Tractor Projects You Can Do in a Day

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If you’re looking to spend some quality time with your tractor, here are ten great tractor projects you can do in a day. Most of these are tasks that everybody does from time to time…

1. Tractor Project: Grading Your Driveway

Gordon-Gould-grading-home-built-box-scraper

Grading your driveway is high on the list of things to do in the spring, as the winter can be rough on your road. In this photo, a perfectly graded driveway is accomplished with an impressive home-built box scraper by member Gordon Gould.

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42 Comments

  • Very Nice box scraper. How could I get the plans for this. Would love to build one for myself.. Looks like there is a ‘tail gate smoother’ out back?

  • Looks great. I would love to see a more detailed article on this unit, how it was built, how it is working out. The results in the photo look fantastic.

  • I have a 60″ Bush Hog Squealer just like that for my JD 990. It amazes me how many people just don’t take the time to remove the loader when mowing.

  • Or, just before putting the equipment out to pasture, maybe find a volunteer job. I’m 72 and functioning at about 30%. Am truly blessed when I can help some civic or church organization. (Or some “Little Old Lady”) other than the wife. Would be a great list of what you do in your community. Tractor people are very innovative!

  • Nice article. Just looking at tractors all day would be fine for me. Love your website.

  • Here in the deep South we got a jump on breaking ground for the garden…tomatoes and pepper plants are in bloom! All done with my 15yr. Old small B7500 Kubota. Cleaned out old garden brush with a 5 rake, broke ground with ripper teeth on box blade down, chopped with a set of disk and made rows with a row maker…50×100 garden…1day…got to love the way your tractor makes things happen!

  • Home made grader…you get high marks for that. And a fine looking attachment. I checked off my drive grading just yesterday before a big rain due today came in. I use the 5ft Master Grader…a twin blade 600 lb beast that levels and redistributes the gravel leaving the look of just getting loads of gravel tailgated down my 2000 ft road. Another great tractor day and job well done! Time for a cold one at sunset!!

  • How about putting up some plans to build it…

    Looks like it does a great job on the gravel road. I could use one.

  • Nice!
    I have a NH 4060 open platform , also with R4 tires…. amazing machine!

  • Nice!
    I have a Ford 1520, bought new in 1989… Still like new today , with loader and a 48″ Woods tiller…
    Amazing how much work the little machine can do!

  • I too have a NH 4060…. Boomer..
    I help my neighbors as well
    I struggle to balance the lift of a 72″ Woods HD Brush Bull(1500lbs)
    Seems like I am always off balance and have actually damaged the shaft cover. I have chains also… just not as skillful as you seem to be. Any secrets to share?

  • Very creative to haul all that, one trip with the little machine. Shows what a small machine can do with a skillful operator.

  • Nice accessory! can enhance the bucket capability, easily.

  • It is always a struggle to not buy the new machine we want……..more than need… I know this site is Kubota favored site and I am sure it is a good machine…..
    I guess I am old school and will save my money until such time as I can afford a machine made in USA by an American Company… not an easy find, but a goal

  • Are there plans, a bill of materials or other detailed information available from Gordon Gould to assist in building a box scraper like this?

  • goodonya Gordon,looks like it works great and you saved money plus the satifaction of designing and building it yourself,Dick.

  • Lets see the plans for that impressive box scraper!!

  • Nice job Gordon! Any chance you’ll make the plans public here on the internet?

  • Mr. Gould’s box scraper in photo #1 is very impressive – well designed and “professionally built”. It makes me want to go out and buy a tractor and acreage just so I could use a scraper like this. He needs to build and sell these on the market. A great job Mr. Gould, I can tell you are a perfectionist.

  • My B7100D is laid up with a blown engine. No, I bought it that way but it came with a boatload of good equipment. Rototiller, box blade, angle blade, two row harrow, brush hog, and a single bottom moldboard plow. All for $2200. I grade my driveway but I used my neighbors small HST drive Kabota with front end loader.

    I cheated with the stumps, as a former farmer I have a John Deere 510 backhoe. The stumps were still attached to the growing 60 foot tall oak trees. I needed the leverage to shove them over.

    My summer project is to repair the B7100. It was running but knocks pretty bad.

  • @John G:
    What tractor will you buy that is made in the USA by an American company? John Deere is an American company but many of their smaller tractors (sub 100HP) are made overseas, and all have Japanese Yanmar engines. It isn’t until you get to the very large JD ag tractors that you are getting made in the USA.

    Frankly, I’d rather have a Japanese Kubota who makes their tractors and engines in Japan, than a US company who *could* make their machines in the US but instead chooses to build them in Pune, India. That really annoys me and I hope Trump tariffs the heck out of them until they start making them here again.

  • Box Scraper “home-built box scraper” would be worth several pictures, measurements (perhaps)? Or a link to a set of plans.

  • Hey (emgee123). Not trying to be smart but I never remove my loader when mowing. Especially new or unfamiliar property. I lower it within inches of the ground so it can warm me of objects l don’t want to hit with my cutter.

  • All these box blade comments make me wish to add that I have a 60″ one on the back of my M-F compact. Can’t imagine a day without using it. There’s a reason one won’t be able to find them used!

  • I was pretty impressed with my MF 2315’s backhoe… I pulled out some stumps that were as big as the tractor. Just take your time and work it from different angles.

  • Remove the loader before mowing?
    Why? If I did that with my Kubota 110 I’d spend a lot of wasted hours taking my loader on and off.

  • The guy with the big load of firewood on his 3 point hitch is REALLY looking for trouble….ROPS,SEATBELT or not!!!! He hits a hole or drives over a log and it’s all over!!!!

  • Great ideas to keep us busy 🙂 thanks for this article it gave me some great ideas

  • Love that grader.. hopefully there is going to be a good article covering it in the future, also, maybe a set of plans for building it? great job!!

  • Wayne, when you describe “5 foot master grader” are you talking the “terra master terrain grader”? I demo’d one from a local dealer, works amazing, but at $6k+, for my 200 foot driveway I just couldn’t justify it

  • I would like to build one. Very nice . Please advise how to find the plan.

    Bob

  • Wow, never thought that I needed to do suggestions in spring right before planting time. Nice list, but for me – some other time.

  • I too leave the FEL on to bush hog as it shatters lots of seed heads before they get to my radiator.

  • A very rewarding project I’m sure because fixed box scrapers give you very little control when finish grading. If you have box scraper you can get similar results if you are willing to add two hydraulic rams, one on the center lift arm and one of the side lift arms. I installed the control valves near the shifter kinda under the seat. After you prepare the road for rock (high center drains to sides of road) roll the center arm back so there is very little material in the bucket. This allows you to ‘float’ the scraper box lightly spreading the base rock evenly. Use the side arm hydraulic to tilt left or right to get the drainage right. Total cost to install two hydraulic rams is a few hundred dollars but your grading skill will improve tremendously.

  • Yep, John g. Hope the future holds USA or N.American made tractors. But, I seriously doubt It. I have a Kubota , jr, made in Georgia,USA. That is still in the USA, and the people I talk to speak English and they took my American money. I know what you mean, but not in the distant future. I try to buy American, but, that seems to only be able to purchase frozen foods.

  • I would love to see the plans as well, great job on the box blade!

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