterns to Y-patterns or herring bone fish patterns. You can move a lot of snow this way and always have control since the blade is straight and not trying to push you sideways like an angled blade wants. Use the box to pull away from buildings too but do not pack it in there tight.

On my little Kubota I use the front loader bucket to bulldoze snow in forward. Use the boxblade to bulldoze snow going rearward in reverse. Use Y-patterns and herringbone patterns and almost always moving snow whether going forward and backward. Very little wasted motion. Not how I would want to do a long lane or road, but I do not have those type areas to clear.

Have an angled blade and it just mostly sets. Even set straight it wants to ride up plowing in reverse where the boxblade being heavier does not.
 
Ok, the verdict is in. I chose to keep the 6 footer. I like the fact that the tires are covered. So I hooked it up today and got some seat time.

Previous grading's were done to build a crown in the center of the road. This left a windrow at the edge of the road on each side. Today I dragged the box blade over those windrows and pulled the rock/gravel back onto the road.

It worked GREAT!
 
you did good, now you are only one tool short of a full load for complete driveway maintenance.

a rock rake.

I have all three tools and each has its own merit.

for giving the road way a light dress up the rock rake does a fine job. leaves a smooth top dress to the driveway and allows you to pull the gravel or dirt to the center
also you can turn the diggers or teeth around and drag the roadway for an extra smooth finish.
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Just giving my opinion on the snow removal. I have
a 10' pull type box scraper, and since I got it my
loader hardly ever gets used for snow. Up to 4" of
snow I always use the box scraper and anything
over that I get out the snow blower. Yes sometimes
snow will stick but usually after I pick it up a
couple bounces and the snow will fall out. You do
need a large area to go with the snow since you
can't really pile it up much. I have a 6 acre
pasture next to the yard so that works well.
 
That reminds me when I wanted to buy a gift for my
future father-in-law. I saw a really nice hand
made Italian leather wallet in a leather shop, I
took it to the counter and the guy said "Oh
actually that has the wrong price tag tied to it,
it should be £10 more than that, but since it is
marked at that price by law I must sell you it at
that price". Result!
 
I have a 5 1/2' box blade I use on my 1000'+
driveway and for skidding timber. I have also run
it on my 8n. If you don't load the box all the way
up with dirt you should be fine. If you run it
with the scarifies all the way down it will pull
your 8n hard and will load the box up fast. I
never used mine on snow. I have a back blade and
snowplows for that.
6" will cover your wheels so I'd say give it a try
and see how you like it.

Kirk
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