Johnny Bucket vs dirt scoop

[jinman]

I have a grader/scraper blade, will that be an adequate substitute for a box blade? I have not used the grader blade much... It just came with my tractor from the guy I bought it from.

A grader/scraper blade is only a good tool for doing final leveling or cutting ditches. It is not a good choice for moving materials. The boxblade has sides that keep material from spilling out. You can move around 1/3 yd with a 5' boxblade by dragging the materials on the ground. What you need is to build a dragging path along which you move loads from one area to another. It's a lot like using a dozer in that you build a channel and then drag dirt through that channel each pass.

Using a dirt scoop, you can achieve much higher speed from place-to-place. Because you don't have to worry about dropping the materials over slightly rough terrain, you can haul a lot of material at higher speed with less preparation of your path.

My neighbor built a 50' x 70' pad for his barn with a dirtscoop. He hauled sand from a creek bottom almost 1000' away and made 100s of trips through the woods. I built a 35' x 40' pad for a portable building by a combination of hauling with a dirtscoop and dragging with a boxblade. After building the dragging path that was smooth, I was able to use the boxblade to move more material with each pass than with the scoop. My drag was about 200' long. My tractor was a Ford Jubilee. I'm attaching a picture of the tractor sitting on the finished pad. You can't see how big the pad is, only how high it is on the low end of the slope. I'd say there are at least 25 yd of material in this pad and I did it mostly over one weekend.

My bottom-line point is that a boxblade and dirtscoop are tools that have been used very successfully to do what you describe. The grader blade will come in handy for finish work, but it is not a great materials moving tool. Building your own untested scoop is risky and may end with unsatisfactory results. I'd rent a small tractor with a FEL before I'd attempt to build my own.

 

[Volfandt]

I moved quite a bit of dirt using my TE20, dirt scoop and box blade. The combination of the dirt scoop & box blade moved & leveled it very well.
Many years later I ultimately traded the TE20 for a machine w/an FEL.
I definitely like working with the material on the front than back.

 

[Slamfire]

I've also got a grader blade and a dirt scoop. Moving dirt is quick and easy with the scoop, but I'm puzzled as to how one would build motorcycle jump ramps with one. Please understand you really can't load the scoop by pushing it while backing up with your tractor. The 3 point hitch is not designed to push with and something will bend or even break. In order to unload full scoops, it is best to lower the hitch, trip the latch, then raise the hitch.

 

[jinman]

Please understand you really can't load the scoop by pushing it while backing up with your tractor. The 3 point hitch is not designed to push with and something will bend or even break. In order to unload full scoops, it is best to lower the hitch, trip the latch, then raise the hitch.

I've hauled many loads of loose material from a pile by backing into it with the scoop. I've also peeled Saint Augustine sod by backing the scoop. With stabilizers in place, the 3PH is plenty strong for loose material in a pile and also soft materials. How else would you get dirt out of a pile dumped from a truck? If the dump truck cannot spread the load where you want it, you have to back into the pile because you can't straddle it and drive over the top. That's why the scoops are built to be reversible and they work great for that.

I put two sets of pins on my scoop and also looped the release rope backwards and then forward over the top of the frame so I could easily dump by pulling. As you said, setting the scoop down on the ground to trip the dump is required, especially if you have a heaping load.

 

[Nuru]

You definitely want to be careful, but I have duig into rocks, mulch, dirt and grass with my dirt scoop.

 

[MJPetersen]

Hey guys since you are talking from the vantage of experience, I was wondering how you think that a scoop would work here. Our soil is, well, sand!! That is about all too. I can find some topsoil sometimes, but very thin and loose. I have a YM 1510D and plan on making a scoop (as I cannot find one here in Poland).

At our church when they dug the septic tank they just stacked the sand in piles in the place where I want to park cars now of course. It is specifically this sand that I need to relocate. I also need to dig a trench or hole and bury a bunch of old building bricks and cement chunks that I am finding in various places on the place.

Anyway any opinions or advice?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[jinman]

Hey guys since you are talking from the vantage of experience, I was wondering how you think that a scoop would work here. Our soil is, well, sand!! That is about all too. I can find some topsoil sometimes, but very thin and loose. I have a YM 1510D and plan on making a scoop (as I cannot find one here in Poland).

At our church when they dug the septic tank they just stacked the sand in piles in the place where I want to park cars now of course. It is specifically this sand that I need to relocate. I also need to dig a trench or hole and bury a bunch of old building bricks and cement chunks that I am finding in various places on the place.

Anyway any opinions or advice?

