Aggressiveness of a BoxBlade

[mrlullabye]

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.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

First thing that you might try would be to shorten your top link. That will make your front cutting edge cut down into the dirt and bring the rear cutting edge up off of the dirt.

Maybe someone else will have another idea, good luck.

 

[KennyV]

Do you have rippers on your BB? If so rip the channel you want to work.
If you do not have rippers try to locate a middle buster (potato plow) or a subsoil single ripper. Then BB after you have ripped. KennyV.

 

[radman1]

For me, rippers are what makes a box blade dig. The box blade will only scrap off the looser material on top, then it has trouble digging in. Thats when the rippers are lowered. Tear up the top and then can scrape with the blade again.

Not sure what you mean by "gated". Does that mean it has an hinged rear blade? If yes, then that is a nice advantage for smoothing.

Going backwards with a box blade is more difficult. Going backwards makes the rear blade really dig in and difficult to control the depth. Too deep, then too shallow, then too deep ..... I can only get decent results going backward with loose material. Also going backwards is tough on the 3pt arms. Some guys have bent them or caused damage at the arm connection to the tractor. That can be big $$$ to repair.

 

[newbury]

have you read
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/owning-operating/116316-various-boxblade-uses.html ?

 

[mrlullabye]

I had not seen the forum post about boxblade uses and it makes me think I need to look into a Top-n-tilt whatever that is.

The gated boxblade has two-piece rear blade with a hinge that runs the widthe of the blade, and it looks like originally there would have been the ability to pin the rear blade into several positions or allow a real **** heavy spring to let it sweep back.

I beleive that the rear blade has actually been bent a little barely noticeable but over the 6 feet probably enough to make it impossible to open. It looks to me like someone threw a clevis hook over the top of the chain and tried to pull some stumps or something. It's think enough steel I whacked it a few times with my 12 pound hammer and it barely made a sound much less moved.

I honestly could not be anymore impressed with it's ability to smooth. Maybe a roller would do a better job.

It is swept back maybe 10 degrees past vertical when the box is level. I thought about playing with the top-link, but I think the sides would probably be 3 inches below the rear blade before t even got to be vertical.

It does have 4 or 5 scarificers on it, it has one empty slot for them so I know it is not all. I did check and they are all loose enough I could work them down. That might be the ticket. Maybe some scar action followed by some FEL to get it broken up then drag t with the blade
.

 

[radman1]

I had not seen the forum post about boxblade uses and it makes me think I need to look into a Top-n-tilt whatever that is.

The gated boxblade has two-piece rear blade with a hinge that runs the widthe of the blade, and it looks like originally there would have been the ability to pin the rear blade into several positions or allow a real **** heavy spring to let it sweep back.

I beleive that the rear blade has actually been bent a little barely noticeable but over the 6 feet probably enough to make it impossible to open. It looks to me like someone threw a clevis hook over the top of the chain and tried to pull some stumps or something. It's think enough steel I whacked it a few times with my 12 pound hammer and it barely made a sound much less moved.

I honestly could not be anymore impressed with it's ability to smooth. Maybe a roller would do a better job.

It is swept back maybe 10 degrees past vertical when the box is level. I thought about playing with the top-link, but I think the sides would probably be 3 inches below the rear blade before t even got to be vertical.

It does have 4 or 5 scarificers on it, it has one empty slot for them so I know it is not all. I did check and they are all loose enough I could work them down. That might be the ticket. Maybe some scar action followed by some FEL to get it broken up then drag t with the blade
.

OK, it seems you have a typical box blade. My gannon rear hinged blade can be bolted ridge or put in a hinged/swinging setting. Check the rear corners behind the blade and you may see a bolt on each end locking the blade in place. Remove or loosen the bolt to allow it to swing. Otherwise your blade/hinge is rusted or bent. Use the scarifers to rip up the ground and then it should blade easier. Make 2-3 passes with scarifers if needed.

TNT stands for top and tilt cylinder. The top cylinder replaces your existing toplink and the tilt cylinder replaces on of the side links on the 3 pt. You will need to have 2 sets of rear hydraulic outlets (4 outlets total) to use a TNT. Toplink cylinder allow the blade to tip forward or back. The same as you current toplink, just much easier and faster. My prior Woods box balde would allow me to tip the front down to rip and the front up to blade. Didn't have to raise or lower the rippers manually. The tilt cylinder will allow the box blade to angle side to side to allow scultping the ground as you see fit. Again this can be done by manually extending or retracting the side link on the 3 pt.