box blade width

[ron45]

With a 30 hp kioti does the width of the box have to match or be smaller than the rear tire width? Thanks of listening.

Ron

 

[MasseyWV]

Personally, I prefer that the box blade be at least as wide as the outer edge of the rear tire spacing, if not a little more. For example, I have a 6 foot box blade behind my 35 HP Massey 135 tractor and it seems just about perfect for my needs.

 

[RoMad]

Hi Ron45 and welcome to TBN. If your box blade is as wide or just a little wider than your rear tires then you cover your tracks when you use it.
On the other hand, mine is quite a bit wider than my tractor and I usually leave it on as a counter weight. When I am using the front end loader to clean out the barn or the pig pens I have to remember that my box blade sticks out a litle.
So, after all that, my recommendation is for it to be just a tad wider than your tractor.
How do you like your Kioit? Is it a CK30? If I ever move up in tractor size the CK30 would be my first choice.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Ron, look for a 600lb or more 60"-66" box. That size and weight will serve you pretty well IMO. Never go below 100lbs per foot of width and 150lbs per foot is actually what you want.

Just my :2cents:

 

[Mousefield]

Hi Ron, welcome to TBN.
I have a CK35 HST and use a 6 foot box blade. Most of the road and driveway is fairly flat but do have a couple of inclines. I have had to use 4 X 4 if the box gets full of wet gravel but other than that is works great. I bought the 6ft used and a 5ft would work fine as well covering the tire tracks.

 

[ron45]

Massey, RoMad, Mt.View, Mousefield, Thank you all for the help. What you guys are saying makes sense about at least covering your tracks. The point about weight is also something I hadn't considered. The Kioti is an 06 LK3054 XS. If anyone knows what the 54 and XS mean I'd be curious. I appreciate the help very much.

Ron

 

[IronHog]

Ron, look for a 600lb or more 60"-66" box. That size and weight will serve you pretty well IMO. Never go below 100lbs per foot of width and 150lbs per foot is actually what you want.

Just my :2cents:

To take this a step further the type of work you'll be doing with the box blade matters too.

If your are just going to maintain a road and move loose dirt then a light duty box in whatever width you want will probably be OK.


If you want to do more demanding work like cutting high spots or pulling scarfers in heavy ground you'll appreciate a narrower, more robust box your tractor can pull without constant loss of traction.

 

[ron45]

To take this a step further the type of work you'll be doing with the box blade matters too.

If your are just going to maintain a road and move loose dirt then a light duty box in whatever width you want will probably be OK.


If you want to do more demanding work like cutting high spots or pulling scarfers in heavy ground you'll appreciate a narrower, more robust box your tractor can pull without constant loss of traction.

Hi and thanks for your thoughts. Good sense about how it's used. Are you saying that a 5 or 5.5 foot box might be a bit much for 30 horses to handle with rippers in packed soil or rocky soil? Or even just cutting forward or reverse? My road is way too rocky to use a box for anything but leveling material I put on top. But I want to be able to use a box effectively in packed soil if need be. I see a width of 51.7 w/ag tires. So a four foot box might be a bit short of covering my tracks. At this point I don't know how much that matters. I have zero experience running a box but have a friend who is a whizz. Can anyone say a 5' box would be too much for my 30 ponys?

Ron

 

[IslandTractor]

IronHog has given you the essential trade off for weight and size. I'm not aware of anyone with a CK30 and only a four foot BB though. Five foot would be relatively conservative. Six feet is a stretch but for just moving soil would be fine. Remember you can always raise a few of the rippers to use a wider BB in tough ground.

For what it's worth, I'd go for the five foot version in standard duty from a company like Woods or Landpride. The cost of heavier BBs is worth it only if you know you have lots of heavy work. Otherwise you can still get the work done albeit more slowly with a standard duty model. Hard to imagine a standard duty BB being overpowered by a 30hp tractor.

 

[not2old]

I have a Massey GC2610 (25HP) and a 72" box blade. I'm new at this and have only used it a little to repair pot-holed gravel drives. While I feel it is a bit too large and might get the 60" if I had to do it over, I am able to use all rippers to the full depth as long as I don't try to level the surface at the same time. It has no trouble dragging gravel up to about a foot deep, but if I don't control the depth, it can dig in too deep very quickly. I need more time with it to be sure it's a bit big.

 

[IronHog]

IronHog has given you the essential trade off for weight and size. I'm not aware of anyone with a CK30 and only a four foot BB though. Five foot would be relatively conservative. Six feet is a stretch but for just moving soil would be fine. Remember you can always raise a few of the rippers to use a wider BB in tough ground.

For what it's worth, I'd go for the five foot version in standard duty from a company like Woods or Landpride. The cost of heavier BBs is worth it only if you know you have lots of heavy work. Otherwise you can still get the work done albeit more slowly with a standard duty model. Hard to imagine a standard duty BB being overpowered by a 30hp tractor.

Been using the box blade many hours here lately to clear off a very rough future home site, fix the father in laws back yard, and cut some skidder ruts out of some food plots.


IIRC our box is a older 5.5 or 6' bush hog brand that they consider "medium" duty........rarely need the scarfers with this nice heavy box with the good cutting blade. It will break traction on a DK 40 pretty easy in heavy ground if you let the cutting edge take a good bite.


