3 Pt Sod Cutter ?

[MarkN]

Has anyone ever seen or used a 3 pt implement that will cut sod so that it can be reused? I need to cut a gradual swale approx. 150 ft by 10 ft. I would like to remove sod, grade area and then replace when I am through.

[Anonymous Poster]

No, but my local rental place has a nice gas powered sod cutter. Beats doing it by hand and not too pricey.

[PaulT]

Do you plan to grade with a box scraper? I would like to have a tractor mounted sod cutter, too. I was thinking that using the box blade tilted forward just a bit, or maybe even flat might cut the sod and roll it up in the box if you "started" the cut by hand with a spade. The edges of the box would probably cut the strips cleanly. I think I'll try it when my friend returns my box scraper sometime (soon, I hope). Has anyone out there tried this approach before? Will the front blade dig in too deeply?

PaulT

[Bird]

PaulT, I think you'll need to tilt the box forward to get it started into the cut, then almost immediately tilt it back to level (within an inch or two of starting the cut). I think this is another case of "theoretically it'll work fine" but I'll bet it'd take a lot of practice before you could consistently get the results you want.

Bird

[Anonymous Poster]

You haven't worked with boxblades or sod much have you???

[cp1969]

I don't think such a beast exists.

The sod cutters I'm familiar with use a very sharp blade (MUCH sharper than the edge on a box blade) which rapidly occillates fore and aft. They apparently learned early on that simply dragging a knife through sod wouldn't cut the mustard (or sod, either).

Of course, these people wanted to re-lay the sod. If you're content with big, ragged, irregularly shaped hunks, the box blade may work.