Box Scraper cheep box blade or expensive box blade

[wushaw]

Hydraulic top links are just about the handiest thing to come down the pike since shirt pockets and sliced bread. I've used a couple tractors with hydraulic tilt and liked it, especially for grading, but if I was forced to choose between the 2, the top link wins hands down.

The hyd. top link is sweet when using a mounted bush hog and a mounted plow too!

Yes that is what I have plugged in now since the side link is only good for certain things every now an again, I know I would not like going back to what I was doing before...I am spoiled now

 

[Gavman]

Another technique you can do to eliminate waves if you are in a fairly open area is drive with your bb in either an aggressive cut, or top link completly lengthened state. Then drive in super tight circles across the area your are trying to grade. This will keep your blade outside of the tractors radius, which will cause it to cut the high spots and fill the low spots. Basically it minimizes the box blade and tractors reaction to the woop de doos in the ground. I'm afraid I haven't explained this method very well, but give it a shot. There is minimal adjustment involved once you get going.

 

[vrman]

Am I wrong in thinking that when you drop your 3ph all the way down, it will float seperate from the tractor frame? So if the tractor bobs, the attachment wont.

 

[kwolfe]

Am I wrong in thinking that when you drop your 3ph all the way down, it will float seperate from the tractor frame? So if the tractor bobs, the attachment wont.

You are very right, however I think they are refering to the situation where you are trying to control the cutting depth of the BB by lowering it to a designated height.

 

[dfkrug]

Lots of good advice here. The only thing I would add is that you
need to buy the appropriate strength BB, matched to your tractor weight,
with this warning: do not buy a BB that is too light-duty for your
tractor. A 400 lb 60" BB will be too light duty for a 5000 lb tractor
and you will bend up the box or bend the ripper shanks.

On the other hand, an 800 # heavy duty BB will be fine for a LIGHTER
tractor, assuming the 3PH can lift it. Heavier weight is a Good Thing.

That said, a 400 # 60" BB will not be damaged by a B3030 or some other
machine in that weight class or somewhat heavier.

 

[jacobweaver32]

Another technique you can do to eliminate waves if you are in a fairly open area is drive with your bb in either an aggressive cut, or top link completly lengthened state. Then drive in super tight circles across the area your are trying to grade. This will keep your blade outside of the tractors radius, which will cause it to cut the high spots and fill the low spots. Basically it minimizes the box blade and tractors reaction to the woop de doos in the ground. I'm afraid I haven't explained this method very well, but give it a shot. There is minimal adjustment involved once you get going.

What do I do to offset the dizzyness?

Seriously though that is an interesting idea... I just hope the great results exceed the neighbors laughter.

 

[john_bud]

What do I do to offset the dizzyness?

Seriously though that is an interesting idea... I just hope the great results exceed the neighbors laughter.

Try doing it at night with the lights off?

Or else film it and put it on AFV?

jb

 

[Highbeam]

What do I do to offset the dizzyness?

Seriously though that is an interesting idea... I just hope the great results exceed the neighbors laughter.

Once you get dizzy turn the other way and do circles to unwind.

I have spent the majority of my 460 tractor hours with the boxblade on using it for grading large areas. Before that I spent hundreds of hours with a small bulldozer and 6-way blade. In many ways the dozer and boxscraper are similar in function.

My boxblade is in the lighter 400 or so lb range, made by Frontier, and 5 feet wide. It works without extra weight most of the time. I needed to grade off a big hard pan knob this year that the unweighted boxblade would only just scratch. So I got my subsoiler thinking it was just too tight and it would also just scratch. It made perfect sense to me that the blade was just scraping the surface and needed more weight. I had tried everything such as angle changes and scarifier position changes along with totally removing the scarifiers. I had some chunks of railroad steel adding up to about 150 lbs that I was going to put on but then I saw my barrels. I have a couple of 55 gallon plastic barrels that I used for water storage. Hmmmm, I strapped one barrel on top of the boxblade and then filled it with water. Yeah baby, 400 lbs of ballast on top of the 400 lb box. That box with scarifiers in the middle position took that hardpan and moved it like sand. The whole operation was quieter with less rattling from the box bouncing and the material was easily moved. My 3ph can lift some 1700 lbs so the weight was no issue.

I am now a firm believer in using additional weight on a blade for more effective cutting in hard material.

You must constantly look over your right shoulder with your right hand on the 3ph control when you are doing finish grading. I have a serious tan on one side of my neck from this. After a long day of grading I need to lean my head onto my left shoulder to try and even out.

Oh and to get a smooth surface you almost have to grade in more than one direction. Big learning curve and you get no useful benefit from going fast. You can creep along and grade just fine.

 

[patrick_g]

I have done the circle bit, a giant version of buffing off wax. It does work and I am not that subject to vertigo or at least as a pilot I was always able to tune out the vertigo and just believe the gauges. The circle thing with a full box tends to fill depressions.

About doing it at night... do it about 2-4 AM and remain undetected using no lights. Then in the morning you can point out the "dirt circles" the aliens left in preparation for planting crop circles!

Pat

 

[vrman]

You are very right, however I think they are refering to the situation where you are trying to control the cutting depth of the BB by lowering it to a designated height.

Hmmm. Ok. Good to know as I just got a BB myself, but haven't started really using it yet. I can see it is going to be fun learning how to use this baby!

Wish my Dad was still around. He used to work for the city doing roadwork. I'm sure he'd have had a lot of good tips for me, if I could get him off it. Our driveway base is better than most road bases!