Box blade

[NetbyTractor]

MIE...Great place to work with.

 

[coobie]

MIE...Great place to work with.

Yes they have great sales,service & parts Bar none..I live 70 miles south of MIE,s Kioti dealership and pass 2 other Kioti dealers on the way.That should tell you something.LOL

 

[jimmychew]

Great looking box scraper blade.

I have never used one and was wondering if someone could enlightened me on this... I see there is a long 'scraper blade' that runs the width of the box and I assume it's purpose is to scrape off the high points. Then there's a 'sweep' that's attached to the back of the box and once again I assume it's purpose is to level the material... Correct?

Ok. So what is the height of the scraper blade in relation to the sweep?

 

[NYCheese]

Great looking box scraper blade.

I have never used one and was wondering if someone could enlightened me on this... I see there is a long 'scraper blade' that runs the width of the box and I assume it's purpose is to scrape off the high points. Then there's a 'sweep' that's attached to the back of the box and once again I assume it's purpose is to level the material... Correct?

Ok. So what is the height of the scraper blade in relation to the sweep?

There's actually a whole lot of ways you can use a box blade. It depends entirely on what work you're trying to accomplish, and what type of dirt you've got. In loose material, I often use the blade on the back like a dozer blade, to push material in reverse. On my Befco box, both blades are the same height. You change the angle of attack of the entire box with your top link. Scraping with the front blade....you shorten the top link to angle the front down. Using the back blade like a dozer....you want the top link set for a level box, (or very slightly angled up in the front). Using the back blade to make a levelling pass....lengthen top link so front of box is high, and rear is low.

If that doesn't make sense, look on youtube, there's a bunch of videos out there showing some of the many ways to set it up.

 

[jimmychew]

Good info there NYCheese, thanks!

 

[Threepoint]

I've probably put in a couple thousand hours of grading with box blades over the last 25 years, and I still marvel at how they work. I can best describe it as a demonstration of "Chaos Theory" at work. Pull one behind the tractor over dirt or gravel and the box quickly fills with material, churns it all about, then distributes it evenly behind, leaving a smooth, level surface. That alone makes it pay for itself the first time you use it. It is truly a marvel of physics and seemingly random motion in action.

As NYCheese says, you can add finesse for particular tasks by adjusting top and side tilt. A top 'n tilt set up with hydraulic cylinders lets you do this on the fly. If you want to tear up the material before leveling and smoothing, lower the scarifying teeth. It's one of the most useful implements you can add, IMO.

Recently "land planes" have become popular as another good tool for maintaining established roads and driveways. It's a more specialized implement. I've heard good things about them, but haven't tried one.

 

[DieselBound]

I got an 84" Tuffline, it's about 1,200 lbs and has hydraulic scarifiers, which, I've found, are excellent brakes! :laughing:

The cutting edge (inside/forward facing) is pretty good for curling up sod. I've run my blade and watched it curl sod back over on top of the front of the box blade, resulting in more weight/down force. I've had my NX really grunting!

An hydraulic top link is a MUST. Not sure how anyone can get by without one, as hand adjusting a lot of weight really isn't readily going to happen.

The hydraulics for my scarifiers sucks. There's no check valve: no idea if I can augment or whether I'd have to replace the cylinder. Over a relatively short period of time the entire bar will drift down: it resulted in some broken linkages once, as I backed up and didn't realize that the scarifiers had dropped down. I have a 2x4 holding things up as I don't really use the scarifiers. Might be that this is one of the reasons why this Tuffline was a bit less costly.

 

[ovrszd]

I got an 84" Tuffline, it's about 1,200 lbs and has hydraulic scarifiers, which, I've found, are excellent brakes! :laughing:

The cutting edge (inside/forward facing) is pretty good for curling up sod. I've run my blade and watched it curl sod back over on top of the front of the box blade, resulting in more weight/down force. I've had my NX really grunting!

An hydraulic top link is a MUST. Not sure how anyone can get by without one, as hand adjusting a lot of weight really isn't readily going to happen.

The hydraulics for my scarifiers sucks. There's no check valve: no idea if I can augment or whether I'd have to replace the cylinder. Over a relatively short period of time the entire bar will drift down: it resulted in some broken linkages once, as I backed up and didn't realize that the scarifiers had dropped down. I have a 2x4 holding things up as I don't really use the scarifiers. Might be that this is one of the reasons why this Tuffline was a bit less costly.

The drift is most likely your tractor valve leaking by.

 

[DieselBound]

The drift is most likely your tractor valve leaking by.

Thanks, Richard. I should probably check that! I am not sure if I've used that valve on anything else: I have three: one is dedicated to top link and one is dedicated for the grapple (full detent). I might swap with my top link to see how it behaves: I have my RC connected now, so testing this way might be easier than swapping the implements (and then having to swap back). It's all fairly new stuff.

 

[ovrszd]

And don't despair if they all bleed down. No big deal and very common.