Should I do it myself?

[sendero]

I've had my tractor for a couple years. I've used it mostly for bush hogging, disking, moving piles of dirt with the FEL, and pushing trees into a nice burnable pile.

I have a drainage problem across a dirt road. A local soil conservation engineer has looked it over - he says I need to install a 12"x20' culvert across the road. He says I should bury it about 8" and then build the road up about 6" by dragging the dirt out of a "borrow" ditch next to the road. We're talking about 30' length of road here, about 12' wide.

I don't own a box blade but I figure that I could buy one for about the price it would cost to get someone out here to do the work.

Here's my question. I have a Kioti DK35. I have no idea how much of a learning curve there would be in learning to use a box blade to do a job like this. I consider my innate abilities with the tractor to be "average".

Should I just pay someone to do this, or is it possible to learn on the fly?

 

[thcri]

I think you can do it. Yes with some learning curve. But I think it all comes down to time. Do you have the time to do it?

murph

 

[BB_TX]

I'm with murph. You can do it if you have the time. And it gives you an excuse to buy a new implement. And it is always fun to play in the dirt. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif The box blade will take a little practice, but is not that hard to work with. Moving dirt with it is fairly easy. Leveling dirt with it takes a little time to learn.

 

[PineRidge]

It's already been said and I agree that it boils down to a matter of time. If you look forward to additional seat time then you should go for it. Besides the way I see it you'll end up with a box blade anyway and that can't be bad.....

 

[RedRocker]

Free box blade and Xtra seat time?? Did you have to ask? /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Indydirtfarmer]

Sounds like an excellent opportunity to LEARN how to use a box blade.

 

[JimMorrissey]

I'm going to be the party pooper and say no. A boxscaper is not going to cut you the appropritae trench to accurately bury a culvert. You'll end up with a V shaped swale at best and you'll be at it for weeks.....A trench of that size won't take somebody too long to dig, but it will be the right width and depth. Should be couple hundred bucks at the most.

I'd say have the trench dug by a guy with a hoe, then you can get the pipe lay it right and finish the job with your machine. You might still be able to slide a new scraper in there too.

 

[sendero]

The gist of my question is... how hard is it to learn to use a box blade to scape up dirt from one spot and dump it into another /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Yes, I have time, I just don't want to get started on something and then have to hire someone to bail me out. I know that the answer is something like "well, how able to learn are you and how persistent are you"? Well, pretty persistent I guess. But I''ve never so much as seen someone use a box blade so I guess I'm afraid I'll get one and flounder with it.

Oh well - so far I've pretty much managed to get whatever I needed done so I guess I'll just jump off the cliff /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[sendero]

I hear ya. I'd already considered the fact that the blade is not going to cut the culvert trench very well. But since I only have to go down about 8-10", I figure that I can rough it in with the blade then do some grunt shovel work to finish it.

What I really plan on using the BB for is getting dirt from the "bar" ditch and putting it on the road to raise it 6-8".

 

[BadDog]

Use a heavy duty grader blade, big enough to handle the HP of your tractor... not a box blade. Much easier to cut a ditch and shape the road, and arguably a much more useful implement than the box blade.