Why should I use plow shoes?

[ragkar]

Yesterday I dropped a shoe when I lost a retaining pin while plowing. I've repaired that but I got to wondering why I was using the shoes at all. I only plow asphalt with no cracks using a plow with a rubber cutting edge. It seems to me that shoes are designed mostly for gravel and bad asphalt (cracks) plowing.
Of course shoes will cut down on the rubber cutting edge wear, but I figure that wear is the cost of getting a clean driveway.

 

[RPK]

I use shoes on my Fisher Minute-Mount plow (on my truck) to help prolong the life of the cutting edge. Other than saving the cutting edge there is no real need for them as far as I know.

 

[Gizmo2]

You want to have fun, catch one of the shoes while back blading at a pretty good clip.

 

[LD1]

I'd ditch the shoes.

Are you plowing commercially or is this just your drive??

I put in about 60 hours per year plowing commercially (not as much as most but we are just outside the snowbelt). But that is still a LOT of plow time. I run no shoes and a steel edge on my meyers. Customers want their lots scraped clean and if you use shoes, they usually call back.

Even when doing my own gravel drive I dont use them. Mostly because I am too laze to get out and put them on after I have been out for 12-15hrs. But once their is a good base that freezes, I loose very little gravel.

Anyway, the cutting edges still last 5-6 seasons. If you are just doing your drive, If it actually is rubber cutting edge material and not some homemade setup, then the rubber will probabally dry-rot and crack before you wear it out anyway.

 

[northcreek2624]

I've always had a gravel driveway and never used shoes on my Western.Last spring I broke down and had it paved,I asked the paving guy if I should run shoes and he said YES!
I have been running them with ok results but,tried my sons shoeless Western and like the clean scrape that it gives.
Thing is that when I was using this plow commercially I never ran shoes and never had problems or complaints.Iam now thinking of ditching the shoes but,I'm wondering why the paving guy gave me such a resounding YES SHOES!
Any more ideas out there?....Mike.

 

[JB4310]

I plowed for a living for 20 years, mostly medium sized commercial lots, some gravel. 3/4 ton truck and 8 ft plows. Never used shoes, since I wanted to scrape clean.

Was talking to a guy the other day with large 5 ton dump with a very HD 10 ft plow, his had the shoes on, he said it saves him blade wear and anything that's left on the ground is taken care of with the chemicals they spread.

JB.

 

[srs]

I plowed for a living for 20 years, Never used shoes, since I wanted to scrape clean.

Was talking to a guy the other day with large 5 ton dump with a very HD 10 ft plow, his had the shoes on, he said it saves him blade wear and anything that's left on the ground is taken care of with the chemicals they spread.

JB.

When I plowed commercially with my pickup the owner of the company wanted no shoes used. He too wanted the blade directly on the roadway. To increase the wear of the blade I welded thick pieces of metal on each end of the blade to increase the life of the blade. Hopefully in the picture you can see the pieces of metal that I added.

 

[LD1]

Maybe its because I dont plow as much as some, but blade wear was never a concern for me. I may have already mentioned but I get about 5 years out of an edge, and the replacement cost me under $100 delivered. And I only use a 3/8" x 6" blade. Some plows use 1/2" which would last longer.

 

[northcreek2624]

In reading this thread Iam getting the feeling that the shoes are more about protecting the blade than the driveway.
Maybe a concrete driveway with uneven pads might be a place for shoes but,beyond that ???............Mike.

 

[Ironhand]

My experience running a smaller plow like yours on my ATV was that without shoes, the blade will sometimes chatter at relatively higher speeds.