Landscape plane questions

[woodlandfarms]

I have a heavy duty 72" woods box blade. Works good but I reall feel a landplane will be way better for maintaining my roads. So here are mybuestions and happy to take all comments? I am going to build this implement.

Anyone have one?

Push or pull? I am so tired of pulling butt think the pt arms are going to be an issue and oushupingbwill never work. But my runners should be quite long 5 ft at least.

I can pull the box blade unless I am on a slope and the box blade really loads up. I am thinking about an 84 inch wide landplane.

[J_J]

Here is one built by a TBN member.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/b...completed.html

Some other pictures.

[MossRoad]

I'd look at some of the commercial ones available and copy their design.

(I ain't too original or creative, if you haven't noticed over the years ).

I was always interested in the D.R. brand for smaller tractors. Perhaps a good place to start looking.

[MtnViewRanch]

Do some searching, lots of threads on this, bought and home built. Build it as heavy as your tractor will handle and don't get greedy with the width. You are better off with a heavy 6 foot unit than a lighter 7' unit. You are best off with no less than 150lbs per foot of width. Heavier is better, but your tractor will only handle so much.

Good luck

[woodlandfarms]

Thanks everyone. I have my design for the most part (Still struggling on wether to angle the cutting blades or have them run parallel, no one seems to have the straight answer on that).

But the killer for me is push or pull. Box blade will not work in push mode, I would love it if the landscape would, but I think that if it gets hung on something I am going to push over top of it. Probably better to pull it but this will make for a miserable mile of road I have to grade.

Carl

[Clumber]

I have a similar situation with a mile long private road of blue crusher mix stone. I have used my PT 425 with a box blade on a short section of the road with good result, but it is slow and pulling the blade works best. The road has deep ruts due to water runoff.

I am thinking about buying a Power-trac Power Rake attachment for another purpose, but I'm thinking that the power rake might be a faster solution to smoothing out the deep ruts on the road. The rake can be operated in push-mode. However, a final pass with the box blade may still be necessary.

Anybody here ever use a power rake like this?

[MtnViewRanch]

Thanks everyone. I have my design for the most part (Still struggling on wether to angle the cutting blades or have them run parallel, no one seems to have the straight answer on that).

But the killer for me is push or pull. Box blade will not work in push mode, I would love it if the landscape would, but I think that if it gets hung on something I am going to push over top of it. Probably better to pull it but this will make for a miserable mile of road I have to grade.

Carl

As far as I know of, every commercially built unit has angled blades. The home built units are common to have the blades straight. Why do you think that may be? It sure wouldn't be because it is easier to build with the blades straight, now is it?

[ponytug]

Dear Carl,

Based on my experience, I think that you want the cutting blades in a multiple chevron design <<>>. This will redistribute and level the material the best. As suggested by MtnViewRanch, keep it heavy enough to dig in. To break up bad ruts or potholes, you may need to scarify a bad section first before using the land plane.
Finally, a little clay or fine rock dust will go a long way to permanently keeping your roadbed solid, and keep potholes from reforming. Many people make the mistake of filling the potholes only with larger aggregate, which then creates a holding space for water that vehicles dislodge, carrying the binder (rock dust/fines/clay) out of the roadbed, making the pothole worse.

Have fun.

All the best,

Peter

Thanks everyone. I have my design for the most part (Still struggling on wether to angle the cutting blades or have them run parallel, no one seems to have the straight answer on that).

But the killer for me is push or pull. Box blade will not work in push mode, I would love it if the landscape would, but I think that if it gets hung on something I am going to push over top of it. Probably better to pull it but this will make for a miserable mile of road I have to grade.

Carl

[bcp]

If the commercial ones were built both ways, and both types stocked by dealers, I think most buyers would buy the angled ones, thinking it will build a crown better. But some users of angled ones say there is almost no sideways movement of material.

Others build straight ones because they intend to use it for leveling and don't want sideways movement of material.

Bruce

[MtnViewRanch]

If the commercial ones were built both ways, and both types stocked by dealers, I think most buyers would buy the angled ones, thinking it will build a crown better. But some users of angled ones say there is almost no sideways movement of material.

Others build straight ones because they intend to use it for leveling and don't want sideways movement of material.

Bruce

For my uses anyway, I agree with this statement 100%. If I were to build a crown on my roads based solely on the sideways material movement, I doubt that it could even be done, but at best it would take thousands of passes and that is no exaggeration.