Boxblade or Scraper Blade?

[hrcarver]

You ever seen the state maintain a dirt road with a box blade? Nope, scrapers. Great big scrapers.

I'm asking a honest question here....

Are the little scrapers worthless? I'll admit that I have never had one under 8'. It would seem to me they should still work just as well. I'll bet my 8'er is under 1000lbs with the cylinders and all. It does a wonderful job.

 

[greg_g]

What you state is true, but not an answer to my question.

I'm sorry if my point was not taken. There is no yes or no answer within the context of the OP question. Apples and oranges. So instead I attempted to point out that a 400# boxblade is
(a) more versatile
(b) more aggressive
(c) less expensive
than is a 400# scraper blade.

Using the same equipment cited earlier: one 60" entry level 415 pound box blade at $549 plus one 72" entry level 300 pound landscape rake at $400 equals a $949 total investment. Compare that to one 72" heavy duty 675 pound scraper blade for $980. If all you've got to do is scrape, fine. But to attack a multitude of jobs - and for less money - the boxblade/landscape rake combo makes more economic sense.

//greg//

I'm asking a honest question here....Are the little scrapers worthless?

Consistent with the context of the OP question AND having owned one, yes.

//greg//

 

[Gordon Gould]

You ever seen the state maintain a dirt road with a box blade? Nope, scrapers. Great big scrapers.

I'm asking a honest question here....

Are the little scrapers worthless? I'll admit that I have never had one under 8'. It would seem to me they should still work just as well. I'll bet my 8'er is under 1000lbs with the cylinders and all. It does a wonderful job.

It appears to depend on who you ask. In my past experience, I maintained a 1 mile unimproved gravel road with a 30 hp tractor and a 6' rear blade for 10 years. That was without TnT which I have now. Just the tractor and the blade, and I live in an area of the country that has some severe spring mud seasons that at times even challenge the county road crews on their good roads. So you might say I have quite a bit of rear blade experience. Since that first ten years I have acquired and used a box blade, a land plane grading scraper, and TnT. They all have there place.

My honest answer, based on that experience, is that a rear blade is far from worthless and is IMO probably the most universal road tool you could own.

The tool that I could most easily live without for the work I do is the box blade.