ditch digging attachment

[Stomper]

I need to landscape my yard better for drainage. I have to dig up the front yard for some sewer issues I am having anyway so since it is going to be messed up, I want to smooth it out some of the high spots and fill some of the low spots and slope the area for better drainage towards the culvert under my driveway. On the other side of the driveway I want to dig out the ditch a bit deeper and make it a more gentle slope so its a bit more user friendly for mowing. I have a freind that has a pto tiller that I will be able to borrow to till up the ground for replanting the grass. I will eventually be doing the same for by back yard. The back yard is fairly good already but I would like to create a gentle ditch to control the rain and snow melt better. Right now it kind of goes all over the place. also the driveway could use some better sloping also. I could probably do all this with my loader but I think it would be much easier and quicker with one of the following impliments. What would be the best tool for the job. Land plane, box blade or rear blade. My tractor is a L2501 and the rear tire width is 62". How wide of impliment should I go with. I have no experience with any of these impliments but from researching them I think the rear blade would be best and it might come in handy for moving snow in the winter. Thankfully it's the cheapes. New 6' land plane is $1800. New 5' box blade is $1200. New 7' rear blade is $600
Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[nybirdman]

I think a box blade would be more capable than a rear blade for ditching and moving dirt.I also own a rear blade and use it mostly for snow removal,some road grading/leveling.The learning curve is a little greater with a box blade but they are a great tool.

 

[/pine]

Not trying to bust a bubble but please be aware...any of the proper attachments designed to do the type of landscaping you want...(a plane is not really suited for the tasks) will require some learning for a novice...

Hydraulic top and tilt greatly mellows the learning curve and the type of landscape grading you mention requires a bit of experience to prevent a lot of out of the seat hand work...

Good Luck...

 

[Fallon]

If you are wanting gentle, you are grading, not digging. A land plane smooths & levels out high or low spots. Great for a driveway or smoothing a field, not for grading. A loader is for loading loose material, there is a reason it's not called a digger. While you could make it work, it will beat up your machine & give you poor results.

A box blade, or maybe a heavy box blade is the right tool. They are designed to grade off small layers at a time & move material around. With practice & patience they can smooth things out well too.

 

[BrokenTrack]

I think you got some pretty good answers already.

I do not have a box blade so I cannot recommend one, but when I extended a heavy haul road last year, and did a lot of swale construction in the same area, I used my Kubota (same sized as yours) with the front end loader and a grader blade. I also used a turning plow to loosen the soil, sometimes a few times to get the deep cuts in. It worked well.

You will be surprised what you can do with your tractor with a little time and skill. Here are a few pictures of the ditching, rock dams, swale building, etc work that I did last year.

 

[Fallon]

I think you got some pretty good answers already.

I do not have a box blade so I cannot recommend one, but when I extended a heavy haul road last year, and did a lot of swale construction in the same area, I used my Kubota (same sized as yours) with the front end loader and a grader blade. I also used a turning plow to loosen the soil, sometimes a few times to get the deep cuts in. It worked well.

You will be surprised what you can do with your tractor with a little time and skill. Here are a few pictures of the ditching, rock dams, swale building, etc work that I did last year.

A box blade has scarfier teeth built in, so you just lower the teeth all the way & do a pass. Or lower them part way, tilt the box forward (trivial if you have TnT) & do a pass. Either loosens up the top layer to scrape off. A box blade is generally a fair bit heavier than most back blades. This makes them cut better with or without the scarfiers.

The side plates on a box blade keep material contained to move it easier with less spillage.

The one thing a box blade doesn't do well is put a crown on a road (LPGS is in the same boat). As it's straight, even if you tilt the box, it won't roll material to the high side. To do that you need a back blade of some sort that can be angled.

 

[BrokenTrack]

A box blade has scarfier teeth built in, so you just lower the teeth all the way & do a pass. Or lower them part way, tilt the box forward (trivial if you have TnT) & do a pass. Either loosens up the top layer to scrape off. A box blade is generally a fair bit heavier than most back blades. This makes them cut better with or without the scarfiers.

The side plates on a box blade keep material contained to move it easier with less spillage.

The one thing a box blade doesn't do well is put a crown on a road (LPGS is in the same boat). As it's straight, even if you tilt the box, it won't roll material to the high side. To do that you need a back blade of some sort that can be angled.

I had a grader blade, but it did not work well at grading my road at all. The problem was, when the tractor goes into a hole, the grader blade did too, and when it comes up, so does the grader blade. With a lot of work on the 3 point control lever, some of this can be worked out, but it was hardly ideal, and took a lot of passes to get something that was nowhere near as smooth as I wanted.

I had my log trailer though, and it has a walking beam suspension with 4 wheels (the same as a real grader). So I cut apart my useless grader, and instead fabricated up a grader that bolted onto my log trailer. Now whenever my grader blade kicks up a rock, the axle wheels pivot over it, and keeps the blade flat on the ground at all times. At the same time, it is now 18 feet long with the grader blade centered between the tractors rear tire, and the center point on the walking beam suspension. This means I get a really flat roadway because the blade only travels half the distance between the rise and fall of those two points.

In practice, it takes two passes to grade my road now. The first might cut in deeply in places, and skip over other places altogether, but it is a cut and fill sort of operation. The next pass just skims over the entire surface and smooths the roadway right up. It really has to be seen to be appreciated. I am strange that way, if I do not like the results I am getting, I figure out what i have and turn it into something that works.

 

[Fallon]

I had a grader blade, but it did not work well at grading my road at all. The problem was, when the tractor goes into a hole, the grader blade did too, and when it comes up, so does the grader blade. With a lot of work on the 3 point control lever, some of this can be worked out, but it was hardly ideal, and took a lot of passes to get something that was nowhere near as smooth as I wanted.

I had my log trailer though, and it has a walking beam suspension with 4 wheels (the same as a real grader). So I cut apart my useless grader, and instead fabricated up a grader that bolted onto my log trailer. Now whenever my grader blade kicks up a rock, the axle wheels pivot over it, and keeps the blade flat on the ground at all times. At the same time, it is now 18 feet long with the grader blade centered between the tractors rear tire, and the center point on the walking beam suspension. This means I get a really flat roadway because the blade only travels half the distance between the rise and fall of those two points.

In practice, it takes two passes to grade my road now. The first might cut in deeply in places, and skip over other places altogether, but it is a cut and fill sort of operation. The next pass just skims over the entire surface and smooths the roadway right up. It really has to be seen to be appreciated. I am strange that way, if I do not like the results I am getting, I figure out what i have and turn it into something that works.

Ya, that is the drawback of a box & grader blade. A LPGS has really long skids to counteract the attitude of the tractor. But that comes at the expense of being able to move rather than just smooth material. Wheels behind a back blade or landscape rake whelp on a similar manner. So I assume sticking your blade under an appropriate trailer would work out as well. Back in the day they put them under the tractor. Then stretched the tractor for, then they became road graders.

Going really slow along with skill/experience makes the 3pt blades work better at least for a smoother more even finish. At least compared to the finish you can get with a LPGS on rough ground moving fast.

 

[flingwing1969]

Oooo, I LIKE that. Reminds me of the old horse drawn graders they used to build and maintain roads in the old days. I almost bought one several years ago, simply because it was very cool. These babies can be converted to tractor wor as well.

 

[flingwing1969]

BTW, I like my rear blade but mainly for cutting ditches. My ranch was a mile of road and a thousand feet up from my mailbox on my very own dirt road with a steep canyon on one side and a 15' high hillside cut on the other. Needless to say, ditch maintenance was a must.