Thanks,
Mike

Wow Mike! Lot's of questions on this one...
How did they dig the septic tank? Why can't that "digger" be used to spread out the "piles" of sand? How big are these piles? Was the excavation 10 yards or more?

It sounds to me like your spreading sand chores would best be served by a boxblade and your digging tasks best served by a backhoe. A dirt scoop can be used to spread the sand, but it is not good for any digging beyond about a foot deep. You get a trench where the tires sit on the edges and digging deeper becomes very hard.

My father turned a tractor over on himself digging a pit to build a septic system. It can be done, but it is very dangerous to climb up out of a hole with a dirtscoop full of sand unless you have lots and lots of front ballast. In my father's case. His old Ferguson TO-20 had no front ballast and the front end reared up, did almost a 180º turn in the air, and rolled back down into the pit with him under it. He was never the same afterwards, but lived to age 85 anyhow. Just be careful and use the right tool for the job.

So it's hard to get implements in Poland? I would think just the opposite since they are such an agrarian and manufacturing culture. Go figure...

 

[MJPetersen]

Thanks Jim,

Thanks for your patience with my questions, sorry if too many at once.

I know about riding on the rear wheels. My FIL had an old International, I think, that he used to pull a small scrapper in FL. You steered the thing most of the time with the brakes, because the front wheels were off the ground or close to it. It actually probally would not go over as the drawbar was below the axle and the rearing was from the weight of the scraper goose neck load.

I was thinking that if I could use the scoop sort of like the scraper and make a relatively shallow trench to throw the broken bricks and things of that nature that I am finding around. But I am now seeing your point as the scoop is narrower than the tractor you cannot get to the where the wheels would ride, even with a double width pass. Hmm will have to think some more about this problem.

The septic tanks are dug by hand. They have large cement rings about 4 to 5 feet in diameter and 20 inches tall. You lay that on the ground where you want your tank and just dig out from the inside of the ring. As it settles down level with the ground you stack a second ring on top of it and so-forth until you get the size tank that you want. Then you pour the bottom with cement, cement up the cracks between rings and the flat top and presto a septic tank. When the cement sets up you do have to go back in there and paint the inside with the waterproofing. These are supposed to be sealed units and when they are full you call the pooper pumper to come and empty it out. Usually there are 2 tanks connected together.

These piles of sand have probably been sitting here for 15 years so they do have roots and such. but being pretty pure sand little is beyong the surface. I probably have 20-25 yards of the sand to get rid of.

I would LOVE to have a FEL and a small hoe, but the realistic fact is that it is not going to be possible this year. I am hoping to make these kinds of things next winter, but now I need to as inexpensively as possible work on improving the grounds.

I considered a BB and could use it for other projects, but I did not want to drag the sand across already established lawn and parking. That is why I was thinking scoop. simple, not too expensive, and doable in a short time.

Thanks again for all help and advice.

Mike

 

[jinman]

Well, I was refering to me having lots of questions instead of you.

I see your situation with the dirt. Actually, I had considered suggesting a church member work party and using shovels and wheelbarrows, but that may also not be something you want to "saddle" the members of your church with. I see exactly the situation you are describing with the dirt mounds and not damaging the lawn. I guess I assumed that if it was going to be a parking lot, that wouldn't matter. Grass recovers pretty quickly anyhow.

You can use the dirtscoop to dig a wide trench, but then you have to manually dig down the sides under the wheels to go any lower. After you do that enough times, you can end up with a deep trench that will hold a lot of stuff. That's what my dad and I did and why he got too much of a load with the loose dirt and ended up with no steering control. If you only need to dig down a couple of feet, that should work just fine. It will work well to bury debris.

Good luck with your projects. There are lots of great ideas here...just keep asking.

 

[Slamfire]

I've hauled many loads of loose material from a pile by backing into it with the scoop. I've also peeled Saint Augustine sod by backing the scoop. With stabilizers in place, the 3PH is plenty strong for loose material in a pile and also soft materials. How else would you get dirt out of a pile dumped from a truck? If the dump truck cannot spread the load where you want it, you have to back into the pile because you can't straddle it and drive over the top. That's why the scoops are built to be reversible and they work great for that.

I put two sets of pins on my scoop and also looped the release rope backwards and then forward over the top of the frame so I could easily dump by pulling. As you said, setting the scoop down on the ground to trip the dump is required, especially if you have a heaping load.

I can see how it'd do ok in sand, but all I have is heavy clay and sandstone pretty near the top. Oh yeah, and one bent stabilizer bar.