You can beef up your skids by welding about a 10" by 12" X 1/2" steel plate on each of the factory skids. And add angle iron skids on each side. Another option, is to put a pipe on the cutting edge. A lot of steel/machining shops up in our area sell 2" heavy wall split pipe that has about a 3/8" slot cut in it that you can slip over the stock cutting edge. I have one on my 6' blade and another one on my 78" blower. You can have them widen the slot, or you can do it yourself, it you need it wider. That keep the cutting edge from being very aggressive unless you are in mud/soft stuff ...I bought mine from Gaylord Machine and they have a whole pile of them. They put a lot of them on commercial plows....