Snow 14" of Snow, First Use of Rear Blade

Deano · Jan 31, 2010

Last big snow we got I used the front loader.
This time I had purchased a used RB60 rear blade. I then ordered skid shoes for it. I really did not want to get snow to try it out. One of those buy it and hope I did not need it for snow. But we got 14" yesterday.
Wow!! what a difference!! So much quicker and no gouging the gravel driveway or the yard when I plowed paths to haul manure from the horse stalls to the manure pile.
I know a blower would be better, but we do not get snow very often here.

Deano

thavil · Jan 31, 2010

Glad the RB turned out to be a good puchase for you, still pondering purchasing one myself. Up the road from you, we only got 7.5" so my FEL worked well for me today.

thatguy · Jan 31, 2010

I have a paved drive so the FEL worked much better when clearing it. I set edge just below level and floated the bucket and it took our 12" of snow right down to pavement..

On our neighbors gravel drives I tried pushing snow with the back of the blade and it worked very well.. as the snow got heavier the blade would ride up, so I would push it to the side then pull forward and go backward again.. it would take around 5 passes before you got it down to the gravel. 2 of the drive that had not had traffice are almost bare gravel once the sun came out..

Brian

johann · Feb 1, 2010

I use the rear blade with great success, I live on the shore in CT, and we have such a mix of snow, it is not always light, a blower won't allways work. I have a gravel drive also, so a blower is no good anyway it is like shooting bullets at the house, and passers by. I almost bought a front blade, but I just could not come up with the coin, I am glad now that I did not. It is kinda nice to still be able to use the FEL to move extra snow up and out of the way when it gets to be too much.

Thomas · Feb 1, 2010

That's one attachment will put money back in your pocket w/interest over the years.

Deano · Feb 1, 2010

So far I am tending to agree with the usefulness of this implement. I was not going to buy one, but I found a used RB60 (with tilt) on Craig's List and bought it. The guy only used it twice and was selling it for $300. New it runs $570 at the dealer!
I have only had it for less than a month and have used it on our private lane for maintenance and now our second big snow this season. I only used the front loader the first snow.

Deano

Doug_D · Feb 1, 2010

Me and my boys spent the after noon doing all the neighbors drives and roads. Never thought about putting shoes on the blade. I bet that would make a world of difference. My blade is pretty old, but I may get out the welder

Mike_Kanzer · Feb 1, 2010

Deano-
I agree with you. I use an RB84 rear blade with shoes on my gravel drive and it does a nice job without picking up the gravel. I tried putting a piece of PVC pipe on the leading edge of the blade without using the shoes, but the pipe shattered after about 5 minutes use. Some guys on the site have had better success with Abs pipe. I am going to stick to the rear blade +/- the FEL. It did the job well during the December blizzard when we got 18".
-Mike

bx2230orange · Feb 6, 2010

I was always pushing gravel with my blade as well. I cut an old tire into 6" lengths, put one on each end of the blade, secured them with bungies. Worked great. Now the blade skims just above the grave and does not ride up like a reversed blade.

AJE · Feb 6, 2010

I do pretty well with my FEL and rear blade. I don't use anything on the blade other than using the float (I just drop it down close to the surface of the snow). I don't end up scraping gravel all that much, and if I do go too deep, I can just raise it up a little bit.

We got about 8-10", but it was drifting pretty bad. Parts of my driveway were ankle deep and parts were 3' deep. I had some piles up as high as I could get the bucket to dump and then I did a neighbor's drive as well.