Guage wheels or guage wheel?

[Tig]

I have some landscapeing and much road repair in my future. To prepare I am building a guage wheel for the 48" boxblade on my B7100. My question is, should I have two wheels or is one enough? Top & tilt is also in the works.
I was planing to mount the guage wheel about 12" off center on the left side of the box blade. (3/4 point, to the left side)
Thanks.

 

[dqdave1]

To get the most level application, I would suggest two wheels, mounted as far rearward as feasable. This will give you the "roadgrader" effect.

 

[HomeBrew2]

I tend to agree that 2 are better but have no experience with just one. Sounds like you're wanting the wheel to force the box to tilt ... I do that by adding unequal height shims to each wheel pivot shaft. Works good, very stable and repeatable.

 

[Tig]

Thanks for the replys. Up until this morning I thought that one wheel was the norm. Guess, I based that design on homebrews avatar. I've got until April to think it over. I may just try it out and see how it works. I'll also keep the welder and materials close by incase it works poorly and I have to make a second guage wheel on the spot.

 

[patrick_g]

I'd like to add additional emphasis to the idea of extending the gauge wheel(s) farther to the rear than has been done traditionally.

Bigger tractors with longer wheel bases do a smoother job of leveling irregularities, mostly because of the longer wheelbase and longer distance from rear axle to the cutting edge of the box blade. I have a friend with a Land Plane which is pulled with a trailer hitch/ball arrangement and runs on two trailer tires that are raised and lowered hydraulically. It has a fairly long tongue, especially when compared to my box blade. I have worked my tractor and box blade side by side with him and the message was clear, LONG WHEELBASE and LONG TONGUE = SMOOTHER RESULTS!

I have seen the rigs they use in the Imperial Valley in California to produce thousands of acres that are so flat they can irrigate from one end to the other and not have water pool up. Big Cats with very looooooong distances from tractor to blade and blade to rear support/gauge wheels.

Well, we can't adjust the wheelbase of our CUTs or conveniently adjust the distance from 2PH to cutting blade but we can take certain other steps to improve our results in some situations. Gauge wheels are one such step. Gauge wheels mounted well back (and or adjustable in trail distance) will allow a short wheelbase tractor with a standard box blade to perform almost as if it were a BIG LONG WHEELBASE tractor with a long reach to the cutting blade.

When you run over a "WHOOPDEDOO" with a box blade on a CUT you often do not improve it and might make it worse or just relocate it. If you go really slow and have TNT and are good with it you might do a bit better but it is a lot of fussing for a little work. Trailing gauge wheels help "AVERAGE" out the whoopdedoo. A greater trailing distance averages the blades cutting action over a longer distance which can be a good thing and when it isn't you can easily move the adjustable trailing gauge wheel(s) to a shorter trailing distance.

I would recommend considering two gauge wheels. If for some reason you need the effect of one wheel, raise one out of the way. If left to right location is a factor, you could make that adjustable too.

In the attached sketch (that reveals my lack of talent) the X's mark the location of gauge wheels, adjustable side to side. The Y distance is adjustable too. The converging lines at the bottom of the sketch are the arms of the 3PH and they attach to the rectangle which is the box blade.

Pat

 

[Tig]

Thanks Patrick. I had read that longer is better and since I can claim no skill or experience I am planning to start by using the largest piece of box tube I have. From the centre of my rear tractor wheels to the BB cutting edge is 4'. Once attached the guage wheel should end up around 5' 6" back of the cutting edge. It's longer that any I have seen and will be awkward when it comes time to turn around but I can always cut it shorter if required.
Anyone have any thoughts on wheel size or solid vs inflated? I bought a solid 8x2" castor wheel at a surplus place. I've attached it much like Homebrew does. I hope it will work for the road grading, altough it's probably too small and narrow to grade soft material like topsoil.

 

[patrick_g]

Tig, I added a sketch to prev post. Also I think you want a fair footprint on the wheels or they will plow. Pneumatic is more elaborate than needed and just more things to go wrong with flats and airing them etc. The wheels like are used on the back of brush hogs would be OK but they are too expensive.

I'd probably opt for DIY steel wheels/tires in a Castor wheel arrangement. There are lots of ways to make steel wheels but heavy wall pipe say 4-6 inches long with a couple circles cut from sheet steel and welded on both sides will make a long lasting wheel. Another possibility would be to use wheel barrow wheels with a steel tire (as above) centered around the wheel and welded in place with spokes/spacers as required. Balance isn't critical as you won't be going over 10 MPH most likely with the implement working but you don't want to be too sloppy.

Pat

 

[HomeBrew2]

After a few hundred hours using mine, I don't find the length to be any great advantage. Mine will extend 3' but i usually set them as close to the back of implement that still allows full swivel. I studied the landplane and motor grader but just doesn't seem to be as efficient in this application. Another point of reference is that many pull-type box scrapers, the type with hydraulics to raise and lower and car sized tires, have the wheel pretty close to rear of the box. In theory, and when a blade is suspended in the middle of a ridged frame, it works. May work for you, just not really for me.

I'm pleased with the 10" cheapo pneumatic tires I use but they also make 13" or 15" I think that aren't as expensive a wheel barrel wheels. I replaced the crappy "shielded" ball bearings with sealed ones.

You may want to check out the Land Pride website for ideas, I believe they offer a single gauge wheel for their rake and back blade.

 

[patrick_g]

Homebrew, Have you compared to not having gauge wheels?

If the gauge wheels are twice as far from the pivot point as the blade, then the blade will only try to move 1/2 as far up and down as the wheels. This will tend to hold your leveling cuts to only 1/2 the error of not having wheels or having wheels right at the blade.

I find it takes me many more passes to get almost as level as the Land Plane does in a single pass or two. All this discussion relates to final finish not moving prodigious quantities of dirt or using the hydraulic srarifiers in the lowered position.

Pat

 

[Egon]

Two gauge wheels will allow for more lateral angle control of the box blade.

The wheels set farther back will help decrease vertical fluctuations caused by the tractor travelling over rough ground.