Building A Leveling Device for BX-23

[BRIGUY]

I want to build a leveling device for final grading. It would be used after tilling, then using FEL and box Blade to move around fill, and rolling. Hopefilly to remove imperfections in finish grade, or at least to make them obvious so I can go back and repair them.

I was thinking of buying a Boom pole and suspending a large piece of C channel or angle 6 to 8 feet long with chain. Attached at 2 or three points (with the chain short enough so it will not swing and hit the tractor when lifted.

Has anyone ever done this? How long? how heavy? best shape of material I-beam, Angle, or Channel??

 

[Henro]

I don't know much about this, but I pretty much do know that dragging anything will cause that thing you are dragging to follow existing dips and rises...

It seems to me that if you want to level things out, you would get the best performance from something suspended between two axles, and the farther apart the axles the better. Sort of like a road grader...blade in the middle and the front and rear wheels spread apart pretty far.

In an anchient thread I remember, someone had built something to pull behind his tractor, that was a blade in the middle, between two axles...four wheels naturally...and this person reported great results on his VERY long driveway...I would assume the same principle would work on a field.

Anyway, wish I could be of some real help...with some specific experince to share...but don't have any of that, except for what gage wheels do on the back of a rear blade or rake...but I get the impression you want more than they would do...

 

[BRIGUY]

I guess it's harder to describe what I want to do then I thought. I know for a fact i got the idea on here some where.

There was a picture of some huge tractors with huge I beams on a sod farm that may have started the discussion (not sure)

My property isn't like a field it's much smaller (1.5 acres) than most of you guys have. Its sloping and I am putting in some drainage swails, leveling some areas, and sloping others. I'm hoping to till and move things around. The box blade and fel are probably not wide enough to get things as smooth as i want.

 

[rdbrumfield]

Sounds like you have a long way to go before you start to worry about final grade.
I would till it up as fine as possible before starting the cut and fill process. It will go better if you keep tilling the cut part as you go down. The pushing will go better and be much easier on the tractor. Once you have the dirt moved and packed where you need it, make a simple drag. A spreader of angle iron and a piece of chainlink fence will work nicely. Once you have it dressed, you can roll it. You can tell where you might need to put some special attention with the box blade.

 

[HomeBrew2]

Following up on Henro's good commentary, you might search for "land plane", now a generic term but, I believe it may have been/is a brand name. Unfortunately, for search purposes, there's a skidsteer attachment with the same name but completely different idea. Here's a quick example
I'm just guessing that they aren't used much in industry anymore due to laser control, dunno.
Cheers!

 

[HomeBrew2]

The guy next to the office had his land plane out today. I've seen tiny ones around but none lately. Seems like it may not be too hard to hang a box blade on a frame, maybe 10' long for a BX /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif