Anyone use a CTL with a box blade?

[cjohnsen]

I live down a 1/2 mile dirt road. The town grades it every few months if I’m lucky. For the past few years I’ve borrowed our Cat IT28 from work and grab the 4-in-1 bucket, open it up and back blade down the road to fill in the holes and smooth the road out. Takes about an hour and a half which isn’t bad but to use float control I have to keep the stick held forward. Which is less than ideal for an hour and a half.

I’ve got a Cat 239D and I was thinking about getting a box blade for it to grade the road. It’s a ~7500lb machine at 67hp. I’ve seen a YouTube video of a 289D (~10500 78hp) with a Domor box blade and it looked like it did a great job. It would bog down a bit at a big bite but overall seemed like no issue.

Will the 239 handle a 6’ box blade? I’m worried I may not have enough power to push the dirt and traction to keep moving. Anyone ever used one on a smaller CTL?

The road is all hardener with potholes a few inches deep and a foot or 2 in diameter. The road isn’t crowned it’s pitched to one side.

 

[/pine]

Is the road being graded just to "fix" the potholes ??

 

[ruffdog]

This video? Many on this forum would call this a land plane and yes, they work nice for gravel drive work.

 

[cjohnsen]

Yes I grade the road just to fix the potholes. I don’t have to pitch it I can follow what is there. That’s why I typically borrow a front end loader from work. But I would rather have something I can use that lives at my house rather than drive the loader to my road.

That isn’t the exact video I watched but the same poster, with the same machine and box grader (or land plane).

I have heard they work nice I’m just looking for input if a machine in the size range that I have will work as well as the one in the video.

Thanks for any insight.

Edit:

This is the video I am referring to

 

[/pine]

You may have seen this posted before ....

The best way to actually fix potholes that won't come back is with an implement that has scarifires ...i.e., a box blade or land plane etc...
First the storm water must be kept from puddling (more pitch etc.)...
The surrounding area must be well disturbed using the scarifiers (this is the key to fixing potholes) then refill the depression with compaction (driving over) leaving the area a bit proud with gravel...

 

[TractorTherapy]

I like the idea. I don't have an answer. On my winter project list is to weld a skid steer plate to both my 3-pt box blade (with scarifiers) and the 3-pt land plane. In my mind, it seems like it would be easier to control the implement in front of the skid steer than when I pull it with the tractor.

 

[nyone]

For fixing pot holes I wouldnt even use a front end loader. A box blade will do just fine. I have a 6' box blade and tc40. I can drop all the tines with out issues on my gravel driveway. You really cant just cut and fill pot holes. You need to rip everything up.

 

[Smokeydog]

Maintaining with a landplane has eliminated potholes on my driveway. Didn’t use rippers. Makes a durable, long lasting roadbed with 45”+ rainfall per year. Most of driveway canted on one side or the other instead of crowned. Do use 3pt hitch to tilt the LP to maintain the side slope. Some places it’s all 59hp 4x4 tractor can pull going up with a 6’ LP.

 

[Xfaxman]

Takes about an hour and a half which isn’t bad but to use float control I have to keep the stick held forward. Which is less than ideal for an hour and a half.

Push forward harder, it should latch into float.

 

[4570Man]

If you’re buying an implement I’d get a land plane instead of a box blade but if you’re building it yourself I think a box blade with a plate on the back would work reasonably well.

 

[docone]

I have an 84" BB on my MX5100 HST. I've only ever stalled the tractor once in 18" of sandy clay, BB was full to the rim.

 

[Vigo327]

I think if the question is, can the track loader push a 6' blade, then the answer is YES.

But the real questions are whether the styles of implement and approaches you're considering will address the problem, and that's more complicated. I don't have much experience in it (i have 99% used my box blade on dirt) but i have seen repeatedly that if you don't rip up (essentially DEcompact) the surrounding material from a low spot, it will always reappear because whatever you put into it cannot form any kind of 'interlock' with the already-hardened walls of that depression, so it stays 'loose' and gets bounced/flung out when driven over, leaving basically the same hole as before.

So i think you need rippers/scarifiers. Again, not a power problem with that machine, but many landplane type implements have no scarifiers. So i think that right there is the next question. Which type of implement could you build or buy that is suited to both ripping and smoothing. Modify a 3pt box blade is cheapest, buy an SSQA box blade is possible, modify a land plane is possible or some might have rippers, or there are other sort of in between designs that have rippers and something like a rake/comb on front.

 

[Dozernut]

Yes, you can use a box blade on a CTL. I bought a SSQA adapter to a 3-point hitch. I use box blades, rear blade, land plane and more on my CTL, that I used on my big tractor. The rear blade is handy when using around the edge of my pond. This gives me more reach to work pea gravel and remove aquatic weeds.