Toothbar or Boxblade?

[Kratos]

Forgive me if this has been covered, but I finally put out the money and have a guy with an excavator clearing two acres of my woods to make pasture eventually. He is taking trees and pulling stumps and piling for me to burn three mountains of brush and stumps this fall after things have dried.

I have a 28 HP 4x4 tractor with a 60" loader bucket. Once he gets done, I will have 2 acres of turned over dirt to level and smooth out so I can plant grass seed right before it starts raining this fall. After paying for the excavator, I can squeek out one more attachment for my tractor. I am deciding between a toothbar for my loader bucket or a box blade for the 3 pt hitch.

The money is close so which will be best for the project at hand?

 

[mrutkaus]

Seems like a gigantic difference. I have a Markham toothbar on my KL130; there is very little to do with leveling.

A boxblade (king kutter cheapest) which i know nothing of except reading here and imagining, would be far out the best choise, IMHO

Mike

 

[mjncad]

Going in reverse to level 2-acres with a toothbar mounted on a loader sounds awfully slow and painful.

I don't have a box blade; but that sounds like a logical choice for such a project. Are you looking at a used box blade? I priced a new 6' Frontier/Woods and it was about 4x the cost of a toothbar for my bucket.

 

[Cottonhawk]

For what you plan to do box blade is more effective.
I also have over two acres to plant this Fall.

 

[Kratos]

Going in reverse to level 2-acres with a toothbar mounted on a loader sounds awfully slow and painful.

I don't have a box blade; but that sounds like a logical choice for such a project. Are you looking at a used box blade? I priced a new 6' Frontier/Woods and it was about 4x the cost of a toothbar for my bucket.

The local tractor dealer says he will let me have a box blade for $400 and the toothbar to where I live is in the low $300's. I will have both eventually, but need to decide which one first.

 

[kennyd]

It definatly sounds like you need a boxblade and not a toothbar for that project!

 

[SkunkWerX]

Boxblade, most likely, not toothbar.

Depends on how flat it's left? If you are looking at 1 foot deep ruts, or worse, then Box Blade all-the-way. If it were better, then you could even consider a rear grader blade or Rake.

Since you said it was an excavator, I'm picturing surface of the moon, maybe?
Are there big holes left from where the stumps were pulled?
You might have your work cut-out for you.

If it's really cratered, nothing would beat a "back drag" with a bulldozer to fill in the deep ruts and get you to a flattened rough grade.

What is the condition of the soil and just how "rutty" is it?

 

[john_bud]

Bad news! The box blades in the 400$ range are pretty much only good for light duty chores. Smoothing out 2 acres is not what I would call a light duty chore. As bought, the light boxes are not very usefull in your environment. Ground enaging implements work best when they are heavy. The implement is then controlling the soil and not the othe way around. If you have a welder and access to some used steel, you can beef up a cheap box.

A better thought may be for you to determine what is going to be left in the field. Rocks? Roots? Huge piles of soil? Or just lumps and clumps?

Depending on what is left, you have vastly different choices. If it's just lumps and clumps, you can get a 8' long 30" diameter (give or take) log, wrap it in 5-6 layers of chain link fence and drag that around. Have 10-15' of fence dragging behind it. That would break up clumps and help spread them out to the lower spots after a fashion. If it's more clumpy, you can go to auctions and buy a 6-8' disc and drag that around at various angles of the discs, starting with just off straight to cut the soil more.

If it's huge piles of stuff, you will have to move it teaspoon by teaspoon with the loader bucket. (Trust me, after you 5,000'th bucket full your gonna think your using a teaspoon!)


If you have lots of rocks, roots and such, you may need to get a sub soiler (middle buster, potato plow, etc) to break up the roots and move rocks up. Then a landscape rake to drag the nasties to the edges of the field.


You may want to visit the library to check out books on successful small scale farming and farming in the 20's, 30's and 40's. The tools used back then are more applicable to your situation. And pocket book.


Last thought, you may want to have a dozer come in and rake the soil to drag out all the nasties as Skunk pointed out. Probably 2 grand to have it done?

jb

 

[loulblades]

I have a similar situation but currently with only a 1/2 acre. Although I do use the toothbar for raking and smoothing, I would much rather have something else (I do have a 60" rear blade and have run it with the edge reverse but it still just isn't the tool for the job).

So I am considering a box blade or a landscape rake (I tilled first). It is hard for me to justify the purchase of either (more like the storage) but I have some dealers close by that rent implements when they have them in stock (unfortunately they have neither item at the moment).

 

[Timber]

Go with the Box Blade and if a lighter one is in your Budget than so be it. You can add wt. to it easy enough. you have a light tractor anyway so just go at a pace that will get you the results you want. I don't think 2 acres is a huge deal for a light duty Box Blade.