A good box blade is kinda the universal tool. I use mine to level ground, do about the same thing as a landscape rake, move yards of dirt, and even windrow brush. Rarely the best choice for any job.... but a skilled operator can do about any job with one.

 

[ron45]

Gentlemen, I thank you for the help. It's good to know what to expect. I don't have the tractor yet and when it's here it will take some time to familiarize with the capabilities. Looking forward to the learning curve. Got a mile of driveway and lots of projects lined up.

I feel lucky to have found this forum.

Ron

 

[MasseyWV]

Since you are new to using a box blade, you may find the following links and video to be helpful. The TBN search engine leaves a lot to be desired, so I've also included a custom Google search for "box blade" that's limited to only the TBN website.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/122762-beginners-guide-using-box-blade.html

http://www.google.com/search?q="box...=imvns&ei=bbSxT-SeCcqT6gG4vdnMCQ&start=0&sa=N

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxuEDGSGOZA]How to Use a Box Blade - YouTube[/ame]

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Gentlemen, I thank you for the help. It's good to know what to expect. I don't have the tractor yet and when it's here it will take some time to familiarize with the capabilities. Looking forward to the learning curve. Got a mile of driveway and lots of projects lined up.

I feel lucky to have found this forum.

Ron

Ron, if you have a mile of driveway to maintain, I would seriously be considering a land plane grader blade.

 

[MasseyWV]

Ron, if you have a mile of driveway to maintain, I would seriously be considering a land plane grader blade.

Yep, those work very well too.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIed2lzfQ-g]How To - Tractor Land Plane - Gravel Road Maintenance - YouTube[/ame]

 

[ron45]

Ironhog, Massey, Mtview, thanks for the great links, I've watched the box one several times as it seems the most likely choice, but will watch the other just because I've never seen one work.

I should explain, my mile of drive way is half steep switchbacks to get us to the top of the mesa where we built our adobe home. [mostly by hand w/ an old nearly dead cement mixer to mix the mud for the joints] We traded a pickup for the adobes and did everything our selves. It took about 7 years to move in as we could only work in the summer. I worked at a ski area near by in Ruidoso NM in the winter.

The last half of the mile is almost flat in places with rocky stretches and a fair amount of alluvial fill from the rim of the mesa. We built in a small valley caused be a very long period of erosion. The switch backs are very rocky. This is a very good thing. We had water bars put in over the years to keep the water speed down and divert it off the road. The second switch back has a berm along the down hill side to keep the water from rushing down and eventually onto the first switchback. It works pretty well but needs upkeep. I hope kioti can help us improve it some and keep new material on the areas that need it. We get a limited amount of rain here but it can come down in torrents sometimes so Kioti will be a very big help. There is lots for koiti to do besides road work. We only have 20 acres but there is much land scaping to do and some trenching. I saw the tractor today and the bucket looks to be about 9 or ten inches wide. THe backhoe says kioti on it. I thought they got them made somewhere else. Or do they just put their name on them. It's kinda cosmic this tractor came our way. Coyote plays a big roll in indian religion and they are our neighbors sometimes. I saw one playing with a raven one time across a deep arroyo from the road into White Oaks NM where we found our land. The raven stayed just out of reach and would swoop down to make coyote jump. It went on for about 10 minutes and they ignored me. I felt pretty priviledged to see that. Sorry for rambling it's late and the coffee is strong. Can't thank eveyone enough for the help. I'll take some picks of our road next time I go out. It leads from and too a pretty cool place..... for us anyway.

Ron

 

[ron45]

Wow just followed the link to the thread on bb use. That with the vid. will be a good foundation to begin from. The fiddler I play with has a gannon and I saw him fix a badly eroded arroyo crossing in about 25 minutes. And that included moving a bunch of rock to the downstream side and angling the pitch so as water moved down the arroyo it would deposit more material on the road. I couldn't believe it only took that long. He was as good w/that thing as he is on fiddle. So much to look forward too. Thanks again.

Ron

 

[ricklman]

Just to pitch in a bit more, I have a 6' BB on my CK30 HST and the little machine handles it very nicely. I have 1/2 mile steep gravel/rock/shale driveway with probably 35 to 40 degree inclines and switchbacks. I can drop my rippers and the tractor pulls the BB full of material with little to no trouble at all uphill and downhill.

I'm still learning to use the BB, but there are some great threads on TBN that explain everything about the adjustment of the top link and make light bulbs go off.

 

[ron45]

ricklman, thank you I have plenty of switchbacks and steep grades. So I look forward to finding something suitable for the task. I'm going to post a question about hoe's and boxes to see what users and non users of BBs think about the necessity for BBs and backhoes. I still have to learn to use what I have [Bh and fel] But want to know... can a skilled bh guy achieve similar results in a similar time with FEL and a Bh? I would like the answer to be yes but I've seen a skilled bb operator in action and I was shocked at how quickly the took down the edges of an arroyo crossing and changed the pitch of the whole thing to make the water slow down and deposit material in the crossing.

Thanks for the tip on the bb threads.

Ron