Box Scraper Ground Plane or Box Scraper?

[beppington]

Land plane / Road Grader

I thought this was a good video. It answered a lot of questions I had about them.

YouTube - How To - Tractor Land Plane - Gravel Road Maintenance

That driveway appeared to be in very good shape already when they started planing it in the video. I wonder how well that plane would work if the road needed serious work. I dunno, I've never used one.

 

[jenkinsph]

Using the plane pictured in the video you could expect fair to decent results. That plane was light duty to medium duty at about 75-80 lbs/linear foot.. If you use a plane that is roughly 125 lbs/linear foot you will get better results. If you use a plane with longer skids you get less deviation in the finished grade.

I good 7' plane with 72" skids and enough strength not to allow any flex in the blades should weigh close to 1000 lbs. For better control it helps to have the hydraulic top link too.

 

[Gordon Gould]

That driveway appeared to be in very good shape already when they started planing it in the video. I wonder how well that plane would work if the road needed serious work. I dunno, I've never used one.

It depends on what you mean by serious work. If you need to recrown or change the pitch for drainage its not the tool to use. If the general contour of the road is ok but you have wash board, shallow wheel ruts, or pot holes then they work very well. On mine if we have a bad mud season I use my rear blade first to get the crown and drainage pitches reset then I use the grader plane afterwards and for the rest of the year. Here is a before and after pic of a section of my road. They're not a real good example but they are the only before and after pictures I have. This section is still pretty primitve. No proper road material at all except some crushed stone that I put in the mud ruts one spring before it dried up. I went over it with just the grader. Maybe this will give you an idea. But you really need to try one. The other important thing the grader does is it remixes the surface material so it is just like it has been resurfaced.

 

[brucewj]

It depends on what you mean by serious work. On mine if we have a bad mud season I use my rear blade first to get the crown and drainage pitches reset then I use the grader plane afterwards and for the rest of the year.

Yep, same here. It is a lot faster for me to use the plane to keep the road in good shape. I have to use the back blade once or twice a year to reshape everything, depending on how much moisture, amount of traffic, and how big the potholes are!

 

[jake98]

Those grader/planers look like they're good if you have mile of road to do, but they seem like a single use attachment to me. Boxblades do the same thing but are way more usefull with the other functions of moving more volume over short distances, cutting slopes, and backfilling. Moving snow too. It would be silly to get a grader first. (did that sound rude?)

 

[RAF]

I have two gravel driveways that I need to maintain. One is level and the other is rather steep and rutted with a high center ridge. Which would be better for maintaining the driveways. I also want to be able to scrape some of the gravel loose on the inclined driveway during the winter. I will be pulling them with a JD 4600. I look forward to your advice.

For the information posted. I would think the the grader / land plane would serve the purpose well.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Those grader/planers look like they're good if you have mile of road to do, but they seem like a single use attachment to me. Boxblades do the same thing but are way more usefull with the other functions of moving more volume over short distances, cutting slopes, and backfilling. Moving snow too. It would be silly to get a grader first. (did that sound rude?)

A box blade does not even come close to cutting out wash board like a land plane-grader blade does. But you are right, if a person only has small chores to do, not much sense in spending all that money on all the more specialized implements.

I know that I would have to have less than 200 feet of roads before I would give up my land plane-grader blades.

 

[Gordon Gould]

Those grader/planers look like they're good if you have mile of road to do, but they seem like a single use attachment to me. Boxblades do the same thing but are way more usefull with the other functions of moving more volume over short distances, cutting slopes, and backfilling. Moving snow too. It would be silly to get a grader first. (did that sound rude?)

Not rude at all. But Don't forget eveybody has different needs and priorities. Your right it is not a boxblade replacement. It is specialized to make it very easy and quick to create flat planer surfaces from grassy, lumpy, bumpy, pot holey, rutted ones. What may seem silly to you may make perfect sense to the next guy.
Different strokes for different folks.

 

[jenkinsph]

Those grader/planers look like they're good if you have mile of road to do, but they seem like a single use attachment to me. Boxblades do the same thing but are way more usefull with the other functions of moving more volume over short distances, cutting slopes, and backfilling. Moving snow too. It would be silly to get a grader first. (did that sound rude?)

Not rude but uninformed.
I should point out the people who have good ones like them, most of the people with reservations haven't used them. My Frontier 1284 boxblade is a heavy duty model with hydraulic scarifiers 7' wide and 1250 lbs it works great but I use my landplane/grader blade more often.

 

[djradz]

Yep, same here. It is a lot faster for me to use the plane to keep the road in good shape. I have to use the back blade once or twice a year to reshape everything, depending on how much moisture, amount of traffic, and how big the potholes are!

Not having a plane, I can only base my two cents on the numerous pictures that other have posted, and thus the basis for my suggestion that a rear blade be the choice, if only one implement is to be purchased.

Every one of the pictures shows an extremely flat road, with little or no crown. Also, often it appears the planes let some gravel fall to the outside, which seems to establish a little berm, which also helps to hold water. Thus, more frequent grading it required, as potholes will develop. If more of a crown was established, it would seem less grading would be required. Again, from the pictures, it does not seem the plane (or a box blade) can be angled, so creating a crown would appear to be more diffiicult, and why my vote is for the rear blade first.