Ken M
Member
Rockered Skid Shoe for Snow (adjustable blade height)
It didn't take me long to figure out that a bucket with a sharp blade didn't work well plowing snow on a gravel drive. I experimented with some makeshift shoes and decided that what I needed was a rockered shoe. I cobbled up some pine shoes that bolted into some existing holes on the bucket side and screwed some banding straps on for wear. They worked great except that if I wasn't really carefull and slid the bucket sideways I would snap then off. We don't get a lot of snow here so I would just take them to the basement and glue them back up. I finally got tired of gluing so built a bit more robust version. After I built these last year we did not get more snow so I didn't get to try them out so they are still pretty. Thought someone else might like to try this.
Photos mostly show my construction. The drawing with dimensions is of course for my bucket. You might have to make adjustments. For the actual rocker I used some white oak from pallets. I figure that if it ever wears out I'll just re-make. Some tough plastic would be even better. To add a bit of wear though I bored some extra pockets and epoxied in some hex nuts. I also drilled and counterbored for the mounting studs and epoxied in the bolt heads.
With the rockered shoes I can adjust the blade height from approximately 1/4" to 3" while I float the bucket.
-KenM
It didn't take me long to figure out that a bucket with a sharp blade didn't work well plowing snow on a gravel drive. I experimented with some makeshift shoes and decided that what I needed was a rockered shoe. I cobbled up some pine shoes that bolted into some existing holes on the bucket side and screwed some banding straps on for wear. They worked great except that if I wasn't really carefull and slid the bucket sideways I would snap then off. We don't get a lot of snow here so I would just take them to the basement and glue them back up. I finally got tired of gluing so built a bit more robust version. After I built these last year we did not get more snow so I didn't get to try them out so they are still pretty. Thought someone else might like to try this.
Photos mostly show my construction. The drawing with dimensions is of course for my bucket. You might have to make adjustments. For the actual rocker I used some white oak from pallets. I figure that if it ever wears out I'll just re-make. Some tough plastic would be even better. To add a bit of wear though I bored some extra pockets and epoxied in some hex nuts. I also drilled and counterbored for the mounting studs and epoxied in the bolt heads.
With the rockered shoes I can adjust the blade height from approximately 1/4" to 3" while I float the bucket.
-KenM
