mrlullabye
Member
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2009
- Messages
- 39
I am fairly new to the tractor experience, but I have a 39 HP 4wd tractor with a front-end loader. When I bought it I thought I would be able to back drag with the FEL to smooth out soil. I quckly learned that that whole back dragging idea while sound just does not yield good results. I am sure someone will respond that they can backdrag until it is like a skating rink, no offense, but I can't.
So I decided to buy a rear blade or scraper. I ended up getting a quite used 6' Gated Boxblade. Not knowing much about a boxblade I did not pay much attention to that "Gated" part. This boxblade is old and rusted and seems to weight more then my old Ford Ranger. It's heavy as ****. It's rusted as ****, it's ugly as ****. It is super heavy duty though it looks like 3/8th steel sides and the hitch parts are 1/2. It's super duty. It does look like it sat in the gulf of mexico for a year though everything that looks like t should move is rusted shut. It took me about an hour to wrestle the old hitch pins off.
So anyways I get it hook it to the tractor and head to the mess of a spot I had made trying to backdrag a sandy washout bottom. Let me tell you it works great for smoothing loose material. I cannot imagine anything being easier to smooth loose soil with. It is perfect for that.
However back to that gated part the back door of the box is hinged and looks like it should be possible to move some pins and have it either swept forward or backwards. It is rusted backwards so when you are towing forward it basically is like a 600 pound broom. It is amazingly good at smoothing.
Now that sad I intended to use it to drag a shallow drainage 'ditch' I was going to just pull a rut several inches deep the width of the blade for about 300 yards to direct some water. The way it is though it won't even break the grass up. I can mash the grass down with it real good but it won't dig. I tried pushing backwards and it does slightly better but I am affraid I am going to damage my 3 point. It just does not seem like it is built to really bulldoze backwards.
So I guess my questions are.
Is it ok to bulldoze backwards with a boxblade? If so how much. I know with the FEL you can twist it up pretty good if you push on one corner too hards I imagine the same is true of the boxblade.
Should I look for a non-Gated boxblade? It seems like if the angle of the boxblade was cutting instead of sweeping this would work great. I really do not think it would be possible to get the gate on this one unstuck enough to kick it back forward.
I have thought even though I like the 6 foot boxblade, it does seem like a smaller blade might cut more aggressively.
A scraper blade is a lot cheaper and since I already have a smoother I thought about just getting a scraper. The area I want to cut is sort of a V shape now, and it sort of looks like that scraper might not be as tough as the boxblade when it comes to pressure on the outer edges.
Sorry about the long windedness.
So I decided to buy a rear blade or scraper. I ended up getting a quite used 6' Gated Boxblade. Not knowing much about a boxblade I did not pay much attention to that "Gated" part. This boxblade is old and rusted and seems to weight more then my old Ford Ranger. It's heavy as ****. It's rusted as ****, it's ugly as ****. It is super heavy duty though it looks like 3/8th steel sides and the hitch parts are 1/2. It's super duty. It does look like it sat in the gulf of mexico for a year though everything that looks like t should move is rusted shut. It took me about an hour to wrestle the old hitch pins off.
So anyways I get it hook it to the tractor and head to the mess of a spot I had made trying to backdrag a sandy washout bottom. Let me tell you it works great for smoothing loose material. I cannot imagine anything being easier to smooth loose soil with. It is perfect for that.
However back to that gated part the back door of the box is hinged and looks like it should be possible to move some pins and have it either swept forward or backwards. It is rusted backwards so when you are towing forward it basically is like a 600 pound broom. It is amazingly good at smoothing.
Now that sad I intended to use it to drag a shallow drainage 'ditch' I was going to just pull a rut several inches deep the width of the blade for about 300 yards to direct some water. The way it is though it won't even break the grass up. I can mash the grass down with it real good but it won't dig. I tried pushing backwards and it does slightly better but I am affraid I am going to damage my 3 point. It just does not seem like it is built to really bulldoze backwards.
So I guess my questions are.
Is it ok to bulldoze backwards with a boxblade? If so how much. I know with the FEL you can twist it up pretty good if you push on one corner too hards I imagine the same is true of the boxblade.
Should I look for a non-Gated boxblade? It seems like if the angle of the boxblade was cutting instead of sweeping this would work great. I really do not think it would be possible to get the gate on this one unstuck enough to kick it back forward.
I have thought even though I like the 6 foot boxblade, it does seem like a smaller blade might cut more aggressively.
A scraper blade is a lot cheaper and since I already have a smoother I thought about just getting a scraper. The area I want to cut is sort of a V shape now, and it sort of looks like that scraper might not be as tough as the boxblade when it comes to pressure on the outer edges.
Sorry about the long windedness.