Angle for Road grader Blades

[FredH]

Building a road grader / land leveler and My question is this :

At what angle and pitch do I go with for the blades ?

Angle being from one side to the other and pitch being the actual slope of the blade from top to bottom .

Those who have made theirs or even those with bought ones like from Land Pride or King kutter Please help a guy out .

Fred H.

 

[Gordon Gould]

Those are hard questions to answer. They have been asked before and in my recolection there are many configurations that have been built and they all are said to work fine. Some angle both blades the same way to help build a crown. Some angle each blade at opposite angles for better mixing. And some, like me, have them straight at 90 degrees.
I don't know what the best angle of attack is but mine is a little steeper than 45* and it cuts like a champ. I have a 4"X4"X3/8 angle irons for blade supports. Set like a pup tent. The rear edge is flush with the bottom of the skids and the leading edge is 3/4" below the skids. Cocking it forward a little and making the blade angle a little more than 45*.
Do a search and you will get lots of ideas and opinions.

 

[Rustyiron]

I built one with a 10deg.angle to bring in material from the side, towards the crown, it is not enough to do what I wanted it to do. This might be change with different material, but with my local "dirt/gravel" I would prolly double the angle! The problem of much more of an angle, that is if you have 2 cutting edges with a decent separation between them, is that the unit gets very long! As for the pitch, I used a 4x6 angle for the blade suport and it is about 8deg. off vert. I used a std road grader blade that has a slight curl to it so the end "pitch" is a little better than 8 deg. I am very pleased with the way it cuts, seems to be just about right, that is it cuts just enough so that when you find one a BIG rock it generally slides over it rather than slamming you into the steering wheel.
Like Gordon said, do a little searching here.:thumbsup:

 

[Mochaman]

Rustyiron, you hit it on the head with what we did. 20 degree angle/sweep works very well at pulling the material up to the crown. We have 2 blades and depending on the width it could make for a very long grader. The pitch is close to 45 degrees. We did what Gordon did and the material rolls up and over nicely but ours is sand/river rock mix but it works good on the counties gravel road also.

 

[Scooby074]

Subscribed. Its on my to build list.

 

[FredH]

Calculating out the one I am building , it is going to weigh in around 750 lbs. + or - , ( with ability to easily add weight if necessary ) . 7' wide and around 7' 6" long . Going to angle blades opposite of each other , since our driveway really has no crown , rather it slopes from one side to the other plus after about halfway up , it gets leg burning steep . At 7' wide , it will still require 2 passes to do entire width .

Borrowed a rather odd one from a ranch down the road that weighed in around 900 lbs. , did a o.k. job but darn pain to go get and return , blades were as mine are going to be , angled opposite and about the same size , just that the blades were rather worn oddly and were not adjustable .

I did a search and did come across a link from land pride that mentioned 5 degree angle , and like poster of that thread , not sure what angle they were talking about . I like the idea of having the blades opposite angled thus carrying material first towards one side then back the other way . But like my better half stated , " knowing you , if it does not work right the first time , you will just modify until it does " . I did that with the new KK 6.5' disk that we bought years back . Thing now weighs about 1150 lbs. and works like a champ .

Gordon : Your build looks great and is pretty much in line with my build going on . Mine will also use angle and I like your idea of setting it lower in the front .

If it ends up being to heavy for my TC30 , I can always just throw a chain on it and use my Freightliner to yard it up and down the driveway .

Thanks Everyone .
Fred H.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Fred, how heavy is your TC30? My guess is that you are not going to be able to handle the size and weight of the unit that you want to build.

I have a Mahindra 3215 HST. Weighs in right close to 5,000lbs, I have a land plane grader blade that is 5 foot wide and 6 foot long, weighs about 800lbs. I would not want to go much wider and for sure not wider than 6 foot.

Now this is just me with my conditions, but I just thought that I would throw the info out there for you to consider.

 

[billybobjimmyjoejack]

Fred-
It seems as though you went to the same place for your info. as I did (Land Pride) I printed the complete owners manual which had almost all the specs for the whole grader (blade angle,steel thickness,plate sizes and bolt sizes) I was able to find a 5' box blade (for $150) that I used the 3 point and the scraper blades. I decided to make the height of the blades adjustable, I can raise or lower each side independently so a crown can be achieved with out doing anything special. I think you might want to reconsider the 7' grader size for your TC30, I have a 1715 Ford/New Holland and the 5' scraper is the biggest I would pull behind it. BTW where is Ruch, OR.

