Grading Anyone tried to make small ditches with blade?

[Anonymous Poster]

I have some standing pools of water here and there in my field. Has anyone used their back blade to make small trenches to drain water etc? My blade tilts vertically about 30 degrees and my 3-PT has position control. I gave it a shot and found it tough not to dig in too much, completely miss, etc. My ground is pretty soft right now but it is pretty un-even making blade control interesting.

Any techniques (asside from practice) that will work for a newbie? Is there a home-made tool that might work better? I only need to go down less than a foot. (Yeah I know, a shovel works but I'm lazy.)

[beenthere]

Finding 3pt attachments, such as a one-bottom plow, or a sub-soiler tooth should work. Getting that deep with a rear blade isn't easy. I use both, the one-bottom plow and/or the sub-soiler tooth.

[JohnMiller3]

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.tractorbynet.com/forumfiles/47-222638-Ditchingwithmiddlebuster-800.jpg>For a down and dirty cheap ditching tool… try a middle buster…</A>

A 1-bottom will over turn the sod over onto itself and the subsoiler is way too narrow… but if that’s all you got… then that’s all ya got and make many many many passes… [img]/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif[/img]

Like Beenthere has mentioned... getting depth is tough with these implements...

[JohnMiller3]

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.tractorbynet.com/forumfiles/47-222640-Ditchlonglongview%3D800.jpg>One of the ditches I did for my Father earlier last year with both a middle buster and rear blade...</A>

[JohnMiller3]

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.tractorbynet.com/forumfiles/47-222642-Ditchingwithrearblade-800.jpg>To clean up the ditch edges and gain more depth... I used my 8' rear blade...</A>

[Anonymous Poster]

Looks like you can get 45 Degree tilt or more on yours. Mine is 30 Degrees max. Maybe I'll give it another try though.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions! Now I have options.

Randy Redding

[JohnMiller3]

<font color=blue>...Looks like you can get 45 Degree tilt or more...</font color=blue>

I could do a 360 degree with my old 7'... the 8' is a hair too long... (my 3-pt... just goes so high in the air...[img]/w3tcompact/icons/blush.gif[/img]) [img]/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[Von]

Wow John!!.... Is there anything you don't have photos of? or should I not ask!!![img]/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[JohnMiller3]

<font color=blue>...Is there anything you don't have photos of?...</font color=blue>

Ok Von... buddy... oh pal... your wish is our command... pick a card, any card... what would ya like to see...? [img]/w3tcompact/icons/blush.gif[/img][img]/w3tcompact/icons/eyes.gif[/img]

[img]/w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[JimMc]

How 'bout a Minneapolis-Moline rotary cutter? [img]/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif[/img]