Thanks for the replies to my original post!!
Here's what I ended up doing... I put pipe on both my FEL and my rear blade. The front piece is 1.5 ABS. On the rear blade it痴 2 ABS. I got both pieces at Menards for about $7 each. I cut a slit in them using my circular saw and then beat them on to the blade edges using a rubber hammer. On the rear blade I let the pipe overhang about 1.5 inches from each end and put a ｼ-20 3.5 bolt through it using a nylon self-locking nut. The purpose of this was to keep the pipe from sliding off the end of the blade.
I did all this based on this thread
It's long, but informative read. The general consensus was to use ABS instead of PVC. ABS is almost indestructible whereas PVC can shatter in cold weather. If you can find schedule 80 use it, but most likely you're going to only find schedule 40. (You may know this, but I read it in the thread the "schedule" refers to the wall thickness of the pipe; 80 is thicker than 40.) One guy talked about using steel on his and was going to have a "snow edge" and a "regular edge" to swap back and forth on his blade.
One interesting idea that someone came up with was to use "tractor belting" or "combine belting" bolted onto the front of the cutting edge on the rear blade. They said that this acted like a squeegee on the blade and did a great job. You can get this stuff at Tractor Supply.
How did it work? Well, the pipe on the front loader worked great! I did have to beat it back on again a time or two if I back-dragged with the bucket. But it did a great job on my concrete apron although I came to the conclusion that it's almost easier to just use my little snow blower for light snows - 4" - like we got the other day. I have to get my blower out anyway to do my decks and sidewalk. There is some wear on the pipe, but not too much, on the edge that was making contact with the concrete but I may just flip it over for the next time I need it.
On the rear not so great but I still think this is a good way to go. As you'll read in the thread, the larger the diameter of the pipe is, the less that it will dig in. So, I'd go with a 3 instead of 2 pipe. Also, I just laid about 3" of gravel on the driveway about two weeks ago so it's not packed enough. I think that with a more packed driveway, a 3 pipe (or maybe even 4?) would do fine. The other thing I would do is drill some other holes in the pipe in order to run some sort of cable or turnbuckle to secure it to the blade a bit better. I noticed as I dropped my blade on to the driveway that the pipe wanted to twist a bit. So I think that if I was dragging it actually on the ground (which I didn't do) that there might be a tendency to pull it off. I didn't actually try dragging the rear across my driveway so I can't swear to this. But I also think that for me, even bothering to clear my gravel portion of the driveway with less than 6" or so inches is a waste of time. My wife and I both have 4WD so we've never had too much of a problem getting out. My concrete apron is a priority though as we have a detached garage and have to walk across it to get to the house.
Again, many thanks to those of you that put in your $.02! I appreciate your advice!
Here's what I ended up doing... I put pipe on both my FEL and my rear blade. The front piece is 1.5 ABS. On the rear blade it痴 2 ABS. I got both pieces at Menards for about $7 each. I cut a slit in them using my circular saw and then beat them on to the blade edges using a rubber hammer. On the rear blade I let the pipe overhang about 1.5 inches from each end and put a ｼ-20 3.5 bolt through it using a nylon self-locking nut. The purpose of this was to keep the pipe from sliding off the end of the blade.
I did all this based on this thread
It's long, but informative read. The general consensus was to use ABS instead of PVC. ABS is almost indestructible whereas PVC can shatter in cold weather. If you can find schedule 80 use it, but most likely you're going to only find schedule 40. (You may know this, but I read it in the thread the "schedule" refers to the wall thickness of the pipe; 80 is thicker than 40.) One guy talked about using steel on his and was going to have a "snow edge" and a "regular edge" to swap back and forth on his blade.
One interesting idea that someone came up with was to use "tractor belting" or "combine belting" bolted onto the front of the cutting edge on the rear blade. They said that this acted like a squeegee on the blade and did a great job. You can get this stuff at Tractor Supply.
How did it work? Well, the pipe on the front loader worked great! I did have to beat it back on again a time or two if I back-dragged with the bucket. But it did a great job on my concrete apron although I came to the conclusion that it's almost easier to just use my little snow blower for light snows - 4" - like we got the other day. I have to get my blower out anyway to do my decks and sidewalk. There is some wear on the pipe, but not too much, on the edge that was making contact with the concrete but I may just flip it over for the next time I need it.
On the rear not so great but I still think this is a good way to go. As you'll read in the thread, the larger the diameter of the pipe is, the less that it will dig in. So, I'd go with a 3 instead of 2 pipe. Also, I just laid about 3" of gravel on the driveway about two weeks ago so it's not packed enough. I think that with a more packed driveway, a 3 pipe (or maybe even 4?) would do fine. The other thing I would do is drill some other holes in the pipe in order to run some sort of cable or turnbuckle to secure it to the blade a bit better. I noticed as I dropped my blade on to the driveway that the pipe wanted to twist a bit. So I think that if I was dragging it actually on the ground (which I didn't do) that there might be a tendency to pull it off. I didn't actually try dragging the rear across my driveway so I can't swear to this. But I also think that for me, even bothering to clear my gravel portion of the driveway with less than 6" or so inches is a waste of time. My wife and I both have 4WD so we've never had too much of a problem getting out. My concrete apron is a priority though as we have a detached garage and have to walk across it to get to the house.
Again, many thanks to those of you that put in your $.02! I appreciate your advice!
THANKS for the reply and the link. You're right; the cost is pretty hefty! If I was in an area that consistently got more snow then I would probably take a serious look at investing in some. But we rarely get snowfalls around here that exceed 6"-8". Most of our snowfalls are usually 3 or 4 inches and then melt within a week. 
