Back drag with bucket vs box blade

[s219]

I do both regularly, but for me, the box blade (with hydraulic top link) is way better and certainly faster. It takes some practice though, and you have to realize two key things: 1) the "clever" purpose of the box blade is to remove material from high spots and drop it in low spots -- the box is there to hold the material in between. 2) length of the top link controls the angle of attack of the rear cutting edges and determines how much the box blade digs versus smooths. Understanding #1 and using #2 to control #1 are the secrets to success.

I have gotten some great results from back dragging the front bucket, and that may be my first choice for small jobs where I don't want or need to hook up the box on the 3-pt (or maybe I have another implement back there already and don't want to swap). But for a big job, no question, I will definitely choose the box blade.

 

[TractorGuy]

I am learning to level with my backhoe loader bucket out of necessity. My litttle 2WD John Deere wouldn't pull a box blade if I had one. I can stall it with a grader blade.

As Eddie said having the loader bucket level is paramount to smoothing ground. This is pretty simple with mine since it has a level indicator. I just had to adjust it and pay attention. I have to use mine in forward and back drag depending on the situation. Most recently I am cleaning up from burning two large piles of logs and digging the stumps out from under where the piles were. After spreading, picking up, and burning all I could the ground was very uneven and littered with wood debris. For this I have sectioned out a 1 acre parcel at a time and driven forward in rows with the bucket flat. At the end of each row I lift and dump then back up and do another row. This got most of the wood debris in a row pile at the end of travel. I will have to scoop and spread this and continue to pick up and pile the remaining wood by hand. I don't have a grapple and most of this debris would fall through one anyway. After scooping all the rows fairly flat and dumping at the end I took my landscape rake on the little tractor and repeatedly raked at 90 degrees from the direction I scooped from. This has the 1 acre section looking pretty good but i need to do some more raking and picking up.

You can't tell a lot from this photo but the icy area beyond the dogwood tree is the area I just described.

This is the area to the left of that dogwood before.

This is cleaning up the front acre and you can see one of the piles on the section I described in the text to the right.