Advice on Rear Blade

Lou270 · Mar 28, 2016

Hello All,

I am fairly new to owning/using tractor and looking for advice on correct rear blade for tractor and hoping folks on this forum can help me avoid failures I have already made on past implement purchases (quality, too small, wrong tool..). I have a Mahindra 4530 and own 200 acres in East Texas. My property has roads all through it in varying states of quality. Some of the roads were at one point built properly (crowned/ditched/water bars/rock), others are old logging roads, others are little more than path through the brush that either I have built or had dozer out for some reason or other and put it. All of the roads need reshaping work, some need ditches, and all need more frequent maintenance. Since the roads wind around the property some are fairly wide (12-14ft), others are pretty narrow (wide enough for tractor/truck but not much more). The property is mix of hardwood bottoms and mixed hilltops so there is a lot of up and down and soil can be rocky on hills to sandy/clay in low areas and fair amount of roots to deal with on roads. With that back ground I am looking to buy a rear blade that I can use to maintain ditches that exist, create new ones, crown/shape the roads and other general road maintenance. I have also been opening up some area for foodplots in clear cut area and was hoping to use blade to drag debris to get starting point for discing. I do currently have a 6ft box blade that I bought at local dealer but think quality is equivalent to what would buy at tractor supply and managed to bend it up pretty good on roads/roots around property. With that back ground in mind I was looking at buying a bush hog 50-07 7ft rear blade. This blade has offset and tilt so looks like just the ticket for ditches. Since I can rotate/tilt looks like would be good for crowning/shaping. My concerns are am I on the right path with this purchase for my purposes or is there better implement, does tractor have enough hp for 7 ft blade (42HP + 4WD), is this blade heavy enough to cut or will it just float (particularly on rocky road), is the implement heavy duty enough where I won稚 just bend it up my first time out on roots etc, anything I am missing?

Thanks in advance for advice!

Regards,

Lou

MtnViewRanch · Mar 28, 2016

With everything that you have mentioned, these are the items or equivalent items that I would be looking at. Personally have by the way.

General road maintenance, a land plane grading scraper (LPGS) really needs to be a 7-8 footer at a minimum of 1000lbs, so an industrial model, no hydraulics.

A 6'-7', 800-1000lb box blade at a minimum, different types available, Gannon is typically thought of to be the best, but there are others that are just as good. The same design is used on most of these types though.

A rear blade that weighs close to or above 100lb per foot width. For your tractor, an 8 footer would be about right.

To make the most of these implements, you will need to add rear remote hydraulics if you do not already have them. None of this is cheap, but unless you want to do this several times over (doesn't sound like you do) sort of what you should have IMO.

Just my :2cents:

Lou270 · Mar 29, 2016

Thanks for the feedback! This is all pretty expensive equipment and recreational property so I will need to prioritize and probably get one every couple years. Since a lot of my problems seem related to poor draining I was thinking rear blade would be be best to prioritize so i can clean out & create new ditches (i need some offset to get in ditches) and crown/shape roads. Any thoughts on priority?

Thanks,

Lou

MtnViewRanch · Mar 29, 2016

Lou270 said:
Thanks for the feedback! This is all pretty expensive equipment and recreational property so I will need to prioritize and probably get one every couple years. Since a lot of my problems seem related to poor draining I was thinking rear blade would be be best to prioritize so i can clean out & create new ditches (i need some offset to get in ditches) and crown/shape roads. Any thoughts on priority?

Thanks,

Lou

If you have drainage problems, then a good rear blade would be the place to start. Be sure to get the rear blade with skid shoes. They really do make using the implement easier. Here is a link to another rear blade unit that I like, not quite as heavy as I like, but close.

You can get lighter duty implements and still get stuff done, just not as easy or fast and you have to be careful of the implement.

Good luck. :thumbsup: