Landscape Plane theories to explore

[woodlandfarms]

So I am in the midst of putting a landscape plane together, simple landscape plane. I am really impressed with all the work done here but before I pull the trigger on my plans I wanted to get a concensus of opinions on a few things.

Angle or no angle blades. We discussed this earlier, seems that angled cut road ruts better but do not work as well on just flat level grading.

Body Weight. Make it heavy as possible for your machine....

Body Length. Hmmm No one has really discussed this from what I have seen. Shorter would be beter for hilly roads, right? Longer better for flatter roads? And what is that longer / shorter measurement? Mine will probably be based on available steel but....

Top Link... It seems to me that you would want the drag to float, I see all of the designs except one that the top link is solidly connected to the body of the plane. As I think about this, I wonder why. Wouldn't you want it to float, be able to angle up and down with a hilly road? I am thinking of a post that could bend and chains going to the rear of the plane. Anyone have thoughts on this?

Adjustablity of depth. Man, there is a couple of builds that are amazing, spin a lever and one end of the blade goes up. But at the end of the day, do those of you with fixed depth blades wish for adjustability?

Final leveler blade. On two designs I have seen a final blade (usually just angle iron) at the very back that is straight. I guess as a final finish? Needed or not?

FInally, I can pull a 6ft box blade pretty easily. Get it loaded, going uphill, and I drag down. I am debating wether I could do a 7ft blade (I would love an 8 to cover my tire widths but). Does a landplane take as much juice to move as a box blade?

Look forward to your guys and gals insights on this design......

Carl

 

[bcp]

I've noticed 4 styles in homemade and commercial 2-blade implements. The attached diagram is showing only the ground contact shape.

Floating could be done like a 3pt rotary mower, with a pivoting solid link that could be pinned when desired. Some commercial ones use a hydraulic cylinder instead of a solid frame.

Bruce

 

[Renze]

Another style you see here, is with a V blade in front, pushing the dirt to where the tractor wheels drive, and then a big U blade in the back, which moves the ridges that are pushed to the sides by the first blade back to the center. That makes it distribute sharp ridges very well, without having huge heaps of soil in front of the blade in order to have enough dirt rolling to the sides, to fill the ruts.

 

[FredH]

Although my blades are angled , they are angled opposite of each other . If one stands at the front and looks back at mine , First blade angles back from the left to the right , Second angles back from the right to the left . Basically it will move material from the left towards the right then back again , thus providing for a pretty good distribution of material with each pass . 7' wide by 8' long pulled behind a N.H. HST TC-30 , ( 4 wheel drive ) with FEL on a driveway that goes from 2% grade for 2/3 the 800 feet to close to 8% for the last 1/3 .

How much material it or the tractor will pull , just depends on blade depth . From shallow scrapping multiple passes , to hogging it out in one gouging pass .

Fred H.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/build-yourself/216568-angle-road-grader-blades-2.html

 

[beppington]

OK, my votes & opinions (I have a Land Pride GS1572):

Angle or no angle blades. We discussed this earlier, seems that angled cut road ruts better but do not work as well on just flat level grading.

Angled. I can't really figure why someone would vote for non-angled.

Body Weight. Make it heavy as possible for your machine....

Agreed, sort of - Of course you need to make sure your tractor can pull the grader when it's full of material and/or when it's grading very hard material (assuming you'll ever do that) ... so yes of course weight helps grading, as long as it's not too much weight for your tractor to pull.

Body Length. Hmmm No one has really discussed this from what I have seen. Shorter would be beter for hilly roads, right? Longer better for flatter roads? And what is that longer / shorter measurement? Mine will probably be based on available steel but....

Logically the longer-the-better gives you the smoothest results, as witnessed by the big, long, heavy interstate motor graders. Of course our tractors can't pull a 30' long grader, so we have to compromise with something shorter. I will say that while my GS1572 grades very well, being that it's only about 4' long, it can make what seems at 3.5 mph to be a very smooth road but that at 20-25 mph are very smooth whoop-tee-doo's.

Top Link... It seems to me that you would want the drag to float, I see all of the designs except one that the top link is solidly connected to the body of the plane. As I think about this, I wonder why. Wouldn't you want it to float, be able to angle up and down with a hilly road? I am thinking of a post that could bend and chains going to the rear of the plane. Anyone have thoughts on this?

I think you want the top link on & fixed: With no top link, your 3PH lower arms are still pulling from what 6-8-10 inches above the ground, & which still tends to want to lift the rear of the grader off the ground, even if only a little bit sometimes - you do not want that as you'd be defeating most of the purpose of the side skids, since only the front of the side skids would be skidding rather than the whole skid which is what makes the levelest finish ... the top link keeps it down / level.

Adjustablity of depth. Man, there is a couple of builds that are amazing, spin a lever and one end of the blade goes up. But at the end of the day, do those of you with fixed depth blades wish for adjustability?

Mine are adjustable via bolts. I've never adjusted them, however I only have 15-20 hours on mine. That said, I would sure like the option of spinning a lever to adjust them. I think I will want to at some point & would rather be able to do it quickly that way vs gettin' out wrenches. Plus, you can never have too many options!

Final leveler blade. On two designs I have seen a final blade (usually just angle iron) at the very back that is straight. I guess as a final finish? Needed or not?

