Why didn't I get a Boxblade sooner?

[curly]

ahh....I have the blade (not box) so i think i see now.

Thought so after I went back and read this thread.

I would like to see some pics of properly 'crowned' driveways so I will know what to shoot for.

I assume crowning means cutting the sides a bit lower? Is that sorta rihjt?

 

[TractorLegend]

My property is just up off the Cowlitz valley in WA so its all an incline (or decline however you look at things!) I need some crown so the rainwater washes toward an existing ditch...I dont think theres a hard and fast proper way...just matters if you have slope where you want the water going. Or not going.

 

[Highbeam]

There's a poster here named 3rrl that has done an extensive set of modifications to his box blade. Besides checking out the cool fab work you can also check out his many many pictures and even videos showing the use of the BB. He owns a really long dirt driveway with a crown, shoulder, and gutter. The BB is used to reshape these features when they are washed out during his heavy rains. He has some really good photos of the crowning.

You don't want too much crown and you don't want too little crown. We shoot for 2% crosslope on a paved road which is about 1/4" per foot.

A road without a ditch is a ditch.

 

[curly]

I just got my hydralic top link today and put it on. Hadda go play with the bb for 30 minutes just to use the new functionality

 

[TractorLegend]

I just got my hydralic top link today and put it on. Hadda go play with the bb for 30 minutes just to use the new functionality

Shhhhh! Its not play. This is serious business...er work! If my wife finds out it seems like play the funding may be cut off for future "needed" tractor stuff!!

 

[Spiveyman]

If I had got this thing last year I would be much farther ahead in my yard work. It's amazing how you put the teeth all the way down and shorten the top link to really rip the rocks and roots out and then you can put the teeth at the top upside down, lengthen the top link a little and grade a driveway smooth as glass.

I'm very impressed with the smooth as glass thing, I only have a few hours on my BB, but I for sure need some work on smoothing roads. I haven't messed with the top-link length that much, so maybe that's my problem.

I had a few times where it would grab a large rock and stop me in my tracks. Although a few times I was able to lift up the 3pt hitch and it would pull the rock right out, amazing. Is this bad for it at all, I can't see it being harmful and it works great.

Highbeam addressed this nicely. When you stop a machine like that in its tracks, there is a chance something will give. Hopefully it will be one of the teeth if something has to. This happened to me recently when I hit a rock:



Bent one of the scarifers. $9 and you are back in business, that is if you even decided to replace it. Hopefully the box itself is strong enough to take the beating. Chances are if you use the BB much you'll have a collection of those things. 3RRL referenced above has a nice collection going.

A road without a ditch is a ditch.

That's a great line!

 

[Dmace]

I'm very impressed with the smooth as glass thing, I only have a few hours on my BB, but I for sure need some work on smoothing roads.

I found that flipping the teeth upside down like in the pictures and lengthening the top link to the point where the rear blade is lower than the front makes for a real smooth drag. I do this after I have roughed it to be pretty level and want a finished look.

You did a good job on that tooth, how fast were you going? When I have the teeth fully down and the box tipped forward, I crawl about has slow as I can in Low gear with the HST. Mostly because my yard is made of rocks and stumps.

I will post a new thread with pictures of my front yard mess in the Projects section when it's done.

Why didn't I get a Boxblade sooner?
Because you were waiting to get a second tractor to store your backhoe on.
Don

If only I were that rich!

Over here is my backhoe tractor right next to the tractor for grading and the other one for snowblowing.

 

[Spiveyman]

I found that flipping the teeth upside down like in the pictures and lengthening the top link to the point where the rear blade is lower than the front makes for a real smooth drag. I do this after I have roughed it to be pretty level and want a finished look.

I'll have to give that a try when I get a project that warrants a smoother finish. The biggest thing I've done so far is spreading out old pond muck where I still leave some contour to the land and am not too worried about the finish.

{QUOTE=Dmace]You did a good job on that tooth, how fast were you going? When I have the teeth fully down and the box tipped forward, I crawl about has slow as I can in Low gear with the HST. Mostly because my yard is made of rocks and stumps. [/QUOTE]

At that time I was crusing along in 3rd gear (out of 8), so not too fast, but I've got a decent size tractor with lots of weight (10,000 lbs-ish) and HP. Guess that was enough to bend that sucker. I worked up to 4th gear at some points with lots of rmp's. I always started out in 1 or 2 when covering new areas because there were holes big enough to dump my tractor in, but once I knocked the edges off a bit I started gearing up. There were so many rocks in that muck, I added several more FEL loads to this pile:


Several of them popped up and rolled over raising my BB up and over it, but only the one stopped me cold. Mind you I'm not recommending running along that fast with the teeth all the way down, but I got tired of covering so little ground. Some people have noticed a lack of patience in me through out my life. Not sure why. One thing, I think it was 3RRL that mentioned, pull the BB up when you turn because the teeth aren't as strong laterally and will bend more easily that way.

 

[irwin]

These are the rocks I could not easily lift, most I could barely move by hand, and some I couldn't budge without large machine.



The hundreds of rocks 75# and under went on top of existing stone walls. Someday I'll be proud enough to post stonewall pictures.

This is the only pic I took of in process work, it shows just a few of the rocks that came out while digging up trees, there were many more. I'd leave them on the surface and come back later to move to my pile or to a stonewall.



I need another tractor. I like the backhoe where it is. Must work on the much better half!! make her see the stark truth, irrefutable truth. Yeah, that's the ticket.

 

[caver]

Any particular brands to avoid?

Retired co-worker was telling me some time back to get a box blade.