Box blade, roll over box blade, or land leveler????????

[jenkinsph]

jenkinsph---
Very interesting project that you're working on. Thanks for sharing the drawings.
What is the reason for the castering action on the wheels? To allow angling of the blade?

When in three point mode it allows you to back in and or turn. For precision leveling and grading it is necessary to carry the dirt while turning. In pull type mode with a drawbar the wheels are locked straight. I already figured out that when operating in automatic machine control that if you raise the rockshaft (and box blade) the control system will raise the wheels up out of the way. When you back into position and lower the rockshaft all the way down the machine control will take over and set the proper height to maintain grade. It helps that the rock shaft will float up as needed. Even if you back up to a ditch bank which holds the box blade above grade the wheels are still held up until the weight of the box blade under gravity approaches the grade line. The wheel assemblies are adding weight over the box to aid in cutting too.
Hope that is clear enough.

 

[hunt4570]

Alrighty then, what do you think would be the way to go on my tiny 7 acre clearing then, Box blade, roll over box blade, or land leveler?

 

[jenkinsph]

Alrighty then, what do you think would be the way to go on my tiny 7 acre clearing then, Box blade, roll over box blade, or land leveler?

For your tractor without remotes I would use a roll over box blade. A land plane would be my choice to smooth the top layer if you forego digging up the roots.

This assumes you have cleaned up the piles and burned everything off. 90% of the work is in the cleanup.

 

[boggen]

i tried searching but coming up empty....
one person here on TBN used i want to say 1 to 4 (4x4's) i want to say 10 to 16 foot long. and setup a rear blade on it.

another person here on TBN cut down a tree, toss one end on a dolly (2 wheels) then i don't remember if box blade or rear blade or something else. then just chained the other end of tree up to 3pt hitch with a draw bar on it.

there was another odd ball rear blade out there. it was a standard 3pt hitch rear blade. but on the back side, there was a "fold-able" T and with proper "tilt of the top link" the T would act kinda like gauge wheels and run along behind the back blade.

i want to say one other person built an extension for the 3pt hitch. i want to say it was only 2 to 4 feet in length. they could attach one end to 3pt hitch of tractor like any other 3pt hitch equipment. and then the other end was like a quick hitch. so they could extend some things further out behind the tractor.

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for me.... my issue is the following... from gate up near house to a lake/cabin i have a dirt road right at 3/4 mile long. if you drive a car down it, ya need to go at "idle" to about 5 to 8 MPH (basically really slow), while entire dirt road is nice and smooth including the edging / grass. there are 1/4" to 1" long low and high spots. any were from 3 feet to 40 feet long. and when you get up to say 20 to 30 MPH, a car suspension will go down as ya going down into a low spot, then as you come up on other end, the suspension will raise car up and then come crashing down. it has happened a couple times were something bottom of car has scrapped the ground. ((generally call it young and stupid and going to fast, but still))

the road itself is fine, drive slow and all is good. most folks prefer going slow anyhow due to not wanting to cover there car and anyone behind them in 1/4" thick of dust.

but my issue is the equipment i have on hand. i can get things "smooth" and i can for most part get things leveled. the issue is the 1/4" to 1" long low spots / high spots. from high up on the tractor seat everything looks awesome. but when i get down on hands and knees and actually get my eye's down next to the ground, it is a different story, and i simply can not tell difference once i get back on tractor. i can spend all day, and still end up with some low spots / high spots that are nice and long.

having a longer distance between rear end of tractor and implement would most likely help me a good amount. adding additional length behind the implement even more so. for dealing with the long low / high spots that are within the road. it the longer lengths should help remove the guess work of trying to adjust the 3pt hitch just right. and more accurately get things smoothed / leveled over a longer area.
--it really is not about the "implement width" due to i want to keep a "crown" on the road were water runs away and off the road. but rather the over distance in length. it is not like i am going to be driving from ditch to ditch, but rather down the road.

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another issue is a rock / twig will sometimes get caught up under the cutting edge. that alone "erks me" it is enough to offset things. ((partial reason why i love adding extra weight)) and wanting to keep implement on the ground err weighed down.

another issue from seating high in tractor, is i am bring in loose un compacted dirt, after i drive over it a few times it is well compacted, but i still have "tire marks" and after a couple rains the tire marks go away. and then i can tell what is going on.

if i hit the dirt road when it is to dry, it is basically pointless, or less i want to tear down deep into the road base. which i do not want to even think about doing. if i get out there when it is to wet, i just end up making little 1/2" deep ruts.

