Finally built my grader

[djw250]

Well, after about 2 years of procrastination, I finally built myself a grader. I have about $200 of materials in it, plus some stuff I already had and scavenged. I think it turned out pretty good. If you are interested in the build, I have quite a few pictures at Image hosting, free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket

Here are a couple of pictures.

 

[Diamondpilot]

Very nice work.

Chris

 

[jcaron2]

Wow! Looks really nice.

 

[Mark_in_NH]

VERY Nice indeed !!!!
Let us know how it works. Some action photos would be great.

 

[nunyabinis]

Awesome!!!


I'm gonna have to get off my backside and start putting mine together. I've had the metal now for about six month.

 

[carpenter383]

Nice work! Just curious, are the bottom of the blades about even with the bottom of the runners or? How did you decide what angle to set the blades at?

 

[djw250]

Nunya, don't feel bad, I had my metal for almost 2 years before I built mine.

Carpenter, the front blade is 3/4" below the skids, and the back is level with the bottom of the skids. If you have it level, the front blade digs in, but you can adjust the top link and make it pretty much level out. I set the blades at a 5 degree angle. I decided to do this based on borrowing a commercial grader to try. The blades on it were at 10 degrees. If all I did was grade the road, that would be fine, but I plan to do quite a bit of dirt leveling also, and I felt 10 degrees moved too much material right to left. 5 degrees was my compromise.

Mark, no action shots yet, but here's one of the road after I used the grader on it.

 

[jenkinsph]

Nice work on the grader, you will find many uses for it. About the angle, I gave this alot of thought and built mine with 0 angle, reason being the vast majority of my use is for leveling fields and lawn areas. I did not feel that moving the material sideways was helpful in my case. If I do change mine I will make it hydraulically adjustable.

 

[Tig]

Very nice work on the grader. Puts my poor boy mod to shame.
Do I see that right? It looks like your blades are curved. I know that is one thing that I could have done better to get the gravel to tumble and mix a bit more.

 

[djw250]

Tig, the blades are used motor grader cutting edges that I got from a guy I work with. I cut them down with a torch to the width that I needed, and yes, they are slightly curved and very heavy.

Jenkinsph, I thought a lot about the blade angle, finally deciding on the 5 degrees. I think it is a good compromise because it doesn't seem to move the material much, but may keep the rocks from heading downslope toward the ditch when I grade the road.

 

[jenkinsph]

Jenkinsph, I thought a lot about the blade angle, finally deciding on the 5 degrees. I think it is a good compromise because it doesn't seem to move the material much, but may keep the rocks from heading downslope toward the ditch when I grade the road.

I use a rearblade with topntilt to form the crown and work the ditches but in my case I have very little work to do on my well established drives. Maybe an hour a year is a close estimate. With my customers it is a different story here in the soutwest some of the housing sites can be very rough and rocky. The landplane with straight blades does a great job of smoothing out the bumps. I am so satisfied with the results I am leaning towards adding all hydraulic angle, depth adjustment and scarifiers to it.

 

[djw250]

The landplane with straight blades does a great job of smoothing out the bumps. I am so satisfied with the results I am leaning towards adding all hydraulic angle, depth adjustment and scarifiers to it.

Those would be very nice features, and make for a versatile, high-end tool. The scarifiers would be great for hard pack. For now I'm satisfied with my fixed blade setup. I used it on some clay that needed some final smoothing, and with some small adjustments to the top link, it worked very well for that. I can see that I'll probably use it a lot.

 

[jayste]

Very nice grader. You got exactly the results I'm looking for. I've had my side pans fabricated for a while now and the job took to the back burner for the fall season. I'm still trying to get my blades. I'm going to try another source. My plans are to build mine very similar to yours. So far I have $0 in them. I used 1/4" plate so I added a 2X2 angle to the side of the pans to give it a little spine.

Jay

 

[djw250]

Jay, looks like you have a good start. I had my first pan done for quite a while before I really got busy on the rest. It really wasn't that hard once I decided to get it done. You might try the State or County road maintenance crews if you are interested in the motor grader blades. They change them out regularly, and most of the used ones still have quite a bit of material left. I bet if you talk to the right person, you could get a couple of useable blades for free. I did.

 

[jayste]

Jay, looks like you have a good start. I had my first pan done for quite a while before I really got busy on the rest. It really wasn't that hard once I decided to get it done. You might try the State or County road maintenance crews if you are interested in the motor grader blades. They change them out regularly, and most of the used ones still have quite a bit of material left. I bet if you talk to the right person, you could get a couple of useable blades for free. I did.

DJW, that's exactly what I had in mind. I've got a neighbor who works for the county and I thought I'd ask him. Thanks.

Jay

 

[Renze]

DJW, that's exactly what I had in mind. I've got a neighbor who works for the county and I thought I'd ask him. Thanks.

Jay

At work, they used to replace lots of payloader bucket blades. When these 40x250mm blades were worn to half of their original size, its still a lot of meat to beat on, for the average farm tractor. I collect whenever i can

 

[ovrszd]

So far I have $0 in them.
Jay

I've built a lot of "stuff" but never had $0 in any of it. How'd you figure that??

 

[jayste]

I've built a lot of "stuff" but never had $0 in any of it. How'd you figure that??

Material was free and I don't count my labor.

Jay

 

[2manyrocks]

Very sharp and amazing to see built for $200 in materials or less in this day.

 

[mcd176]

DJW250,

What thickness are your side pans, round tube and square tube?

Thanks