Box Blading pics

[RobJ]

Question always comes up, BB or rear blade. Here are a few shots from this weekend.

BB will level out nicely but as you can see in a couple areas I needed to move the dirt from one location to another. In this case about 100' or so to some more washed out areas. I also filled some huge ruts in the road on the hill part. Forgot to get a before pic, some were over a foot deep.

But I can load up a BB that my L can't pull it. That is my $300 5' Beg Red BB there. I had the scrapers down just a bit, and for the finish stuff I really had the box set to far forward, to lazy to change out. We'll see what happens after the first rain.

The hardest thing about messing with a BB is knowing when to quit. All this playing took about 40-45 minutes. I could have spent 90 minutes just messing with it. I wanted to mainly fill the ruts, and divert the water off the hill. We'll see.

Could have not done this with a straight blade...

Enjoy the pics..

[RobJ]

Here is a couple more of some BB work. I didn't get a good before shot here either. The clay mound in the middle was covered with small elms and junk. I couldn't get over it with the RC last time out. The BB would cut or pull the elms out of the ground, and other junk. I then leveled off the hill enough so I could mow. to level I just rolled over it and dropped the BB and took of what I could and dropped it quickly to flatten out the mound. Once I did get the BB cought on the hill (the steep side) and had to use the diff lock to get moving again. The last pic is sort of a looking down the hill pic from 2 weeks ago.

I dropped the junk in the same pile, then used the BB in reverse to shove it into the woods where I have no intention of clearing. It'll make a good rabbit home!

Rob

[3RRL]

Great pictures Rob,
Looks like you had some fun seat time lately.
Also interesting that your boxblade has the name of your Texas red dirt on it.

[RobJ]

You bet, for $300 it could have been painted pink.

That's east Texas red clay with native iron ore gravel mixed in. The best road material around and it's free!

[jhuey]

I just used a BB for the first time last week. You are right you have to know when enough is enough. I had about a 100' driveway that was in need of leveling, hadn't been done in over 20 years. The BB did it all, Dropped the scrapers down untill all was as close to level. Picked up the scrapers and finished leveling. Had a load of Afton stone (local road bed gravel) delivered, and used the FEL and BB to level it all out. I was surprised how easy it all went, never having done that before. The straight blade stayed in the truck the whole time. I found back dragging FEL in float at the same time using the BB back blade worked great. Next time I'll have a camera.

[RobJ]

Looking at the pics again I may try using the BB for clearing again. The edge on my is still very sharp and with the weight will cut the smaller trees or pull them up if the ground is right. This would save some wear and tear on the RC and PTO. Just have to find a place to shove then out of the way or burn them.

[bilbo004]

Rob,

Do you think the BB would work well on a driveway that is mostly shale underneath? My whole property is at most 3" of topsoil. Originally had shale/item 4 for driveway, but it is washing away. After I finish the drainage, I was wondering if BB would work better than straight blade to fix up.

Regards,
Bill

[RobJ]

If you need to level AND move some material from a to b then yes. Snow and all that stuff aside, IMO a straight blade is better for moving material from one side of the blade to the other. Like you can tilt a straight blade, pull the dirt/material from the side of the driveway back to the middle, then flatten it out. Or tilt it and carve a relief ditch next to a driveway.

Both have pros and cons but a BB will move material better witout losing it out of the sides. IMO..

Rob