Difficulty using box blade to smooth a gravel drive way

[Wilburn Cox]

Greetings!
I'm new to this forum and looking forward to receiving input from others. I have a Kubota B7100, disk plow, 4' woods shredder, 4' rotary tiller, back scoop and 4' box blade with rippers.
All work great with exception of my experience with the box blade. I need to put in a gravel drive way and am going nuts when trying to level and smooth out the gravel. The box blade does not float over the area. When I try to just bump up on the 3 pt it lifts too high and a pile is left. Can't seem to figure it out. My Kubota has a hydraulic control valve which controls the implement lowering speed but I can't figure out how to decrease the implement lifting speed in order to allow the gravel in the box to slowly flow out and fill the low spots.
Any suggestions will be appreciated. Have a wonderful day an thanks for allowing me to join.
Wilburn Cox

 

[k0ua]

Greetings!
I'm new to this forum and looking forward to receiving input from others. I have a Kubota B7100, disk plow, 4' woods shredder, 4' rotary tiller, back scoop and 4' box blade with rippers.
All work great with exception of my experience with the box blade. I need to put in a gravel drive way and am going nuts when trying to level and smooth out the gravel. The box blade does not float over the area. When I try to just bump up on the 3 pt it lifts too high and a pile is left. Can't seem to figure it out. My Kubota has a hydraulic control valve which controls the implement lowering speed but I can't figure out how to decrease the implement lifting speed in order to allow the gravel in the box to slowly flow out and fill the low spots.
Any suggestions will be appreciated. Have a wonderful day an thanks for allowing me to join.
Wilburn Cox

Unfortunately you do not have position control on the 3PT hitch on that machine, however you may try this to level out a bit. Stop the tractor when you want to start to feather the "pile" and back up a couple of inches then raise the hitch, which will likely overshoot then feather it back down as you can control the down rate with the flow rate valve as you have noted, move forward a bit and pick up the pile and repeat this in steps of moving forward and continue to dump out some of the material. Have you learned to backdrag by putting your bucket into float with the bucket edge just slightly tipped down then move in reverse to spread the materiel as you slowly level the bucket edge as the material is spread.. (this is easier to do than to describe). In other words you can get close with the box blade and finish up with backdragging with the bucket. Watch the ole fat boy in this short video.

Back dragging gravel - YouTube

 

[k0ua]

Oh, and welcome to TBN:welcome:

 

[TripleR]

What James said and one of the reason I hate non position control 3PH.

Even with Top and Tilt an an HR3584 box scraper, I still often finish a spot or two back dragging with the FEL bucket.

 

[Western]

What they said, I prefer the FEL from the start.

 

[s219]

If you put the 3-pt in float mode (all the way down) and adjust the top link so that the rear cutter of the box is not digging in, the box will naturally distribute material from high spots to low spots. You should not need to be adjusting the height yourself.

Shortening the top link will make the box more aggressive, and it will dig more material and fill up faster (too much and it spills out the top). Lengthening the top link will make the box less aggressive and it will dig less and smooth more. You need to play with the top link length to get the proper mix, so that the box is merely recycling material, knocking off high spots and filling low spots.

I sometimes make multiple passes. The last ones with a short top link to smooth everything out nice and correct any piles or spills.

 

[RDrancher]

Set the BB at the height you want and go slow so you can feel what its doing. I like to brace my pinky and hand on the console and use my thumb, index and middle finger for very small adjustments. I also have the hydraulic speed cranked all the way up so I don't have to wait on the function. Some of the tractors I've run have a very stiff 3 pt. lever, or lag in the hydraulics. That's not condusive to small adjustments, but you can get used to it. Notice in the second photo that I have the floating back blade flipped up and clamped out of the way. If left down, rocks build up between the two blades and when enough pressure pushes against the back blade, it will swing open for a second and leave ripples.

 

[mfreund]

If you use a hydraulic top link you can get even better results. Being able to tilt the box up or down really makes it easy to get exactly what you need.

 

[deerseeker001]

Welcome from Wisconsin

 

[Wilburn Cox]

Thanks to all for the advice. Too dang cold for the next few days to try the suggestions but all are much appreciated..
Red Cox