Box scrapper

[nwjohn]

I am very new to the tractor game. I am considering purchasing a Kubota bx 2200 and want to make walking trails in the woods of my 5 acre property. Is the boxscrapper on compact tractors capble of clearing under brush and leveling trails. Input please.

 

[theboman]

Use a rotary cutter (bush hog) and either a box blade or rear blade.
The brush needs cut and a mower deck won't do the job. A walking trail needs maintained too and the both will be hand for that too.

 

[BB_TX]

I'm with Bo. Use a rotary cutter to clear your paths. That way you leave whatever vegetation in on the ground and the ground remains firm for walking. The box would take up some of the smaller brush, but it would leave the ground bare and soft and prone to being pretty messy when it rains. If there are areas that need leveling, then use a box to move the soil where you need it. Once it is leveled, you should never have to do that again unless you have areas that wash. You can just periodically run the cutter thru the area to keep the paths cleared.

 

[Casimir]

I agree that the brush cutter is necessary if you have underbrush to clear. The only problem I have with it is that even on the lowest setting, the brush cutter leaves small diameter "stumps," which I tend to trip over. My bifocals may have something to do with that /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif. Also, since my wife rides horses on the trails, I am concerned about the possibility of a horse stepping on one. Puncture wounds in horses' feet can get expensive /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif.

If the stumps are small enough, the box blade may clear them, but it is amazing how strongly those roots can hold on and bring a tractor to a sudden halt. If anyone has any suggestions for removing the stumps, other than allowing a couple years for them to rot, I would like to hear them. A pulaski or grub hoe works, but I bought the tractor to reduce the manual labor/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif.

 

[JJT]

If you have lots of small stumps from brush, a tiller does a nice job of chopping them up.

 

[Casimir]

I'm afraid if I bought a tiller, my wife would want to plant a garden. I don't mind mowing the pasture and using the diesel wheelbarrow to help clean stalls and pens, but I don't want to be a farmer. Good suggestion, though, Thanks.

 

[John_Mc]

Somewhere on here someone posted an attatchment used to pull small trees out, rather than cut them. It was a series of teeth mounted on a bar. It went on the 3 pt hitch. you backed up to the saplings and they wedged into the "V" gaps between the teeth. You raised the hitch and yanked the trees out... no stumps. I've always wanted to try one of these, but my welding skills are non-existent (some day I'll learn). Hopefully someone here can point you to the thread with the pictures.

John Mc

 

[Buck]

nwjohn,

I would have agreed with the others that a brush hog would be most valuable for clearing underbrush, but the fact that you also need to level the trails suggests that your intuition is right. I am doing the same kind of thing on my property and I own a scraper, brush hog and a tiller. It is my opinion that the scraper beats all of these for this task. Clearly, first, if possible, cut the vegetation down using a brush hog -- if you don't have one, use the scraper for two or three passes with the blades down. This will unroot grasses and weeds of diameter up to about 1/3 in.

The key to making a smooth path is to keep the trail clean of vegetation so that vegetation clumps don't develop.

Therefore, after scaping, use the FEL to take the dirt/vegetation combination to a separate pile. Let the vegetation rot for a year in the pile. Then use it as top soil somewhere else. If water along the trail is a problem, you might have to bring soil in from somewhere else. I have found that keeping a big pile of dirt for occasions such as these is very valuable and if you agree this may be a great place to start.

The problem I've had with my tiller in this application area is that the vegetation gets overly mixed up with the dirt requiring a greater proportion of dirt removal.

P.S. Is it "scraping" or "scapping"? I really don't know.

Buck

 

[BB_TX]

John - Here is a link to one of the threads. <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.tractorbynet.com/cgi-bin/compact/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=implement&Number=138660&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1#Post138660>tree getter</A>. There was another one very similar except with more teeth, but I couldn't find it.

 

[TAB]

Buck, or anybody else, what will the box scraper do on small tree stumps? I was thinking like willow that is pretty easy to cut, but then wants to come back twice as thick as before. Will the box scraper rip the roots out?

 

[BB_TX]

A few things to keep in mind; few tractors other than industrial tractors provide down force on the 3 point, a box tends to float on top of hard ground, your ability to pull stumps with the box depends a lot on the power and traction of your tractor.
The teeth on the scarifiers are angled down and forward so they tend to pull the box blade down helping to cut into the ground and whatever is on it. That plus the weight of the box may be enough force to catch the roots and small stumps and pull them out. On hard ground, the teeth will dig in 3" or 4". You should have 4 to 7 scarifiers depending on your box. You can make multiple passes over the area and probably rip out most all surface roots that your tractor can handle. Then you can lift your scarifiers and go back and use the box to level the ground over that area.

 

[Buck]

TAB,

I couldn't say it any better than BB_TX, but I think a key to what he is saying is that he wouldn't rely on the scraper taking the stump out.

Buck

 

[MikeNC]

A warning about using the scraper teeth to pull stumps... you can do it, but they just weren't designed for that.

I hired out the clearing and rough grade on 3 acres. Then I came back with my boxblade, teeth all the way down, to remove leftover and buried debris. I found about a dozen missed stumps, most only in the 3"-4" range, and some other big debris. By the time I was two-thirds done, I started to see some serious damage to the tooth bar.

Had some 3/8" steel angle iron welded to the tooth bar to repair it. Now I go slow, and as soon as I find a stump I turn around and dig it out with the bucket. When the tooth hits a stump that won't move, a 3000# tractor can put ALOT of force on the toothbar. And you'd be suprised how a 3" stump can stop you in your tracks.

Roots are OK, branches OK, stumps are BAD.

 

[normde2001]

I just recently finished clearing a patch of ground that is about like you describe, with 20 year growth in what used to be yard. I have a 24 hp, 1700# Yanmar, and using a rotary cutter and boxblade, I still had to revert to an axe to cut a lot of 1" to 2" stumps (stobs) below ground level. I'm not sure there is a better way.

 

[TAB]

Thanks BB, Buck, Mike and Norm. I may end up just mowing alot down and then try to keep it sprayed with some thing to keep the willow down. The ground is in CRP so I do several small areas and don't want to bring in big equipment. Specs say I can pull a 6' box, but I was concerned about tearing it up. If I can at least prep it to broadcast or no-till drill new ground cover I'll be all set, it will never be yard.

 

[John_Mc]

BB TX -

Yes, the tree getter is exactly what I was talking about. I found some pictures I had saved of another version, but have been unable to remove the pictures from the Microsoft Word document I pasted them into (at least I've not been able to remove them and get them into JPEG format).

I would attatch the Word document (which has some brief details on the construction of the unit along with 2 pictures), but TBN will not accept Word files (.doc).

John Mc