backblade question

redhawk · Mar 3, 2001

hi all, i picked up a 6' backblade from tsc yesterday. we are expecting a wee bit of snow starting sunday night in eastern
pa. i've been using the fel to push snow so far this winter and
have had good success on my gravel driveway. my question is,
should i leave the cupped face of the backblade towards the back of the tractor when i'm pushing snow in reverse or should
i turn the blade around so that the cupped face is facing away
from the tractor as i push in reverse? thanks for all the great
advice from you, my friends, in advance.

redhawk

jima1 · Mar 3, 2001

redhawk,

I'm across the Delaware in central NJ, waiting for that same "wee bit" /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

The real snow experts have already written some excellent posts on this topic if you do a search...but here's my $0.02:

I use 5' blade + FEL on my gravel drive with the blade turned around (cupped digging surface facing backwards away from tractor), and angled towards the side of the control lever. The reason I leave the blade turned around is that, if I'm plowing <8" or so, I can just drop the blade and drive forward through it, blade won't dig up the gravel (yours might if your gravel is not packed down or your blade is a lot heavier than mine). If it's too deep to drive through forward, then I set the position control to keep the blade several inches off the gravel and plow backwards as a first pass. To clean up what's left (not to mention give the neck/back a break) I then drive forward for the second pass with the blade all the way down (as already described).

I guess the key points are: 1) blade won't dig in (much) if it's traveling in the opposite direction of the cupped side; 2) experiment with position control. Others have also posted on the merits of addons like rubber blade edges and skids, I don't have these but possibly they could be quite helpful to you.

Hope this helps!

Jim A.

Scaper · Mar 3, 2001

Hi Redhawk, I plow about 3.8 miles or so of road with a TYC33D w/ FEL and 7' HD Land Care Implement blade on the rear. I do driveways for folks in my neighbor hood and of those about 6 are crush and run ( modified ). When I do these I drive over the stone with the blade about an inch of so off the ground, then I turn around and back drag with the bucket cutting edge down and angled to put light pressure on the stone. I use the float setting on my FEL to allow for good cleaning and no digging of the stone. Works well for me. Your loader should have a float setting if you push the control lever all the way forward you should engage this feature. Don't mean to sound as if you don't know about this feature but a friend of mine didn't know his tractor had this feature until one day when I was running it and he saw what I was doing and asked how?? He felt like a weener but I told him I learned the hard way also. So try that and see how it works for you. Good luck with the white stuff we are supposed to get. I'm in Delaware with two 6 1/2' Meyer's plows sitting in the driveway with no frame for the loader so I'm fit to be tied right about now. Well ya gotta laugh, so good luck and be careful..
Scaper

Thomas · Mar 4, 2001

redhawk,
By the sounds this storm could have a pretty good punch as it comes up the east coast,and there call for 14"+ up in these parts...hey load your tractor and come on up for some plowing time. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Thomas..NH /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif