Contemplating a box blade

[FERLING]

I was going to order some gravel from the local ready mix place for my two driveways until I bought my Box Blade. I put the scarifiers down, dug it up some, leveled the hump in the middle that likes to grow grass, filled in a hole here and there, adjusted the drain a bit without much problem. After a few rains, it looks pretty darn good. Much better than it did before.

It's really handy to have a Box Blade. It's one of the more useful tools you'll have. Plus, it balances your FEL a bit. I can uproot a small tree here and there and put more in my bucket. It's 400lbs worth of ballast, no charge

Try out one of these for raising gravel back to the top on a gravel driveway. It will save you from buying a lot of extra gravel.

 

[EverythingAttachments]

Yes, Everything Attachments is behind, mainly due to a sketchy supply chain and constant demand, but hopefully the new facility we're working on will help to remedy the wait.

As far as box blades are concerned, we've upped the bar, big time, with our new WICKED easy adjust ripper shanks, which are 100% Hardox 450. It eliminates the need of those pesky, welded on tips, which are known to pop off.

EA Box Blade Full Lineup

We can talk about it, but it's more fun to prove strength..
Travis

 

[Fxfymn413]

The key words you used here are "pushing dirt back into a swale from a pile you create". 'Loosened' material, if you try to push unloosened or heavy material, you will bend or break parts..

I guess I have extraordinary luck since I have used the box to dig up virgin soil going forward and backwards and have for well over 30 years now without any issues.

You can break or bend anything if you don't pay attention to how your machine is acting. Pay attention, work with the machine, and go slow when slow is called for and you can do a lot that you are not supposed to be able to do according to legend.

 

[jyoutz]

My box blade just sits after purchasing a landplane. Haven't used it in 4 years. Most of my leveling is road maintenance so the landplane is the go to piece of equipment.

I don’t have a land plane, but I had both a box blade and rear blade for my last tractor. I used the box blade several times to level out a pad for a few sheds/carports, but never liked it for road maintenance. I have about 2400’ of gravel road to maintain and snowplow. I found the rear grader blade to be the better tool for that purpose. When I bought my new MX, I declined to get a box blade and spent the money on buying a heavy duty six way rear blade. Having offset capability is truly what is needed for road maintenance.

 

[s219]

I guess I have extraordinary luck since I have used the box to dig up virgin soil going forward and backwards and have for well over 30 years now without any issues.

You can break or bend anything if you don't pay attention to how your machine is acting. Pay attention, work with the machine, and go slow when slow is called for and you can do a lot that you are not supposed to be able to do according to legend.

You are very lucky then. A standard 3-pt hitch linkage geometry only works in tension, when pulling. When you push backwards it's equivalent to pushing with chain, and the parts have to go into a bind before they can resist the compression. It's not an ideal arrangement.

I've had no problems pushing backward on softer materials with my box blade. Be careful/aware and it should be a non issue.

 

[jk96]

I don’t have a land plane, but I had both a box blade and rear blade for my last tractor. I used the box blade several times to level out a pad for a few sheds/carports, but never liked it for road maintenance. I have about 2400’ of gravel road to maintain and snowplow. I found the rear grader blade to be the better tool for that purpose. When I bought my new MX, I declined to get a box blade and spent the money on buying a heavy duty six way rear blade. Having offset capability is truly what is needed for road maintenance.

With your driveway being 2,400ft a landplane would be one of those tools you can't believe you went without. You will need a hydraulic top link to get the best use out of it. Our driveway is 1 mile long and can't imagine maintaining it without the landplane. Use the rear blade or rake 1 or 2 times a year to pull the edges back in before dragging.

 

[jyoutz]

With your driveway being 2,400ft a landplane would be one of those tools you can't believe you went without. You will need a hydraulic top link to get the best use out of it. Our driveway is 1 mile long and can't imagine maintaining it without the landplane. Use the rear blade or rake 1 or 2 times a year to pull the edges back in before dragging.

The thing that I don’t like about the land plane is loosening up the gravel deeper than I like. I like the road to stay hard packed and just pull the gravel in from the sides and smooth out a few bumps. It seems like when I have loosened the gravel too much, the road develops bumps and potholes. My 1000# category 2 Bison blade doesn’t skip like lighter duty blades and therefore probably acts a bit like a land plane. The land plane looks like a great implement, but is pricey and I’m able to do a good job with my blade.

 

[jk96]

The thing that I don’t like about the land plane is loosening up the gravel deeper than I like. I like the road to stay hard packed and just pull the gravel in from the sides and smooth out a few bumps. It seems like when I have loosened the gravel too much, the road develops bumps and potholes. My 1000# category 2 Bison blade doesn’t skip like lighter duty blades and therefore probably acts a bit like a land plane. The land plane looks like a great implement, but is pricey and I’m able to do a good job with my blade.

Most have adjustable blade depth. But if what you have works well then no need to change that.

 

[mo1]

I'm thinking about getting a box blade to level out soil.

Anyone have/used the TSC ones?

Otherwise, what's good?

I use a pretty beaten up and worn 6' unit that came with a used tractor. I no longer have that tractor but kept the blade. I don't know what brand it is as it has no identifying marks, it had been poorly repainted, it was originally orange. It looks like about any other nondescript 6' box blade. I use it to level out gravel and loose dirt, and it does that well, so I am not sure how much having a "good" unit really matters if all you do is work with loose material. I would probably look at a used one instead of a new one if I ever needed to get a different box blade as they show up fairly frequently.

