Box Blade

[thcri]

This fall I want to dig up where my drain field is and then seed it. The drain field sits right in the middle of my lawn and looks like crap. According to the guy that installed the drain field I can dig down 12" before doing any damage to the drain field.

Anyway I was thinking of getting a tiller or borrowing my neighbors. I really don't want to spend the money on a new tiller as I just don't think I would use it much after. So I am thinking of ripping it up with a box blade. This is where I need help.

Doing searches I am not really sure what to look for in a box blade. I am not looking for brands but what makes a box blade great. I see front and back blades, curved shanks and many other things. For digging up sod, leveling it out what should I look for?

Murph

 

[SPIKER]

You will need to really go over the sod with the tiller several times as the grass roots will hold it together and ball up under the box blade as it is leveling it out. though the box will do a good job... I've done a few similar things and love my box blade and the tiller i have. works wonders.

Mark /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

 

[Henro]

Murph,

My GUESS is that the tiller would be better than the box blade overall. The box will rip things up, but will not give you fine pieces to level out and prepare the site for grass planting.

My neighbor plowed first, then used his tiller and what he ended up with was amazingly nice. Now he just planted some stuff in it, and it was not grass...but it could have been and should I want to reclaim something like you are planning I would pick the tiller over the box any day.

The only question in my mind is whether the tiller could work its way through the grass on its own, of if you would need to break up the grass with something else, like a plow.

 

[Radiopoor]

I haven't used a box blade but I did rent a tiller to start a garden this year. I went over it 4 or 5 times to really break up the sod clods, and other than a few ROCKs the surface was pretty smooth.

Renting the 60" tiller was $65 for half a day and I did a 30X30 garden 4 or 5 times in less than 2 hours, then started looking for neighbors who might need some tillin' done just so I could play some more. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[thcri]

I did use my neighbors tiller for our garden this year and it worked great. My problem that I worry about is the fact there is so many rocks in the plot that I want to till up. I had them in our garden area also and am afraid of busting a tine off or something like that. My best bet would be to spray the area with Round-Up to kill everything off, then run a tiller through it, ( I could rent one for a day instead of using my neighbors) and then use the box blade to level it off. I also want to take the sharp slope changes off some too and I think the box blade could do that for me.

So I think I am still looking for some ideas on box blades. Another thing is our soil is this silt loam stuff and the box blade may just break it up fine as it is so loose.

murph

 

[MLB]

There just aren't many real differences in brands. It's a heavy hunk of metal with a scraping edge and scarifiers to break up the crust more. Heavier is better.
don't till if you don't have too. Tilling under topsoil isn't good for turf situations and then you've got settling to contend with, to say nothing of getting rid of the turf clods. If nice soil start WITHOUT scarifiers and see if that gets enough off, only tear it up with scarifiers if you have too. Lot more work.
What is the existing situation? All weeds? Turf with lots of weeds? What? If there's 50% existing turf I wouldn't blade it at all. Cut it very short and use a rennovator (pulverizer) to break up the soil on top, or use a slit seeder to cut seed into the existing stuff. Depends on the situation.

 

[thcri]

MLB.

It was all dug up three years ago before the drain field was installed. A bulldozer did its best to level it off but I have some work to do there to get it leveled off. Three years ago it was seeded with Rye, Oats with something else that was to come up the following year. Looks mostly like Alfalfa. I think I could take some Round-Up and kill most of everything off then see what I have for leveling to do. My neighbor has a disc that doesn't work in the best and I could use that just to break up the topsoil some.

I know what you mean by tilling though. I did some of that this spring and now I am having some settling issues to deal with.

murph

 

[tdenny]

Murph,

I have really rocky soil so I simply won't use my tiller on it. It wouldn't do any good in my "soil". So I use my box blade for all this type of work. It works very well just requires more passes. Things that I feel are important in a box blade are 1) weight (heavier is far superior), 2) width (needs to be at least as wide as your tires), 3) and easily adjustable. Must have pins for scraifier adjustment as oppossed to bolted ones (don't anyone laugh - I saw one with bolts at my JD dealer). The price on his rusty red one was twice what I paid for my nice shiny green one.

Have fun and best of luck