another issue, i need to be extra careful of, the old ford TLB 555c 80HP machine, if i get a full bucket of dirt in the FEL. and drive down the road. i can get the tractor bouncing side to side, front to back, or a mix of it. if i start to get bouncing just a little i gotta slow it down. or end up making lots of extra work for myself. the bouncing causes all the weight of tractor to go to one tire. the dirt just does not go compacted down. instead the dirt gets compacted in top 1" of dirt. and then squishes out. and the dirt ends up like concrete. the end result is like a mini crater, low spot were tire went down with all the weight on it, then a ring around it that is now higher than the dirt road.
--these mini craters = next time i come down road in TLB = i start bouncing once i hit them, and regular car suspensions take a good beating when hitting them to point ya really feel the vibration inside the vehicle.
--about only way to fix these mini creators i have found, is when the ground is very wet to point i make 1/2" to 1" deep ruts. that is about only time i can go in and scalp the high spots of the mini craters. i generally need to come back in after things have dried, to fill in ruts.

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for grass / lawn like areas..... if the slope of the area will allow water drainage (no puddling) and dealing with (tire ruts, low spot from settling etc..)
i generally work the area up with a disc harrow getting down to 1/2" to 2" if that. and approx 1 to 8 feet around it in all directions some times more pending on location and how close something is. then pull a chain and/or log through area and smooth out the entire area, removing larger clumps of crud.

if area = puddling then it normally means bring in dirt and or ripping up a larger part of lawn and completely redoing the slopping of the ground. when i say rip up, i try to do it in approx 1" depth at a time. and drive over it multi times so i get at least 1 front tire width over the entire area, this is primarily to compact the looser dirt after rip up. so that i can better eye ball high/low spots as i move dirt around. once i am satisfied with that, i will go back with the disc harrow to loosen the dirt back up about 1" depth. and then drag a chain and/or log behind me to help clean it up and smooth things out for a better final finish. give it 1 to 2 years and grass gets fully grown back in.

 

[hunt4570]

For your tractor without remotes I would use a roll over box blade. A land plane would be my choice to smooth the top layer if you forego digging up the roots.

This assumes you have cleaned up the piles and burned everything off. 90% of the work is in the cleanup.

Well the piles will be here a while, mostly green stumps trees and branches and the like. They need to dry out a bit first.Will probably burn the piles around the first of the year, after deer season and during the rainy part of the year to be safe with them.

And I'm going to pick up that rollover this week along with a disc, I'll see how that rollover works, and if not so well, I may get one of those landlevelers also.

 

[npalen]

http://www.tgschmeiser.com/pdfs/Open Field.pdf

Can anyone figure out how the "self-leveling" three point hitch on the front of the Varitrak 3PT Land Leveler works as shown on page 5? I'm not seeing how it works.
See page 5 in the brochure.

 

[bcp]

Some improvised long graders:

Old truck, later in the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpeg9yTPuEo

Some photos, probably from TBN.
View attachment 433619

 

[jenkinsph]

Well the piles will be here a while, mostly green stumps trees and branches and the like. They need to dry out a bit first.Will probably burn the piles around the first of the year, after deer season and during the rainy part of the year to be safe with them.

And I'm going to pick up that rollover this week along with a disc, I'll see how that rollover works, and if not so well, I may get one of those landlevelers also.

One of the advantages I have with these jobs is in New Mexico our humidity is much lower for 300 days a year, I grew up in NO La. just the opposite. In all cases you want to reduce the dirt on the stumps to promote drying out. The less dirt in the piles the better off you will be. FWIW, the less you have to work around a burn pile the better, the ash can burn through the pleated air filters and damage the engine.

Box blades are more difficult to work with than a landplane. Plan on spending the time to be good at it. Since you are buying a disc to work up the ground you would be better served to get a landplane without the rippers and make it a better brand than the one shown in your pictures. You will likely have to disc it up and smooth and fill over the stump holes more than once as they settle. Soft bottomed stump holes work great to stick a tractor in rainy weather.

 

[npalen]

This is an example of a pull type box blade where the depth of cut is controlled with the 3PH.

 

[hunt4570]

One of the advantages I have with these jobs is in New Mexico our humidity is much lower for 300 days a year, I grew up in NO La. just the opposite. In all cases you want to reduce the dirt on the stumps to promote drying out. The less dirt in the piles the better off you will be. FWIW, the less you have to work around a burn pile the better, the ash can burn through the pleated air filters and damage the engine.

Box blades are more difficult to work with than a landplane. Plan on spending the time to be good at it. Since you are buying a disc to work up the ground you would be better served to get a landplane without the rippers and make it a better brand than the one shown in your pictures. You will likely have to disc it up and smooth and fill over the stump holes more than once as they settle. Soft bottomed stump holes work great to stick a tractor in rainy weather.

They actually did a pretty good job of getting the dirt off those stumps before putting them in the burn piles, they picked them up high with the track hoe and dropped them. Not all the dirt is gone but most is.
I'll look into other landplanes but budget is a factor here too, and this will be a one time job for me.