Anyone have a blade?

[DaNag]

Those of you with a blade...any comments on their effectiveness? I'm assuming for dirt moving, one would till the area first.

Spoke with Joel at Earth Tools, and his only concern was traction. Since I'm leaning towards picking up another set of wheels and making the 830 a "dually", that wouldn't seem to be a concern.

Just wondering what one can realistically expect...I'd hate to toss $400 down the drain for an implement that won't do what I need.

 

[Solo]

I have a blade for my Gravely, that I used to plow the driveway with. The plow worked very well for snow.

Solo

 

[js5020]

Gravely here also, traction will be the issue duals, chains, or wheel weights will enhance performance. If you have diff lock it will be an advantage over the Gravely, but the Gravely is about 200# heavier machine, kohler model vs 850 series. I personally prefer the snow blower on the Gravely, no piles from previous snows to worry about, it all gets blown far away.

 

[SPYDERLK]

DaNag, Front or rear blade? What do you want to do with it?
Larry

 

[DaNag]

DaNag, Front or rear blade? What do you want to do with it?

According to the BCS description, their dozer blade can be used push or pull.

My main use of it will be for some sculpting of a hilll in our back yard, from which I'll be moving a bunch of dirt downhill to a more level area for fill. I'll also be using it for leveling of dirt and delivered sand/gravel, although I'm guessing it won't perform this task quite as well.

Has anyone built/found/used an implement that's good for final leveling of loose material? I'm thinking of something along the lines of a landscape rake, or maybe something as simple as a chain link fence section with some weight on it like folks use with their CUTs.

 

[milkman]

I don't know if you want to try this or not, but I took down a good size bank along my road with my BCS tiller just because at the time it was all that I had to work with. I turned the handles around over the engine and used it to push the dirt with the tiller engaged, in effect the tiller was rotating against the dirt and on the second pass, the flap would push the loose dirt from the previous pass with the tines running. I kept going over that way with the tines running and it worked really faster than you would think and will move quite a bit of dirt with each pass, pushing loose dirt and digging the hard dirt in the same pass.

 

[Bentworker]

I think the blade might be a joke without some serious traction and wheel weights, probably 150+ pounds. I would like to try one to see how it works, seems like it may be a little light, the tractor may try to tip towards the engine. It may be awkward to make a level cut with it, since you would have to balance it. I have thought about making a small pto mounted box scraper that would be pulled behind the tractor, with some sort of easy angle adjustment, and some sort of platform you could stand on to provide weight. You would want to make it nearly balanced so that you would be able to turn it around, then stand on it to cut, then step off and lightly lift the handles to drop fill out of the box. The other thing I have thought about building is a 3 or 4 foot wide chunk of steel plate with hard facing ridges welded onto the bottom of it. I would mount it on a pivot off of the PTO, then drag it with the tractor while standing on it to level gravel roads and dirt. Whatever you decide to do I think hub mounted wheel weight kit from Joel would be a must, loaded up with as many weights as you can fit on there.

Good luck,
Peter

 

[RalphVa]

I had a 4' blade on my Gravely. Worked great for pushing snow. Don't think you'll have the traction to push much dirt, even if you put chains on. All it'll do with chains on is dig holes. Best way to get traction with such a light tractor is to add wheels. This is what I did on my Gravely. Chains only work better on very slippery snow or ice/sleet and on pavement.

The blade on the Gravely was the best-balanced implement on it. It was so easy to use, for pushing snow.

Ralph