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

[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.