 

[bigcharliec]

Every implement has pros cons. What’s missing from your question is what do you need or want to do with it? Move piles of material, digup and regrade fields, maintain gravel roads? Answer this first to get more informed response.
I have a 5’ box blade, 6’ scrap/grading blade, a 6’ landscape rake, a potato plow, and even bought a DR grader (before land plane graders became popular). Each is good at something, not so good at another.
Of all I use the landscape rake more than anything - it’s most versatile of all - to maintain 1 mile of gravel subdivision. Used box blade for a few years on the road until I really learned how to use the rake - now the only time I used box was to rough grade a newly cleared acre. Haven’t used it since. If road gets really bad, i have a dump truck of gravel spread, furrow it with scraper, flatten in one pass then go back to raking.

 

[scaredychicken]

I have a Land Pride Box Blade - love it

 

[Chester Copperpot]

Trying to seal a deal on a Rhino SBX65. Our Kioti 3510 with R4 tires has a width of about 64" at the rear...hopefully the Rhino is wide enough to cover the tractor tracks all the while have enough HP to move a box full of dirt/gravel. Anyone with a similar set up where the box-scraper is pretty much the same width as the tires?

 

[Rich B1]

My 48” box blade is just wider than rear tires of my NH TC21D. It works fine as long as I don’t get dumb with how hard I am digging or using the scarifiers.

 

[RalphVa]

Anyone have any direct experience between a Landpride and a TSC box?

Figuring to use the box for 3 things. One will be to level creek overflow land, about 3 acres, where they will be removing a zillion small trash trees. Another will be where some stumps have been removed. A third is to even out an old maintenance road cut into a slope: has filled in slightly on uphill side.

 

[bearthebruce]

@RalphVa I don't see the box blade being all that effective on the old maintenance road where you have fill on the upslope side. I would use a grader blade for that work, dumping the material drug out to the center so I could build a crown.. but the crown would also depend on whether I could cut channels to run the water off.

This summer, we did a lot of work on our driveway up the mountain. Had several places that needed clearing like I think you are speaking about. Water was washing across the driveway from the upslope side because it had no channel to run down the mountain. We cleared the sides, renewing the channels and then made run offs where the water could dump away. We built a high crown to keep the water in the side channels.

We used the box blade to grab material that had been washed downhill and bring it back up the mountain, smoothing the road while doing so. These were very small bites with only a small amount in the box blade. The main shape had been formed by the grader blade.

 

[RalphVa]

I've a back blade. Maybe it would be more effective on the old maintenance road? Pretty light weight though.

 

[Smokeydog]

Yes, Everything Attachments is behind, mainly due to a sketchy supply chain and constant demand, but hopefully the new facility we're working on will help to remedy the wait.

As far as box blades are concerned, we've upped the bar, big time, with our new WICKED easy adjust ripper shanks, which are 100% Hardox 450. It eliminates the need of those pesky, welded on tips, which are known to pop off.

EA Box Blade Full Lineup

View attachment 725942

We can talk about it, but it's more fun to prove strength..
Travis

There could be much improvement in ripper design. I’ve lost points or broken shanks before I could wear them down. Improving the adjustment helpful. Impressive video demonstration the strength of design and materials. Us mountain folk are better at breaking stuff if you want it proof tested ;-)

 

[Vigo327]

I was really impressed by how abusive that video was. It was a good sales video in the sense that if *THAT* didn't break it, *I* sure wouldn't break it!

I posted earlier about how a hydraulic top link lets you use the rippers or not use the rippers without having to get off and adjust them. I don't have a whole lot of need for hydraulically moving rippers, BUT.. if you have rippers that power up and down you can also have them swing through an arc that can dislodge any muddy/clumpy stuff that is stuck in the box. Ive seen at least one like that before.

Here's a picture of a tiny tractor pulling an 'oversize' 60" box blade full of dirt, and the electric-over-hydraulic top link. I've found the limit of what I can pull with the box blade is when i drive right over a big pile of dirt and drop the box blade and its trying to push forward the same big pile that my rear wheels are trying to push backwards.. THAT's the limit So I can pull a pile of dirt that sticks out of the front of the box (box already full), but if i jam every inch between the rear tires and the box with dirt, i can't pull that.. Also my poor 3pt can't actually lift the blade under this condition. I have to reverse a bit while lifting to be able to empty some out and be able to lift the blade again. I think the 3pt on this thing only lifts like 500lbs. Still, i find this totally workable. The picture is only showing about half that pile of dirt in the background and it all got put there with 2 tiny Kubota tractors with 48" buckets. Bigger machines would be faster, but this thing is almost like a skid steer in terms of where you can place it and maneuver it.

The power top link actually helped maneuverability for me last couple of days because i've been digging around a 24" culvert to build some retaining walls and i was driving the tractors down in the creek bed a little during the process. The tractor that has a backhoe on it was sort of difficult to maneuver, not because it was too long but because I couldn't turn it very tightly without jamming the backhoe into the banks on the side and unloading the rear tires, causing tire spin. I also didn't have room to stick the dipper way up off the ground and drive it like that either. It's 4wd with rear diff lock so i never got stuck, but it was a little annoying. The tractor with the box blade i could tilt the back of the blade up so high I could back right up to the bank and not be hitting and unloading the rear tires. That angle is shown in next pic.

 

[RalphVa]

What is a five ft cost and weigh

Think it was $925 and about 330 #.

 

[GrumpyJoe]

I have a box blade and land grader. Both Woods and both 6 ft. The grader is a one trick pony. Does driveways great. Moving dirt not so much. If I'm doing my driveway which is about 1300 ft long I use the grader blade for general cleanup. But if I have some serious washout I use the BB with the scarfires up. I also use the BB to clean up trails out in my woods. If I was to have only one I would have a BB.