This Box Blade Had a Bad Day!

[xzcVAbc5]

I just bought a box blade off of good old Craigslist. It's a 5ft King Kutter (standard duty). The owner said he used it about 4 times. He was blading and caught a root. He admitted that he had it on too big of a tractor. As you can see it is a fixer-upper.

The damage:
1) Flat iron bent on back of 3PH
2) One of the bottom points is bent and will need replaced
3) The piece of iron holding the bottom connector is slightly bent.


I dropped it off at the welding shop this afternoon and told them what I wanted changed. I'm going to turn it into a pseudo-"professional" grade King Kutter box blade. The main upgrade is putting a box channel with gusset between the 3PH and the back of the box instead of flat iron that is bolted on. I also asked them to weld the 3PH at the two lower points. Someday I may gusset the corners of the box and other areas, but all I need to do is grade some rock.

Here is the pictures from KK's website for what a professional series box blade looks like (the red box and arrow I added to show the welding shop):


Stay subscribed. I'll post pictures of the final result which I'm hoping is tomorrow or Monday.

 

[Arc weld]

You could replace the bent flat bar that holds the top mount with angle iron. Had a Cultivator do the same thing and and fixed it with some 2"x3"x 1/4" angle iron. Doesn't look like a major repair. While it's there, you should get them to weld some 3/8" flat on the bottom of the side plates(inside) so it doesn't wear away so fast. That's what my Woods box blade has.

 

[juiced10]

I bought the same POS and the second time I used it I caught a root and it literally ripped the center ripper out of the 4x4 box steel. Oops.

 

[xzcVAbc5]

I bought the same POS and the second time I used it I caught a root and it literally ripped the center ripper out of the 4x4 box steel. Oops.

Orscheln Farm and Home sells a lot of them. That's where this one came from. When I'm looking to grade something other than driveways I may end up upgrading.

 

[94BULLITT]

Get them to make it a clevis style hookup. It will make it a lot stronger. Here is one I saw on craigslist a while back, listed as good condition.

 

[xzcVAbc5]

Get them to make it a clevis style hookup. It will make it a lot stronger. Here is one I saw on craigslist a while back, listed as good condition.

Too late. I just picked it up. I agree on the clevis style hook up though. Also the idea of adding the extra steel at the bottom was great by ArcWeld above.

The welds look great and everything looks like it was done well. I'll post some pictures tomorrow when I get it unloaded.

 

[Redbug]

I have one of those box blades. If I would have known better back then, I would have spent more money and got a better one. Anyways...here's my fix to mine. I added extra plate under where the pin is. That piece of metal was bending so I had to give it more support.

 

[xzcVAbc5]

Here is the final product. I was a little nervous putting in the middle ripper. As you can see it barely clears. The rippers were in the back of my truck when this blade was getting rebuilt so its just an accident that the ripper fits. I thought they were going to put the tube in closer to the top. In the background of one of the pictures is the JD 2440 that is going to be pulling around for a while until I get my own rig. It worked pretty nice in my parents' driveway, but I'm going to wait until I get the two bottom pins get changed to the right size (cat 2) before I do too much more work with it.

Enjoy!

 

[kebo]

Looks good!! All it needs is some yellow paint, and hook it up and go play in the rocks!

 

[joshuabardwell]

The welding shop looks like they did a good job! Do be careful using that box blade on a Cat 2 tractor. It's just not designed to take the kind of forces that a Cat-2 tractor can put out, as the previous owner learned. By reinforcing some parts of a smaller box blade, you usually just move the failure point somewhere else, so don't count on your reinforcements to make the blade Cat-2-ready.