Box Scraper Ground Plane or Box Scraper?

[Stormtruck2]

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.

[greg_g]

You're going to get varied opinions on this, many from those who've owned one but not the other. I initially thought a rear scraper blade was the way to go for my farm driveways, but I was very quickly disappointed. I traded that sucker against a boxblade and a landscape rake, and have never regretted the decision.

//greg//

[digger2]

Boxblade.....the scraper blade would take forever especially when it comes to straightening out the ruts.It will probably just skip over the bad spots you are trying to straighten out.The boxblade will rip it up (if you leave the teeth down),then you can go back over it with the teeth up to smooth and level.They work great for just what you are describing........digger2

[/pine]

The key to re-working and smoothing gravel is scarifying the packed material before grading and leveling...you won't be able to do this with just a plane blade...

...IMO, once you learn to use the multiple aspects of a box blade (a hydraulic toplink will greatly enhance the efficiency) you should be able to do almost everything you can do with a plane and a whole lot more...

[Ford tractor]

This

Land Pride Grading Scrapers

[jlsmith]

This

Land Pride Grading Scrapers

I agree with Ford tractor ive have used one of these several times and it works great. The only diff is I used one made by another company but the set up was the same.

[jenkinsph]

The Landpride grading scraper is a good compromise from the looks of it. I would prefer longer skids that they have, Preferably 60" to 72" skid lengths this enables you to have a smoother grade.

If I build another landplane next year it will have a hydraulic scarifier on it similar to my boxblade.

Still think you need a good rearblade for crowning and ditching and pulling back materials migrating towards the edges.

[jlsmith]

The skids on the one I use are 72"

[Happyman]

This

Land Pride Grading Scrapers

I agree. Bought one for our 1/2 mile gravel drive and it beats the heck out of the box blade.

[MtnViewRanch]

I maintain 2 1/4 miles of roads. One mile of that is shared with 5 other properties. You mentioned road maintenance. For road maintenance I prefer my road grading scraper. It simply does the best job overall of the 4 commonly used implements.

Now my rear blade is great for making new roads, for ditching along the road and for creating a good crown on the road. It can work well for taking care of the roads, just a little more work than with the road grader blade.

There have been times when I have used my rollover box blade to get rises out of the road and fill in low spots, but once the road is how you want it, not much of a reason to use it after the road is established.

When I use my landscape rake, it is usually just to dress up the road, maybe pull some leaves off or just a raking to make it look good. Some people like to use a rake to grade with and you can, just not a reason to if you have other implements.

Something to keep in mind is that the heavier the implement, the better it is going to grade. If I could only have one of the four types of implements that I have for working on my roads, it would be the road grading blade, hands down.