Box blade question

[Fastball]

I have an L2900. I壇 like to acquire a few more implements (wouldn稚 we all?) but am on a not unlimited budget (aren稚 we all?) As I致e not owned a lot of implements, please forgive the newbie questions.
I have a chance to acquire a box blade...a 48-inch Land Pride. Is this too narrow for this tractor which has a width of over 52-odd inches..or it 48 inches perfectly normal for a tractor of this size? Or is a smaller box blade better than no box blade? I知 looking to move dirt, repair some mole damage to my fields and perhaps flatten out a bit of ground that痴 got a bit of a slope to it. Or would a land plane/grader be a better option? I know the land planer is absolutely 100% the tool for doing driveways, etc...but can it do as many things as a box blade?
Any input is appreciated.

 

[sandman2234]

I have a 6 foot boxblade out back that I used and used and even slightly abused. Each time I bent or broke it, I tried to make it better than before. Then I got a home built grader, and don't think I have hooked up to the box blade since.
Now... most people I hear talk about box blades say that you should be able to cover your tracks with the box blade, so maybe you need just a little wider. I know I often wished mine was another foot wider so I could go out over a ditch edge or other things.
David from jax

 

[jeff9366]

Box Blades optimally are slightly wider than tractor's rear tires.
If narrower, you cannot pull down the same "aisle" repeatedly because space for the rear tires is not cleared.
Limited to field smoothing, width would be less important.

Weight is your friend in ground contact tasks.
Box Blades need to be 100 pounds weight per foot of width in order to cut soil well. (Construction Box Blades are 200 pounds per foot of width.)
Many 48" Box Blades are sold to newbies on basis of price. Often they do not cut, or cut 1/4" per draw. Sometimes they break. Determine the Land Pride model number and research weight on Land Pride's web site, Only the heaviest 48" Box Blades approach 100 pounds per foot of width.

Moist soil cuts much easier than dry soil.

Your tasks involve moving/transporting soil. A Box Blade is designed to transport soil short distances. It is one of the right choices. A rear/angle blade, would be another right choice.

Learning to operate a Box Blade efficiently takes time.

A Box Blades is the implement most frequently employed as Three Point Hitch counterbalance to loader bucket loads.
A light Box Blades is not heavy enough to keep rear wheels securely on the ground during a max lift of dirt or other material with the loader bucket.

I trust you have functioning 4-WD.


Width of Rollover Box Blade in Photo 60"
Weight of Rollover Box Blade in Photo 630 pounds

 

[Rock Crawler]

I have a 60" Titan box and a 72" unknown rear grader blade. The box blade does not work near as well as the rear blade for actually moving dirt or shaping trails.

I find that the box blade works well on old hard packed limestone/gravel driveways, you drop the teeth and rip into it and flip the packed dirt/aggregate up and you will be driving on gravel again.

For dirt/trail work, I find a box to be horribly frustrating compared to the blade. There is a use and advantage to the box on dirt trails, and that is that the near surface roots will be grabbed by the teeth and torn apart so that you keep working down to level an area. But other than that, if roots are not an issue, my blade will cut into dirt and pull more/faster than the box by far. The blade can also be angled to move dirt tone side or the other while the box is not capable of that. Both can be adjusted to slope left/right behind you, but if you want to bit in hard and level a sloped trail the rear grader blade will run circles around the box.

If you look at Jeffs photo up a few posts you see where he is cutting in nicely with a box, but also look at that super soft sand he is working in. My dirt here would LOL at the box if that was the goal! But the grader blade would cut in and start rolling 6" thick scabs of dirt if I fully dropped it. I almost need to use both, explode roots with the box, then do the dirt work with the blade.

They need to make a 3 point hydraulic rotary mount that you back up and hook the box to, rotate it 180° and hook the blade to the other side! That way you could raise the 3 point, rotate to the box and blow out the roots, raise the 3 point and rotate to the blade and scrape. I would buy that!

They kind of work differently, and excel at different things. If I had to give one of the 2 up.... I think I would let the box go first.

 

[fried1765]

I have an L2900. I壇 like to acquire a few more implements (wouldn稚 we all?) but am on a not unlimited budget (aren稚 we all?) As I致e not owned a lot of implements, please forgive the newbie questions.
I have a chance to acquire a box blade...a 48-inch Land Pride. Is this too narrow for this tractor which has a width of over 52-odd inches..or it 48 inches perfectly normal for a tractor of this size? Or is a smaller box blade better than no box blade? I知 looking to move dirt, repair some mole damage to my fields and perhaps flatten out a bit of ground that痴 got a bit of a slope to it. Or would a land plane/grader be a better option? I know the land planer is absolutely 100% the tool for doing driveways, etc...but can it do as many things as a box blade?
Any input is appreciated.

You are partially correct about a land plane.
"The land planer is absolutely 100% the tool for doing driveways".
A more accurate statement might be: A land plane is absolutely 100% the tool for doing FLAT surface driveways, but a FLAT surface driveway will have puddles forming, with each heavy rain.
With practice, a rear blade will maintain a driveway with a meaningful crown, and the crown will SHED water.

 

[Rock Crawler]

You are partially correct about a land plane.
"The land planer is absolutely 100% the tool for doing driveways".
A more accurate statement might be: A land plane is absolutely 100% the tool for doing FLAT surface driveways, but a FLAT surface driveway will have puddles forming, with each heavy rain.
With practice, a rear blade will maintain a driveway with a meaningful crown, and the crown will SHED water.

Yep I agree, I use the box to break apart the compacted driveway and then move to the rear blade to do all finishing work.

 

[Fastball]

This site does not process apostrophes.

Well, that is kind of dumb, is it not?

 

[Fastball]

Yep I agree, I use the box to break apart the compacted driveway and then move to the rear blade to do all finishing work.

So basically, a land grader with scarifiers sounds like the best of all worlds then.

 

[Rock Crawler]

So basically, a land grader with scarifiers sounds like the best of all worlds then.

Do they make such a beast? If so, I know that I would be interested in a rusty cheap used one!

 

[/pine]

IMO to use either a box blade or a rear blade efficiently *requires* hydraulic top and tilt...(never pulled a LPGS)...

The biggest difference between the two (rear blade and box blade) and their capabilities are a box blade has scarifiers...and a rear blade can angle

** being able to make instant adjustments to both tilt axises of a grading blade greatly reduces the learning curve as well as speeding up tasks...either attachment can be used with manually adjusted links but to use effectively will require a lot of time out of the seat making constant adjustments...

Also...there are several tips and tricks for using lighter box blades designed for CUT and SCUT machines so they perform like much heavier blades...