Extended 54" Blade to 66" with UDPE Wear Strip

keeney · Dec 8, 2004

Extended 54\" Blade to 66\" with UDPE Wear Strip

I put a 1/2" UDPE (Ultra-High Density Poly...) wear strip on my front blade to keep it from scratching up my new driveway.

While I was at it, I added a little width. My 4100 seems like it can push more snow than the stock 54" blade carried, so we will see how this works. If the extra width doesn't work out, I can always cut it back to 60", or all the way back to 54".

The face of the blade is covered with 1/4" HDPE (cheaper than UDPE) that I curved using a heat gun (and some gloves). This gives me the width extension and a very non-stick surface.

The whole project took about one evening of work, and cost about $75 in materials.

- Rick

hazmat · Dec 8, 2004

Re: Extended 54\" Blade to 66\" with UDPE Wear Strip

Nice work. Where did you get the plastic from?

keeney · Dec 8, 2004

Re: Extended 54\" Blade to 66\" with UDPE Wear Strip

The UDPE and HDPE was obtained from www.usplastic.com

- Rick

tomh · Dec 8, 2004

Re: Extended 54\" Blade to 66\" with UDPE Wear Strip

Very nice...seems like a great idea to save not only on the driveway but, with the price of steel as it is, that is a cheap wear bar. How well does it hold up?

keeney · Dec 8, 2004

Re: Extended 54\" Blade to 66\" with UDPE Wear Strip

I am not sure if its cheaper than a piece of steel or not. The 1/2 x 4" UDPE strip was most of the cost at about $40 for a 10 foot piece.

As far as holding up, I have not tried it yet. The UDPE is supposed to be fairly abrasion resistant - it slides over the rough surface vs. the rough surface digging into it.

- Rick

rameye · Dec 9, 2004

Re: Extended 54\" Blade to 66\" with UDPE Wear Strip

that's slick!

PILOON · Dec 11, 2004

Re: Extended 54\" Blade to 66\" with UDPE Wear Strip

I think that UDPE should do the trick.

We used to rivit that stuff to the underside of aircraft skiis as a LDR (low drag resistance) base.

It never stuck and really wore quite well.

Sure it got kinda scratched because of sand grit and gravel, but really took a heck of a lot of abuse.
Also the snow will act as a 'lubricant' of sorts.

jmc · Dec 11, 2004

Re: Extended 54\" Blade to 66\" with UDPE Wear Strip

If that UDPE is the same as UHMWPE (ultra-high molecular weight polyetheylene) its good stuff. It doesn't get brittle at low temperatures and in some abrasion applications, it out wears hardened steel.

keeney · Dec 11, 2004

Re: Extended 54\" Blade to 66\" with UDPE Wear Strip

Yes, its UHMWPE. "Ultra-High-Molecular-Weight"

I want it soft enough to not scratch the driveway, but hard enough to last. Also, I like the fact that its white, so the scrapinsg won't look bad.

Even if steel didn't actually scratch the concrete, the trail of iron scraping quickly rust and the marks will show.

- Rick

keeney · Oct 6, 2005

Re: Extended 54\" Blade to 66\" with UDPE Wear Strip

Thinking about the coming snow season, I have an update on this old thread after last season.

Wear strip looks like it will go at least one more season before I need to flip it over and use the other side that is already pre-beveled.

Absolutely no marks on the driveway.

Nice performance as far as scraping the driveway clean. Best example was after a night we got 1/4" freezing rain / sleet. Not pure frozen rain, kind of a crunchy frosted coating on the driveway. I used a bit of down-pressure and rear wheel brake steering, but it cleaned off all the ice.

The width extension could use alittle more re-inforcement. The unsupported plastic wings bent back a bit when pushing heavy loads, but never appeared in danger of breaking.

- Rick