New landplane build for L&G and subcompacts
- Thread starter jenkinsph
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Gittyup
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Nice Job, Steve. That's going to come in real handy. Why do some of the commercial ones have one blade angled?
danceswithdirt
Bronze Member
Looks great, I think you'll love that behind the 749. Just finished working my drive with the 7040 and 6' plane. Purchased the 6' for the 4105 jd and its to small. Working a drive with a 7040 is a bit more tiring, the small landplane tucked down almost under the tractor is hard to see.
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Most of the ones I see have both blades angled in parallel. The advantage I see to this is when making multiple passes you can overlap without leaving as much of a trail.
For leveling lawns I think it is better to have the blades set straight and with the blades set flush don't overload the box. All the landplanes I have seen will carry more dirt than some would think. You can level an extremely rough area fast.
My first project to use it on is a front lawn area rocky weed patch with trees to work under. Rocky mountain lawn areas can be difficult to work with but with the 4520 doing most of the work this smaller landplane should save me some time and money.
Here's some pictures of my next project area before fixing it up. This is for a good customer so I hope to make her happy with it.
Here's some pictures of my next project area before fixing it up. This is for a good customer so I hope to make her happy with it.
TCowner
Platinum Member
Steve, I should be getting the 1026R delivered this week. I can take some measurements as soon as it arrives.
Gordon Gould
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Originally Posted by Gordon Gould
Looks really good Steve. I especially like how you formed those skids.
One question though. I was wondering how much room you have between the top of the blade and the cross pieces. Do you think that if you get material built up in front of the blade it can get through that tight spot OK or are your cross pieces more forward than they look in the pictures ?
The only reason I asked about the clearance was because your's is alot tighter than mine and mine shows a tendancy to clog. I have 6 1/2" vertical between the top of the blade and the bottom of the cross piece plus the cross piece is 10" in front of the blade. When mine clogs it mostly happens if I hit a wet spot or some leaves or the gravel has just been laid and is really loose. It also happens when I cut along the sod edge to make it straight or if there is a sod hump in the middle of the road like on some roads I work on.
I just thought you might want to think about maximizing the clearance for the material flow before you finalize things.
gg
Looks really good Steve. I especially like how you formed those skids.
One question though. I was wondering how much room you have between the top of the blade and the cross pieces. Do you think that if you get material built up in front of the blade it can get through that tight spot OK or are your cross pieces more forward than they look in the pictures ?
The only reason I asked about the clearance was because your's is alot tighter than mine and mine shows a tendancy to clog. I have 6 1/2" vertical between the top of the blade and the bottom of the cross piece plus the cross piece is 10" in front of the blade. When mine clogs it mostly happens if I hit a wet spot or some leaves or the gravel has just been laid and is really loose. It also happens when I cut along the sod edge to make it straight or if there is a sod hump in the middle of the road like on some roads I work on.
I just thought you might want to think about maximizing the clearance for the material flow before you finalize things.
gg
Gordon,
That is a good point you bring up about clearance, I could have gone with a taller rectangular tubing such as a 2x12" for additional clearance. In my neck of the woods in the southwest vegetation is minimal so clogging is not much of an issue. Working in soil for the most part with the blades set flush I don't move as much material as your does and it seems to flow up and over the blades well enough.
I agree that for wet soil or clay with larger clods more clearance would be advisable. In that case I would change to the taller 2x12 tubing and/or raise the end mountings of the cross beam. I'm not sure a garden tractor such as mine would handle the plane with that much material in and on it though. When you look closely at the front clevis hitch you can see that I raised it quite a bit to insure that the plane can run low enough through dips and depressions. That could have been simplified with the use of taller skids and a slightly larger tractor.
I have noticed that both you and Brian tend to cut deeper or more aggressively in each pass and allow more material to roll over the plane. I would think that is great for bring the gravel to the top and mixing. For my uses if the ground was flat I don't wan't it to cut at all, just carry the loose material along to the next depression. Most of my use for a plane is to smooth out new seed bed areas in sandy loam soils, I really don't do much work with gravel driveways.
If I were building the plane for mostly gravel driveway maintenance I would probably go with taller skids and have the blade 3/4" below the skids for more mixing action. I would angle the blades too, which would leave a cleaner track or trail on the leading edge. The whole landplane would be larger than this little 4' model too.
That is a good point you bring up about clearance, I could have gone with a taller rectangular tubing such as a 2x12" for additional clearance. In my neck of the woods in the southwest vegetation is minimal so clogging is not much of an issue. Working in soil for the most part with the blades set flush I don't move as much material as your does and it seems to flow up and over the blades well enough.
I agree that for wet soil or clay with larger clods more clearance would be advisable. In that case I would change to the taller 2x12 tubing and/or raise the end mountings of the cross beam. I'm not sure a garden tractor such as mine would handle the plane with that much material in and on it though. When you look closely at the front clevis hitch you can see that I raised it quite a bit to insure that the plane can run low enough through dips and depressions. That could have been simplified with the use of taller skids and a slightly larger tractor.
I have noticed that both you and Brian tend to cut deeper or more aggressively in each pass and allow more material to roll over the plane. I would think that is great for bring the gravel to the top and mixing. For my uses if the ground was flat I don't wan't it to cut at all, just carry the loose material along to the next depression. Most of my use for a plane is to smooth out new seed bed areas in sandy loam soils, I really don't do much work with gravel driveways.
If I were building the plane for mostly gravel driveway maintenance I would probably go with taller skids and have the blade 3/4" below the skids for more mixing action. I would angle the blades too, which would leave a cleaner track or trail on the leading edge. The whole landplane would be larger than this little 4' model too.