YardBikeBob
Silver Member
New tractor owner: LS R4041H & Woods BSM72 6' Box Blade.
Used the box blade with the scarifiers (shanks, rippers) in the middle position to clean up a rutted, rocky forest trail. Good couple of hours work. When I finished and dropped off the box blade, I noticed I'm now missing 4 (out of 6) teeth on the blade.
Today I went out to find them. Found 3 where I had pulled up a rock about the size of carry-on luggage.
The scenario is that I was chugging along in low and the tractor was stopped by the rock. Pull up blade, back up, drop blade, ease into rock, lift blade. Repeat until. . . Rock turned over and flipped out of its hole. Chug past rock, lower blade, and backed the rock off the trail. That was in the first few hundred feet and I went on with the rest of the trail.
So, obviously, that scenario pulls teeth off this box blade. Is that normal? Just something you don't do with a box blade?
Searched through some posts about putting the teeth back on. I have the dimples in the shank which sounds typical from the posts. However, I don't own a torch or a press and that seems to be the two favored methods of installing teeth and adding the dimple.
Question: But I own a welder. Can I just weld them on? Will that hurt the surface hardening on the shanks and make them brittle?
Question: The teeth are not slipping back on the shanks as they are dimpled, too. Do I just go at it with a hammer to knock them back into position? Will a propane torch have enough heat to ease them back in?
Errata: I live in the Southern Missouri Ozarks so rocks are just a fact of life. Tractor has 20 hours on it. Box blade is new and was used for a few hours to level a building pad without the scarifiers installed. Learned that a level box blade is a timid box blade. Shortened the top link to give the box blade a little chin-down attitude and it is much more aggressive. The trail work was done with the same setting. The middle position on the scarifiers have the teeth an inch or so into the dirt.
This heavy 6' box blade is a good match for this tractor.
Thanks for any advice or tips. The box blade did a wonderful job until I parked it and saw my new maintenance project.
Bob
Used the box blade with the scarifiers (shanks, rippers) in the middle position to clean up a rutted, rocky forest trail. Good couple of hours work. When I finished and dropped off the box blade, I noticed I'm now missing 4 (out of 6) teeth on the blade.
Today I went out to find them. Found 3 where I had pulled up a rock about the size of carry-on luggage.
The scenario is that I was chugging along in low and the tractor was stopped by the rock. Pull up blade, back up, drop blade, ease into rock, lift blade. Repeat until. . . Rock turned over and flipped out of its hole. Chug past rock, lower blade, and backed the rock off the trail. That was in the first few hundred feet and I went on with the rest of the trail.
So, obviously, that scenario pulls teeth off this box blade. Is that normal? Just something you don't do with a box blade?
Searched through some posts about putting the teeth back on. I have the dimples in the shank which sounds typical from the posts. However, I don't own a torch or a press and that seems to be the two favored methods of installing teeth and adding the dimple.
Question: But I own a welder. Can I just weld them on? Will that hurt the surface hardening on the shanks and make them brittle?
Question: The teeth are not slipping back on the shanks as they are dimpled, too. Do I just go at it with a hammer to knock them back into position? Will a propane torch have enough heat to ease them back in?
Errata: I live in the Southern Missouri Ozarks so rocks are just a fact of life. Tractor has 20 hours on it. Box blade is new and was used for a few hours to level a building pad without the scarifiers installed. Learned that a level box blade is a timid box blade. Shortened the top link to give the box blade a little chin-down attitude and it is much more aggressive. The trail work was done with the same setting. The middle position on the scarifiers have the teeth an inch or so into the dirt.
This heavy 6' box blade is a good match for this tractor.
Thanks for any advice or tips. The box blade did a wonderful job until I parked it and saw my new maintenance project.
Bob