Putting a 2.75" hardened steel pipe on rear blade for plowing in soft conditions?

[jyoutz]

This is the answer.
They made skate shaped ones, too!
Easy on/off!

Those work great on pavement or hard frozen ground. On softer ground they just make 2 trenches.

 

[bgr]

I plow a mile of gravel road in upstate NY. We used to have a hard freeze which lasted all winter. Now we get thaws frequently during the winter. As OP says the road gets soft and rutty and the snow becomes glare ice when it refreezes. We do 2 things to deal with it:

1. Just after road refreezes or whenever it is icy, we go over it with a trailer type of standard york rake. It smooths the ruts, breaks up the ice surface, and brings up a little stone and grit onto the ice surface. it refreezes smooth after that. The grit stops skidding, somewhat like sanding the road. We never had to do that before we had all the thaws. We have not had problems with the york rake digging in.

2. When I run my tractor with a rear blade and trailer wheel, I use an hydraulic top link. To smooth contours the most and avoid having the blade pop up and down, I lower the 3ph lift arm control completely, then apply pressure on the top link till the blade is at the height I want leaving the 3ph arms floating in the down position. This follows the grade a lit better than using the 3ph adjustment to set blade height. It is easier to make slight adjustments using the top link than with the 3ph arms. It is also gradually making the road smoother. You will like your top and tilt hydraulics. Hopefully you have 3 outlets so you can hydraulic swivel also.

Might work for you , but as others have said, working on a road with a thin gravel base is hard when it softens during thaws. The thicker you can make the base, the better. But that is expensive in materials.

 

[In.the.Piñons]

It does work better with drier snow and you have to angle the blade to kick it to the side. I don’t think there’s any snow removal solution besides a blower that would do anything differently on a below grade level road. It has to be able to kick the accumulated snow to the shoulder.

I hear you, but to be clear, the below grade road had enough of a shoulder to allow the snow to clear when the blade was facing forward. In other words, I think there was multiple factors contributing to the rear facing blade clogging up. Speed, being below grade and the form of the reverse blade.

I should try it again this winter on other sections of my road...

 

[In.the.Piñons]

I have done just that. I would use a larger pipe. Mine is 4" and I wish it 6". Get the thickest wall you can get. After 8 years of use mine is wearing thin wear it contacts the ground. I had a welding shop cut a slot in the pipe and it fits over the cutting edge on the snow plow. 3 steel straps bolt it to the plow and allow me to attach or remove it. I wish there were covers over the ends as it collects stones and dirt when the blade it angled. Works great to clear snow from my gravel driveway and grass areas with out destroying the sod or pushing all the stone off my driveway.

Thanks for the tips! I can get some 5 & 1/2 inch dia pipe with 3/8th wall thickness from the same oil field guy for $10 a foot. I'll pick some up this afternoon.

 

[In.the.Piñons]

I plow a mile of gravel road in upstate NY. We used to have a hard freeze which lasted all winter. Now we get thaws frequently during the winter. As OP says the road gets soft and rutty and the snow becomes glare ice when it refreezes. We do 2 things to deal with it:

1. Just after road refreezes or whenever it is icy, we go over it with a trailer type of standard york rake. It smooths the ruts, breaks up the ice surface, and brings up a little stone and grit onto the ice surface. it refreezes smooth after that. The grit stops skidding, somewhat like sanding the road. We never had to do that before we had all the thaws. We have not had problems with the york rake digging in.

2. When I run my tractor with a rear blade and trailer wheel, I use an hydraulic top link. To smooth contours the most and avoid having the blade pop up and down, I lower the 3ph lift arm control completely, then apply pressure on the top link till the blade is at the height I want leaving the 3ph arms floating in the down position. This follows the grade a lit better than using the 3ph adjustment to set blade height. It is easier to make slight adjustments using the top link than with the 3ph arms. It is also gradually making the road smoother. You will like your top and tilt hydraulics. Hopefully you have 3 outlets so you can hydraulic swivel also.

Might work for you , but as others have said, working on a road with a thin gravel base is hard when it softens during thaws. The thicker you can make the base, the better. But that is expensive in materials.

Thanks, those are some good tips re using the gauge wheel, not the 3pt hitch, to set the blade height.

I have a hydro top link, but no tilt. I'm in the process of installing 4 additional rear remotes so I will have a total of 6. The blade now has cylinders for the gauge wheel, offset, blade tilt and angle, so I should be all set this winter (I hope).

 

[In.the.Piñons]

I have a buddy that cut a slot in a 10 foot 6 inch piece of 3" galvanized pipe with a "chop saw" for his 10 foot plow. He left 3 inches uncut on each end. He welded tabs and holds it on with 5/16" chain. It works great! We have non-frozen roads in the Fall, and the Spring, here in Maine. Wheels are no help, they just sink in the soft ground.

