Educate me on how to use a box blade

   / Educate me on how to use a box blade #11  
"You will find leveling is easier in reverse as the box blade hits the high spots before the tractor does but that is hard to run that long of distance in reverse. Can also be hard on the lift arms."

This works very well. It is a pain to have to turn in the seat going backwards but it produces the best smoothing action. I run my 6' boxblade up and down the long drive several times and then go in reverse for the final action. The red head likes a smooth driveway and it keeps her happy.
 
   / Educate me on how to use a box blade #12  
I'm new to the box blade as well. I bought it last year to deal with my 1/4 mile driveway. I can tell you that my gravel road was rutted
from rain runoff and wash-boarded pretty badly. I did the same as you, watching videos and researching websites. Seat time definitely helps and I'm sure I'll get better with more of it. Even being a novice I had very good results my first try by first using the scarifiers and having the inside front blade lower than the back (shorter top link adj) and loosening the gravel up. As noted in a previous post, go really, really slow. I also had the right side of the BB lower to match the existing crown. After one pass down and one pass up, I pulled the scarifiers up and lengthened the top link to have the front blade up a bit from the back blade and ran it down the road and back up on the other side again. The difference was amazing.

It's needing another treatment this year but now I have a rake so I'm planning on doing the same with the box blade then finishing with the rake.

My road is coming off a mountain and has lots of twist and turns. Most of the issues I have is due to rain runoff. While I think my road is ditched and crowned pretty well, there are some problem areas where the rain wants to run down the road rather than away from it.

You might want to look at your road to see if you can see why your getting pot holes. If the water can pool in spots you might want to be sure you have enough crown to get the water to flow away from those areas. If you have some crown and an adequate ditch to give the water somewhere else to go, it can make a big difference.
 
   / Educate me on how to use a box blade #13  
I use a 48" Land Pride box blade on my Kubota BX25 and like it a lot. What I find most annoying is how long it takes to adjust the top link. Does anyone use an alternative top link to make the adjustment easier? Other than getting into the complexity and expense of additional hydraulics, I'm looking for something to make the task of adjusting the pitch of the box blade quicker and easier.
 
   / Educate me on how to use a box blade #15  
practice, practice, practice and when you think you have it figured out practice some more.
 
   / Educate me on how to use a box blade #16  
make sure you have check chains and sway bar/chains for the 3pt hitch lower lift links. they can help stabilize and reduce possible damage to the 3pt hitch.

be careful in going backwards and box blade down. 3pt hitch are awesome at pulling / going forward, but when you reverse there is not a lot of support, and you can bend/twist your lift arms and linkages. other words do not be going fast in reverse and drop it down and watch it go BOOM BAM THUNK THUNK. instead slow your speed down and go slow and do your best not to pry stuff when going in reverse. granted 3pt hitch can take some abuse. it is not fragile. but still. keep an eye on things.

you can adjust your "side link" or link/s on your 3pt hitch lower lift arms. generally only 1 lift arm has a turnbuckle (large screw / nut) to adjust only one side, some times both sides have turn buckles. you can swap them around or what not. to get side to side angle.

making sure water runs off the road and into the ditches, and the ditches carries the away. is only way you can reduce large amount of work long term in fixing driveway. standing water on driveway, standing water in ditches, just keeps the road wet, and you will be out there more fixing the drive.

some folks have put extra weight on there box blade, to help it dig in.

lots of folks have found a large post say a chunk of old telephone pole, rail road track section, other long large heavy object that is straight to use as a drag, some folks have used chain link fence section to use as a drag. the goal is smoothing stuff out.

==========
make a DUM DUM sheet
""slow down when drive is wet, wait till it hardens up in summer to go faster""

make some copies and pass it around the 5 homes. while most of the folks may think the pot holes / wash boarding bumps they might not feel when going down the road. or they might even say it gets less bumpy the faster they go *ughs*. the faster they go the more of a jack hammering effect the suspension of there vehicles due to the road. slowing there speed down reduces the hammering effect by a good amount. what generally happens, the suspension shocks/springs on vehicles begin jumping up and down. causing weight of the vehicle to shift form tire to tire. vs all the weight being spread out across all 4 tires. and in that each tire becomes like a sledge hammer / jack hammer pounding the road into submission creating pot holes and wash boarding effect of bumps.

when the dirt/rock road = wet it is when it can take the most damage.

fix it, let it dry, fix it some more, let it dry, fix it just a little bit more let it dry. as folks drive over it slowly they will compact the dirt/rock (as it drys out to nice and dry). as it compacts, the road can get more stable to a point without as much need to fix it up. ((assuming water runs off road, into ditches, and ditches carry the water away))
 
   / Educate me on how to use a box blade #17  
Travel speed with a box blade should not be faster than you can adjust the 3pt hitch height in real time. You need to be able to react by raising or lowering the box blade to maintain grade. You may need to come to a complete stop and reset the height before continuing. As you get more seat time and become used to your tractor you will gain speed. Once you have the driveway to grade you can lengthen the top link and make a final pass or two to smooth the surface.

When crowning the road or driveway I prefer a 2% slope for level roads. For roads with inclines the crown should be 2% more slope than the roadway.
 
   / Educate me on how to use a box blade #20  
"You will find leveling is easier in reverse as the box blade hits the high spots before the tractor does but that is hard to run that long of distance in reverse. Can also be hard on the lift arms."

This works very well. It is a pain to have to turn in the seat going backwards but it produces the best smoothing action. I run my 6' boxblade up and down the long drive several times and then go in reverse for the final action. The red head likes a smooth driveway and it keeps her happy.

So if I set the top link shorter to make the front blade dig in going forward, I should not need to reset the top link in order to smooth by backing up - right? Because the back blade would already he higher and (going backwards) the front blade would not be digging, but smoothing. Is my logic correct?
 
 

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