Box Scraper Box Blade vs. Rear Blade for new yard.

[Loogie]

With the 700lb lift capacity of the 3PH on the TZ25, there's a slim chance that you'll find a Harley Rake that it can handle. I'm in the same boat with my JD 2305.

 

[jbrumberg]

Farmacyst:

Welcome to TBN ! The general "rule of thumb" for most attachments is 1'/5HP. I have researched box blades for over a year on TBN and the general consensus supports the "rule". Most Box Blade owners recommend a BB that is slightly wider than the width of the tractor tires. You also have to factor in what type of soil you will be working as well as 2WD vs 4WD and R1 vs R3 vs R4 tires. It appears you can go with a wider BB if you have sandy/loamy soil, but you should go with the generally recommended BB if your soil is heavy clay/rocky. I may be talking out of my **** pore but I have read many, many TBN box blade posts and talked to a few BB owners. I will probably be purchasing a 5' BB to work my NE heavy clay, rocky soil within the next few weeks. I have a 29 HP 4WD HST tractor with weighted R1's. Jay

 

[Z-Michigan]

Any thoughts on a TZ25 pulling a 5' BB or should I stick to the 4 footer? 4 footer should just cover the rear tire tracks.
Can you cut a trench/swale with the two inner teeth lowered and the outer teeth pulled up? Might be more economical than buying a BB and a middlebuster/sub-soiler. Just need some swale to keep the melting snow running away from the house. Got about 6" last night that all but melted today and wasn't running away from the house in any organized fashion.

If the 4' will cover your tracks, that's probably what I would stick with.

I don't think your idea of lowering only center teeth will work -the teeth just loosen, the blade at the rear actually picks up material and moves it. However, you may want to consider that a shallow trench 4' wide and maybe 3" deep will be better in terms of drainage than the deep, narrow trench from a middlebuster. I look at middlebuster trenches for drainage and all I can think is "erosion channel".

 

[Rich P]

With the 700lb lift capacity of the 3PH on the TZ25, there's a slim chance that you'll find a Harley Rake that it can handle. I'm in the same boat with my JD 2305.

Harley TM-4 550 lbs. recomended HP 15-22

 

[John_Mc]

Any thoughts on a TZ25 pulling a 5' BB or should I stick to the 4 footer? 4 footer should just cover the rear tire tracks.

If you are in "real" upstate NY, your soils are probably rocky, and maybe a good bit of clay. At any rate, you are not talking about loose, sandy soils. I'd lean towards the narrowest Box Blade that will cover your tracks... the 4 footer in your case. You'll probably find that the limiting factor is traction, not horsepower (especially wit Turf Tires, but even R4 or Ag tires would probably still be "traction challenged" pulling a 5 foot BB in all but the best soil conditions... you might get away with a 5 footer if you are maintaining a gravel driveway, but probably not creating that driveway or digging a drainage swale). You can help traction a bit with loading tires or adding wheel weights, tire selection, or even chains. I've got a 6 foot box blade with my NH TC 33D w/filled R4 tires (33 HP, probably around 3800# with loader and filled rear tires). It works well for me. I can bog it down, especially when my rocky, clay soils are wet, but I find it a good match overall. A 5 footer would let me cut deeper in one pass, but would not cover my tracks.

Can you cut a trench/swale with the two inner teeth lowered and the outer teeth pulled up? Might be more economical than buying a BB and a middlebuster/sub-soiler. Just need some swale to keep the melting snow running away from the house.

Here's how I cut my swale with a Box Blade: mow everything as low as you can. Take a few passes with all the scarifier teeth down on the box blade to break up the sod (also helps turn up some of the rocks). Then take passes with one side of the box blade lowered to start digging out the swale. It doesn't take a lot of tilt to do this. A little bit gets the slope started, then on successive passes, your wheels are riding in the depression you made on the last pass, which will tilt the BB more for you without having to adjust it. Depending on your soils conditions, you may have to turn out from time to time to drag stuff up and out of the swale. The whole thing goes much easier if the area you are working on is dry. If that's just not possible, you may want to try just roughing the swale in at first, then waiting a few days to allow it to help drain the area, and come back to put the finish grade on it.

The one disadvantage of a Box Blade in this operation is that it is not as good as a rear blade at "sidecasting" the soil you are removing. You can angle a rear blade (like a snow plow) to push soils off to the side. In wetter conditions, the BB's disadvantage in this regard tends to disappear... even a rear blade won't sidecast wet, sticky soil well. In that case, the boxblade's superiority at dragging soil may have an advantage.

Hope this helps.

John Mc

 

[SPIKER]

Like others said BB for making swales are the best tool (besides a bull dozer )

I have a Jinma284 with a 6' box blade & R1s, I can fill it with clay under ideal conditions easy and still pull it well in 4 wheel drive (tractor is about to 4500 lbs with the FEL & Blade on.) SO it is usually traction limited as it is gear drive and I can down shift to keep going. I have some pics of the stuff I did around the barn (3 swales with deptsh up to 4' and 100's of feet long & dozens of feet wide over time.) Like others said sod needs broken up, mow it tight and (i ave rototiller) break it up and then move it where ya want it. I moved 100+ ton of dirt/clay on my place over last few years mostly with FEL & BB. I have a Dump Trailer ~2.5 yard that I tilled BB up and FEL into to move a lot of the dirt longer distance I still have some 10yards to move about as last fall it got wet & mudy fast... take a look here at photo bucket for info

WPSPIKER/BARN photos - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

anyhow there is info on the pics click thumbnails to see more.

mark m

 

[Farmacyst]

Thanks all. Good ideas. We have rocky soil here, but a lot of my topsoil target will be over the all the sand in and around the house and leach field. That might be 30% of my open area--rest is trees. Sounds like maybe the 4' BB is the way to go all around. Better to make 1 extra pass in 5 than to be bogged down with a BB that's too big for my machine. Z-Michigan and John Mc-good tips on a swale rather than trench. Thanks

 

[Spiveyman]

Just doing some homework here, found this which is close to my question. I have an old Land Pride rear blade and a Ford 6610. Everyone seems to rave about the BB's. I would mostly use it to fix paths on the farm, even out ruts where we have to cross streams or go through gates. The soil is mostly beasley silt loam - translated, lots of clay, poor drainage. This means heavy traffic areas are a mess when it's wet. I'm just getting in to this, so I haven't started working on them yet. Do you think the RB is sufficient for this task, or would a BB do a better job.

If I were buying this might be an easier decision, I'd go with the BB, but since my grandpa left me an old RB I'm not sure if it's worth the money considering what I already have.

 

[oldhippy]

I went with both. They are two different tools even though they look sort of the same. The box blade will move material from one place to the other real well. I use the rear blade turned backwards most of the time to dress the dirt that I moved with box blade. big dan

 

[ChuckinNH]

With the 700lb lift capacity of the 3PH on the TZ25, there's a slim chance that you'll find a Harley Rake that it can handle. I'm in the same boat with my JD 2305.

Woods has one now in their estate line. It is a 4' model, and I think it weighs 400+ lbs. It's supposed to work with both limited, and full Cat 1 hitches.