That's a pretty good idea. If I leave 3" uncut on each end, then that should help with the warping from internal stresses when the pipe was made.

 

[In.the.Piñons]

No blade attachment will cure 'roller coaster' terrain.
Hire in a capable guy with a small dozer to plane off high areas.

My road follows the contour of the earth, which is like a giant roller coaster. I think the steepest section drops 50ft in elevation over a distance of 350ft. Then it goes back up about 40ft and then back down etc. Underneath is sand stone in some places.

For the most part, the road needs to be the way it is to allow me to get places and not be 25ft below grade when I get there lol.

 

[In.the.Piñons]

What you describe is better termed a trail. Road requires gravel bed to be called as such.

Most of the road that I plow is gravel. There's just a 130 yard section near the house that is dirt that also needs plowing. I have trail roads on the property, but I usually don't plow them.

 

[In.the.Piñons]

I'd say - if you have the money - go for a landscape plane. It contains the gravel and redistributes it evenly across the surface without carrying a ton of it from one place to another like a box blade can.

Yep, I have a road boss land plane that I use smooth out the gravel.

 

[In.the.Piñons]

Here's a profile of one section of road that's 3/4 mile long. For scale, there's about 50ft in elevation change from the highest to the lowest point.

 

[In.the.Piñons]

BTW I did pick up 10ft of 5.5" dia oilfield pipe today. It looks to be about 5/16th thick and weight was about 80-100lbs. $100 for the pipe and my fabricator quoted me about $160 to cut a slit and weld on end caps.

 

[henerythe8th]

Those work great on pavement or hard frozen ground. On softer ground they just make 2 trenches.

Then make wide skates!

 

[In.the.Piñons]

I finally got around to getting the slit cut in the pipe and it's a perfect fit, on the first try (how often does that happen!?)

Now I want to secure it to the blade, so it does fall out when I raise the blade. Hopefuly you can see from the pics that there is an obvious hole to use. It's on the gussest on the rear of the blade.

So I was going to get a welder out here to do it on site. Hopfuly I can find someone that can fabricate a bracket & weld it on site (like the one pictured below).

Any ideas or suggestions? I figure the cutting edge is taking all the force the pipe is going to see. The brackets I want to have fabed up are just to hold it in place when the blade is raised.

 

[Gord Baker]

Not sure why you call this 'hardened' Pipe or its' purpose. Looks like 8" sch 40 to me. Get some 3/8" Chain and 2 grab hooks. Fit hook tightly over the end of pipe and put a bolt thru the Chain through the existing hole and use Jamb Nuts. Cut off excess chain. Ditto both ends. No welding required.

 

[In.the.Piñons]

Not sure why you call this 'hardened' Pipe or its' purpose. Looks like 8" sch 40 to me. Get some 3/8" Chain and 2 grab hooks. Fit hook tightly over the end of pipe and put a bolt thru the Chain through the existing hole and use Jamb Nuts. Cut off excess chain. Ditto both ends. No welding required.

Thanks for the suggestion. I think something like that would be a good idea. No point going to the expense and trouble of welding a bracket up when I don't know for sure how well it's going to work.

BTW I called it hardened pipe because that's what I was told it was when I purchased it. It's 5.5" in diameter and it's purpose is to (hopefully) allow me to plow my roads with the 3pt in float mode. The what/when/why of which has already been discussed earlier in this thread.

 

[jmc]

Interesting (and relevant) thread, OP. Hope you keep us updated.

 

[In.the.Piñons]

Interesting (and relevant) thread, OP. Hope you keep us updated.

Will do, but mother nature needs to bless us with some snow before I can do any testing.

 

[jjeff]

Will do, but mother nature needs to bless us with some snow before I can do any testing.

UnFrozen lawn plowed a foot deep snow with pipe welded on plows cutting edge I think it works pretty good.

 

[In.the.Piñons]

I secured the pipe to the blade with a hook and chains. Took the tractor out and dropped the blade on the dirt, just to see if it would hold in place. It held in place just fine, but the pipe rotates slightly and then springs back, pivoting on the cutting edge, sending high frequency vibration through the whole tractor. Not good. Maybe it would work on snow as there's less friction, but who knows.

You can see in this pic what's happening. Check out the ripples!! I guess I could weld on the pipe to the cutting edge and just buy a new cutting edge come summer, if they're not too expensive. Still, that's no promise that it's going to work.

 

[jyoutz]

Here are some photos of me plowing my road a couple weeks ago with the back blade reversed and floated on the road. It leaves about an inch of snow on top the gravel. This was only about 11-12” of snow, but it works the same with deeper snow. The key is the top link angle and having the blade offset and angled to kick show to the ditch. Been doing this for over 25 years.