Never seen one of those & can't figure why it would be needed. I guess the thought is, if 2 is good, 3 is better?

FInally, I can pull a 6ft box blade pretty easily. Get it loaded, going uphill, and I drag down. I am debating wether I could do a 7ft blade (I would love an 8 to cover my tire widths but). Does a landplane take as much juice to move as a box blade?

I think they're about the same. Both can be tilted to make them dig more vs smooth more. The similar size grader is probably usually a little heavier, but then you have the skids which distributes the weight some. I dunno, my tractor seems to pull them both about the same.

 

[brucewj]

I can give you my experience with the land plane I built. YMMV

Body Weight. Make it heavy as possible for your machine....

My number one mistake. I wish I had made it a LOT heavier.

Body Length. Hmmm No one has really discussed this from what I have seen. Shorter would be beter for hilly roads, right? Longer better for flatter roads? And what is that longer / shorter measurement? Mine will probably be based on available steel but....

When I made mine I felt like a longer base would give a smoother grade. Worked out good for me.

Top Link... It seems to me that you would want the drag to float, I see all of the designs except one that the top link is solidly connected to the body of the plane. As I think about this, I wonder why. Wouldn't you want it to float, be able to angle up and down with a hilly road? I am thinking of a post that could bend and chains going to the rear of the plane. Anyone have thoughts on this?

I thought the same thing, and used chains when I first built mine. It was a mistake in my instance. The plane would ride up over the material instead of pulling it forward. I ditched the chains and added solid support. Worked much better for me.

Adjustablity of depth. Man, there is a couple of builds that are amazing, spin a lever and one end of the blade goes up. But at the end of the day, do those of you with fixed depth blades wish for adjustability?

YEP! If for no other reason, the blades will eventually wear down, whatever depth you decide. If I could just turn a crank it would solve a problem I am now facing after a couple of years use. There have been a couple of occasions I could have used another half inch depth on the blade also.

Final leveler blade. On two designs I have seen a final blade (usually just angle iron) at the very back that is straight. I guess as a final finish? Needed or not?

Has worked well for me putting a smooth finish on the road. The front balde digs up the dirt, the back one smooths it off.

FInally, I can pull a 6ft box blade pretty easily. Get it loaded, going uphill, and I drag down. I am debating wether I could do a 7ft blade (I would love an 8 to cover my tire widths but). Does a landplane take as much juice to move as a box blade?

Another one of the things I really wish I had done differently. I had read about the maximum width for a box blade for my size tractor, so I built mine to the same limits. I didn't realize at the time I built mine that a land plane does not pull as much material as a box blade, and my little tractor could easily pull the land plane if it were a foot or more wider. Would have made dressing the road easier.

Hope you find these comments useful.

 

[beppington]

My number one mistake. I wish I had made it a LOT heavier.

You might be able to just place weights / dumbbells on it? You could chain them onto it, or secure them with ratchet straps. This way you're not as committed to the extra weight, in case you have times where you don't need it.

Has worked well for me putting a smooth finish on the road. The front balde digs up the dirt, the back one smooths it off.

I assumed he was already planning on the typical 2 blades & had seen somebody with a third blade ... ?

Another one of the things I really wish I had done differently. I had read about the maximum width for a box blade for my size tractor, so I built mine to the same limits. I didn't realize at the time I built mine that a land plane does not pull as much material as a box blade, and my little tractor could easily pull the land plane if it were a foot or more wider. Would have made dressing the road easier.

I would guess that's because it's too light?

 

[Gordon Gould]

My .02 from my experience with a 5' wide X 4'6" long 575 lb unit pulled by 30 hp.


Angle or no angle blades. -
Angled blades lead into the cut better but straight blades work fine. If I was to build another I would angle each blade the opposite way.

Body Weight. Make it heavy as possible for your machine....-
Absolutely !!

Body Length. -
I think my 4'6" unit is fine for road work. If I was making tennis courts I would want it longer. If it is to long managing sharp curves would be interesting.

Top Link... -
I have plenty of hills and curves. I have used a solid top link first then a chain on the final pass. It worked very well. But the chain was just icing on the cake. The solid link was OK by it self if you made the necessary adjustments.
You cannot use a chain until the road surface is loose. It won't sit flat. If it is not flat it is not a grader.
The absolute best solution is to get yourself a hydraulic top link if you can. I have one now and it is great. You just keep your skids flat on the road by adjusting the hydraulic top link as you go.


Adjustablity of depth. -
I put that in the very nice to have but not necessary catagory.

Final leveler blade. -
I have a swinging tail gate on mine that I also can lock to capture material.
It does not provide much additional leveling. By the time the material passes over the second blade it is pretty much distributed evenly across the unit. My tailgate does capure clods of grass which makes it nice. When I get to many I just push them off the road.



Does a landplane take as much juice to move as a box blade?
Graders take about the same power/traction to pull. Sometimes more.

gg

 

[bcp]

If any one design was significantly better than others, that design is all we would see. There is even a lot of difference in length in commercial units

Woods 6ft is 46 inches long:
GS72C Landscape Equipment

Priefert 6ft is 90.5 long:
6' Road Grader

Bruce

 

[Gordon Gould]

If any one design was significantly better than others, that design is all we would see. There is even a lot of difference in length in commercial units

Bruce

I think you hit the nail on the head. They all must work because you don't hear anybody complaining.