 

[Gordon Gould]

I had similar thoughts as brian. But I am not familiar with the TC30 so I may be off base here.
My L3010 weighs 5000 lb and is 4wd 30 hp. My grader is 5 feet wide and about 5 feet long and weighs 575 lbs. When it is cutting good so the box is full of flowing material and I'm heading up hill I would not want it much bigger.

 

[FredH]

Our driveway is similar to Gordon's , at least it looks similar as far as rock type . We have crushed blue shale , thus rock size is 3/4 to 1.25" size . Thick to , we usually have 3" to 4" added every 3 to 4 years .
I have wondered about my width , I know I will be able to go down hill .
Did I mention steep ? From highway to top is 800' feet . First 350' to 400' is not to bad , maybe 4% to 6% . The last 400' , UGH!! Likely around a Leg Burning 12% to 14% . Property is 5 acres . From Northeast corner to Southwest corner is a average grade of 14% .
Both sides of driveway I disk to keep weeds down . Could use brushhog , but as I have stated in other threads , I go the " No Brainer " method . Anyway , disk is a KK 6.5' angle frame , heavily modified from original . Original weighed in at 540 lbs. Now weighs in at a little over 1100 lbs . Tractor is able to pull it up hill with it buried to the axles .
Now a disk is different than a blade / scraper / leveler , but I don't plan on moving mass amounts of material either . Idea is more to just " top " level drive . Basically just moving / redistributing the top 1" to 3" of material . We never get potholes , just occasionally it gets a little " Washboard " effect in spots due to visitors to our place or neighbors and they don't know how to drive . Rather than trying to keep educating people , neighbors and us figured it would be easier going this route .

The really " Cool " thing is that if it don't work or is to big , I can always pull out the plasma or grinder with cut-off wheel , and chop it down a notch or to . I find it more of a pleasure to build something than it is to use it , even if it does work .:confused2: Am I Demented or What ?

Fred H.


Ruch is 11 miles West of Medford in Southern Oregon . Take Hwy 238 west out of Medford . Also , area is known as the Applegate " Alps " for the previously mentioned STEEPNESS !

 

[Gordon Gould]

Sounds like a plan :thumbsup:

 

[crazyal]

If you go to Land pride's website they have the specs listed for their grading scraper. Not sure if the pitch of the blade is listed but I thing they use 17 degrees for the angle of the blade. I plan on making one too, just haven''t found the time. I'm also still toying with the idea of adding rippers to help loosen the dirt when it gets packed down.

 

[FredH]

This is what it ended up coming out as , (No color added yet ) . Blades are set at 3/4" now but may move back up to only a 1/2" . One pass down each side of driveway was all I needed . Better Half and Neighbors love it .

 

[sandman2234]

If it ends up being to heavy for my TC30 , I can always just throw a chain on it and use my Freightliner to yard it up and down the driveway .

Thanks Everyone .
Fred H.

Can I borrow your Freightliner? Mine is HEAVY!!!

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/build-yourself/175396-dava-grader-process.html


David from jax

 

[FredH]

Sandman : You do notice that it IS Parked right next to the Freightshaker ?

With the new in-frame and Garrett turbo , the 1,000,000 mile truck should have no problem yanking it around .:thumbsup:

Fred H.

P.S. As a side note , I ended up settling on 10 Degree angle and a 45 degree pitch of the blades . I did though forget one thing , Bought the steel but forgot
to weld it on . Two 1/2" x 3" x 8' skid shoes . Wife went to use the newer Dodge and wanted to know what the steel was in back . Duh !! Good thing I
wear a belt , Wonder how many times I would of forgot my pants by now !!

 

[sandman2234]

You did notice the link to my build, didn't you? Too many pictures, but what the heck. I think your questions on angles were included in there. Mine is a little heavier duty than yours... or at least heavier, lol.

A million miles on a freightshaker is rough on the old bones. Last calculations I am just over two and a half freightshakers...getting tired of chasing polka dotted lines, but they just keep coming! One of the owner-ops at work drive their's as a team, by slipseating it. She takes it out and when she gets back, he takes it out. 6-7 hundred miles each, per driver per day. Poor old truck didn't catch it's breathe till the motor went at 1.4, and a week later a used motor from an auction was building air on the brakes. That only lasted a year till a rod chewed a hole through the side of the block. Now they are back to making payments on a newer one. The cycle never ends...
David from jax