Box blade or scraper blade

[Anonymous Poster]

I am in need of a box blade (or scraper blade?) for general use on my 15 acres that I just built a house on. I have a 500 ft gravel road to the house that may need maintenance and some areas on the land that I want to smooth our a bit to make mowing easier. Also, since the house has just been built I'll probably need to do a little landscape work with it also. Should I consider a scraper blade instead? Any advantages or disadvantages?

Thanks.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

The box blade is great for loosening hard soil and moving it in a straight line, and is adequate for leveling and smoothing. But it won't side-cast the material at all. So it is not very good at snow removal and ditching and crowning.

The rear blade sidecasts with ease, but without scarifiers it can't loosen really hard soil as well as the box blade. Unless you have end plates it can't move as much material at one time as the box blade. Typically, it doesn't weigh as much as a box blade, either.

I have both a box blade and a rear blade with offset and tilt. I frequently start with the box blade while loosening and moving the dirt, then switch to the rear blade for finishing up.
If I could only have one then I think I would rather have a really heavy top-of-the-line rear blade with offset and tilt than a box blade.

 

[MarkV]

Jim,
Your question is one that comes up fairly often and there does not seem to be a definitive answer to it. I have both and use the box blade 90 percent of the time. Those who live in the Northeastern states have a hard time even finding a dealer that sells one. From what I get it has to do with the amount of rock in the soil.

I would take a look at what the locals in your area are using. Rubintropfen, has given a good summary of the advantages of both types of blades.

MarkV

 

[John_Mc]

I agree with most of what Rubintropfen said, though I would have to give the edge to the boxblade in smothing, especially in gravel or loose dirt. You can carry along a good load of material in the box, and it drops out to fill the low spots. I have a bit more trouble with this with the rear blade, since it will spill off the edges as you go, which may not be what you want. Also, I've found it very easy to establish and maintain a crown with a box blade on 1300+ ft of gravel road/driveway that I take care of. (though if I had to use anything smaller than my 6 ft box, I might feel differently).

The Box blade does OK at making drainage swales (the scarifiers are nice if you have to rip up some sod first, but a rear blade would probably do better at sidecasting the dirt). The box is not so good at making or maintaining ditches. For this, I'd definitely give the edge to a rear blade

 

[GlueGuy]

<font color=blue>The box is not so good at making or maintaining ditches.</font color=blue>

That is mostly true, except with my 4' boxblade. With the T&T, I am able to dip the side of the boxblade into a ditch, and clear the length of our 4300' driveway in short order. Also, when cleaning out ditches, you sometimes don't want to side-cast, as the material in the ditch is often mostly made up of the ultra-fine particles that you don't want on your road surface in the first place.