nylon bucket edge

[Steven]

Thanks Gordon. I never even thought of urathane blades, We have 4' x 8' sheets 1" thick nylon at work and figured I would grab a 4' x 6" piece and try it. but the urathane I think is a better approach. Thanks agian.

[gordon]

Heck you never know you might be on to something by using the nylon. How rigid is it? Would you have to sandwich it? By getting longer bolts for your rear blade cutting edge, then let the nylon hang down a couple of inches below the blade and the metal cutting edge thus creating a sandwich. Just an idea.

Your quite welcome, hope it helps.

Gordon

[Tazbota]

after seeing the links that Gordon posted I did some research,I contacted fallline and ask them to quote a custom urethane cutting edge for my WOODS RB60 rear blade. They were very helpful and even called to confirm some specifics to be sure they understood what it was I was looking for,and still got me a quote the same day. Please see the attachment for the drawing of the urethane edge. With the cost at $115.74 for 1" or $171 for 1.5" I feel that it is a reasonable price to minimize the risk of damaging my brand-new 3/8 mile asphalt driveway. As a Bonus, the claim is that urethane will out last steel when used on concrete or asphalt. I plan to use my rear blade for snow removal much more than my FEL, however they may very well be able to custom make a urethane cutting edge for the FEL. once the snow starts flying here in Pennsylvania this winter I will be sure to let you now how it works out. hope this helps

[John_Mc]

If you are looking for something stiff, you might want to try a piece of UHMW plastic (Ultra High Molecualr Weight plastic). Where I used to work we nicknamed it "Poor Man's teflon". We used it in a lot of high wear area to protect the material we were handling (coils of steel wire) from abrasion damage. We lined the booms and forks on our fork lift trucks with it. Also used it as the business end of a drag brake on some of our payoff equipment. Held up very well (MUCH better than nylon or the types of urethane we tried), and pretty inexpensive. You can order various sized sheets or strips of it from several industrial supply paces (like Grainger or McMaster-Carr).

John Mc

[Kodiak]

Another good choice would be H.D.P.E. high Density Polyethlylene (spelling?).

[gmason]

the only problem I saw with this UHMW plastic is that it's not recommended for outdoor use, needs to be UV stabilized(?)

McMaster-Carr has a great website though. Loads of "cool" stuff.
gary

[John_Mc]

<font color=blue>the only problem I saw with this UHMW plastic is that it's not recommended for outdoor use, needs to be UV stabilized(?)</font color=blue>

I hadn't considered that. We did use it on our outside forklift and boom lift trucks with good results, however. If your loader gets any degree of regular use, I'd figure you'd wear through it more quickly than the UV would degrade it. I think we settled on it in part because of price and in part because it seemed to wear better than some of the alternatives.

If my memory is correct, and it is significantly cheaper, it may be worth trying UHMW first. It would let you check out and refine your design (shape, attatchment method, etc.) while you were testing how it held up to UV. If UV resistance is a factor, you could upgrade to a more expensive alternative, but at least you would have worked out some of the other bugs first.

Are you storing the tractor/loader inside or out? That may also affect how much of a factor UV is for you. If it;s stored inside, and gets used a couple hundred hours a year, that's not much UV exposure.

John Mc