Landscape plane questions

[JohninCT]

David, thanks for showing me how a pro does it.... Mine will never look like yours... Ever.....

Ken, I am in agreement... Going to make it a puller.... but I am going to start looking into building a rear 3 pt.

Mt view and everyone so far thanks for the insight

What I find so interesting is how wonderful everyone finds it but how non-universal it is in regards to blade direction and placement position from front to back. Love to hear more ideas on angles and how far back to place the blades.

Carl

Look at the 1st video posted by BCP that shows the backhoe bucket attachment. It is pushing higher across the top of the landplane. You could make a pusher by mounting your quick attach point above the landplane to get your loader arms more level instead of pushing at a downward angle. Also, you could also add a pivoting push tube to your front push attach point to help in pushing the box low. When you lift with the loader arm the push tube would just pivot up.

 

[beppington]

With my Land Pride GS1572 I've graded sandy soil, clay soil, scrap rock (a mix of all the various leftovers from the rock delivery company), weed-filled soil (pain in the butt!), and recently recycled concrete, recycled pavement, and very hard lime rock.

I thought the angled blades would move the material significantly from left to right, but it seems to be only minimal. It seems that usually material quickly piles up against the blades & just kind of rides there. Of course it's then hard to know what's happening at the bottom of the 2 piles, but it seems unlikely that material is moving fast from right to left under there. Now, probably material is moving right to left at a pace based on where there is room for it to move that way. I think a good test might be to exaggerate the grading scraper's side-to-side tilt so that the left side skid is up off the ground 2 or 3 inches & grade that way - see if material moves noticeably right to left when it has lots of room to do so. I think gravel-ly material might move right-to-left well, & smaller or stickier material probably won't.

It does make sense that the grade results from angled blades should fight wash-boarding better, but I can't attest to it. It just seems that whatever surface imperfections are left after grading will at least not be perfectly perpendicular to line of travel, & so should be less jarring to vehicles.

I do think there is a slicing action by the angled blades, but don't know how to quantify it.

 

[beppington]

Re: pulling a land plane vs pushing it - If you're primarily grading a road with it, I think you'll find that you'll get it set the way you want (side/side tilt & front/back tilt for digging aggressiveness) & then simply drop it on the ground & drive, with very little looking backwards. When grading a road with it, it does all the work, so not much reason to constantly look back. Of course, you will in the beginning until you're experienced & already know what it's doing back there without looking. Mine is slightly wider than my front tire tracks, so I drive with my front right tire riding about 4" inside the road edge ... occasionally look back to see that it's edging where I think it is, see that is, & continue on. That occasional look becomes less & less.

 

[woodlandfarms]

For those who don't know, my tractor places all attachments in the front like a skid steer. While my tractor is really the Swiss army knife of tractors, some of the blades are a bit dull.

 

[SpringHollow]

Carl,

If you push and the road is dry, you will be eating a lot of dust.

Ken

 

[beppington]

For those who don't know, my tractor places all attachments in the front like a skid steer. While my tractor is really the Swiss army knife of tractors, some of the blades are a bit dull.

How about a grading scraper on wheels for travel - When you get it to where you're ready to start grading, drop it to the ground & drive (could even be manual to where you have to get off to drop it to the ground). I assume the PT at least has a hitch ball on the back? Or could be rigged for one? A lot of benefit could be had just by dragging it with a pickup truck's hitch ball, with the grading scraper on a short leash.

 

[sandman2234]

Thanks guys, all I can say is thanks, looking at the videos as I write.

David, Three questions for your build

Why are there so many holes? Clearly you had other plans, would love to hear what you were devising.

Second, how deep is your blades set for? I am hearing 1/2" to 3/4" max...

finally do you wish you did the / design instead?

Oh, and a 4th, do you raise one side of the blade higher than the other?

I am working on a way to do all 4 ll, //, , / hopefully without over engineering the darn thing. I am dropping the idea of a third straight blade at the back as I have only seen one manufacturer do this, all the others use a 2 blade design.

I am going to assume the "extra holes" are the ones in the side plates, which were in the metal prior to me getting it (note the mention of scrap metal I had on hand to build this).
I am extremely happy with the // blade position, and even if I had to do it over again, would still go with the //.
Blades were positioned 3/4" below the runners. Never quite sure why that measurement was picked, probably copied from somebody else. Due to one aspect of my use, I might had gone a little further, like up to 1" if I had to do it over, but that might change things on the flat road use, so I doubt i would change it.
When doing the roadway, everything is kept level, but when I want to do the ditch, bringing dirt back up to the roadway that has washed into the ditch, I raise the side that the blades are further back on. That doesn't quite work the way I wanted it to, because the runner on the lower side rides on the bottom of the ditch and the blade doesn't touch because the other side is so high. (hard to explain). I am considering adding a blade in front of the runner to cut a small trench so that the runner will drop down, thus allowing the grader blade to touch and cut and bring dirt back to the roadway. It won't take much to cut a groove for the runner to sit in, but this hasn't been a priority, since the road I maintain isn't my own.
I considered adding a rear blade or rear wall to the grader, and even thought about a hydraulic one, so I could move dirt like a boxblade. First time I used it to spread dirtpiles, I realized I could move more dirt than my 70 hp tractor wanted, so that wasn't needed. Due to the weight of my grader (remember, all scrap metal I had on hand) the one thing I kind of wish I had added was a hydraulic set of wheels out back to make it a longer "land plane" and give my tractor some help when transporting it. Not required but the 7,000 pound tractor knows it's back there for sure.
The multi holes in the 3pt links connecting plates are just so I can get max height or max lowering should the need ever arise. Didn't think they would hurt since I have different tractors with different tire sizes. Easy to add, harder to fix if I made a single hole and missed the height mark.
David from jax