Question about box blade use.

[N80]

I just got a new box blade. Its a 6' Bush Hog SBX720. It appears to be built much like the comparable Woods, Landpride and Frontier boxes I looked at. About the same weight. The sides are 3/8 thick just like all the others. The mast is similar too. It is all welded, no bolts. I don't know if that is a plus or a minus. Many commercial blades come both ways. It has the captured lower link pins which I like. I got it for $615 which is less than some of the others.

I've used it for about 4 hours now and I'm impressed with what you can do with box blades in general and I have no complaints with this one. As someone mentioned in the long box blade thread, it would be nice if the shanks on this model could drop down one more notch, but no big deal.

My question is this: Without a top-in-tilt, the box blade is basically oriented level with the rear axle. But, one of the lower link connecting rods on my tractor is adjustable, I'm assuming most are. Would it be possible to use the adjustable link to make one end of the blade lower than the other for crowning a road? Or would that damage the 3 pt hitch?

 

[KiotiJohn]

I was just doing some work on a spot to build a pole barn for a client. He want the edges beveled where they meet existing pavement so that the crush-crete he's using will key into the area.

I lowered the right hitch arm to get the angle I wanted and then drug it with the inside blade. It worked great for that.

However, to crown a road, you really need to be able to windrow the material, and the boxblade doesn't do a great job of that, rather it grabs the dirt and drags it along.

I know some have posted that they use a BB for crowning, but they'll have to tell you how they do it.

A rear blade with angles that would allow you to gather the material and drop it up on the crown would probably work better.

John

 

[brandon07]

As he stated a rear blade would work best but I didn't always have one. I used to angle my box blade and still do sometimes at a heck if an angle and drag ditches and the side that was in the air was high enough to where the dirt would go out that side up onto the road instead of just dragging along as stated above. I also tilt my box blade back a pretty good bit when I am dragging a long road and dirt comes out from underneath the side edges and at the same time it still digs and really does a good job. Anyways figured I would give you some idears /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Highbeam]

I agree, crowning a road where there was no crown before is tough with a boxblade. You can certainly tilt the implement, that's why one link is adjustable but the tilted box blade will fill up and you will have an end haul of material which in the case of a road you can bring it out to the middle and then come back through with a flatter box to spread out.

For creating a ditch the box works much better.

Best thing to do it just give it a try. You won't hurt the 3ph but if you drop the scarifiers then you risk bending them. The deal is that the scarifiers are now being pulled through much more horizontaly and then if you lift the 3ph you are giving them a side load.