Box Scraper

[mwagoner]

Has anyone ever tried one of those Box Scrapers from Lowe's or Home Depot that you can pull behind a garden tractor?
I am curious to know if it is worth the money, seeing how my garden tractor is all I got right now I am trying to use it to level some areas in my yard.
Thanks,

Matt

[Bird]

Matt, I haven't used one of them, but I think I'm safe in saying it would be better than a long handled rake, but not much. If you have loose sand, or finely tilled soil, it'll probably work pretty well. Otherwise, it'll probably just drag over the surface without actually moving enough dirt to amount to anything. In other words, if all I had was a garden tractor, and intended to keep it and not get a bigger tractor, I'd probably think seriously about buying one, but if I intended to get a bigger tractor anytime soon, I'd forget it.

Bird

[heehaw]

all i had for years was a sears 16hp lawn/garden tractor, i had a lot of attachments for it, includin a straight blade, but no box scraper. the only attachment i can say worked very well was the plow; i could put on some chains and plow a garden and it look great. the rest of the attachments just didn't do much. when i added weight to the disk or the blade, then i couldn't lift em..it had an "arm strong" lift system..and even the weight didn't seem to make either attachment work very well. i did use the blade to fill in a trench after using a ditch-witch to put in some water lines..that worked ok, but the dirt was really loose..
heehaw

[HalseyGreen]

I have the box scraper for my Sears Garden Tractor, got it from Home Depot, it works great for small job or tight locations where the JD790 is just an over kill. For the light snow we got in Central Virginia this year, I removed the end plates and used the blade to move snow. I also have the plow, works great once you get it set up, and the disk, I agree it doesn't work well without a lot of weight, but its a bear to lift with by hand. I have found that if I break up the plowed area with the box blade on the JD790, then the disk will work with less weight to prepare the seed bed.

[mwagoner]

Thanks for the replies.
Well it will be some time before I ever get a tractor.
Guess I will keep doing these jobs by hand.
The other thing I wanted to use the box scraper for was to get rocks out of my yard. I have so many that are sticking up just enough to get my mower blade. So I thought I could pull the smaller ones out with the edge of the box scraper, probably tear it up now that I think about it. I can see myself trying to pull some huge rock out with the box scraper and tearing it up.
But these replies remind me that I have an old single plow, found in the field, that maybe I can attach it my my lawn tractor and use it, it sure wouldn't bend. Then if I get it attached good I could use it to plow my garden.
You guys are so good at "getting the wheels turning".
Thanks again

Matt

[Anonymous Poster]

I use a box scraper with a Ford LGT 125 to level and move gravel. It is not super fast, but it does the job. It took me a 4 to 5 hours to spread about 12 tons of crusher-run which was dumped in a pile. I have also moved some larger gravel with it. It is heavy to lift. I use a Warn 1500 winch on the backplate of the tractor to lift the scraper.