Grading woods trails??

biglars57 · Dec 4, 2007

I bought a NH tl100a 4wd with fel last spring, along with a Rhino tw84 brush cutter. I've got about 200 acres of wooded hunting land of which I've had about 40 logged. I plan to hire a dozer to clear some food plots. We currently have atv trails through out the land that are pretty rough. I've been clearing the brush and stumps on the trails, but would also like to smooth them out. What is the best heavy duty grading/leveling attachment for both the trails and future plots???

I've been reading about the heavier box blades with attached cutters and would like any advice/experiences/suggestions. How wide should it be??

Thanks - Dan

Rara Avis · Dec 4, 2007

biglars57 said:
I bought a NH tl100a 4wd with fel last spring, along with a Rhino tw84 brush cutter. I've got about 200 acres of wooded hunting land of which I've had about 40 logged. I plan to hire a dozer to clear some food plots. We currently have atv trails through out the land that are pretty rough. I've been clearing the brush and stumps on the trails, but would also like to smooth them out. What is the best heavy duty grading/leveling attachment for both the trails and future plots???

I've been reading about the heavier box blades with attached cutters and would like any advice/experiences/suggestions. How wide should it be??

Thanks - Dan

sunspot · Dec 4, 2007

PaulChristenson said:
TR3 Rake | Equine Industry's Best Selling Arena Drag | Harrow | Arena Rake | Arena Groomer | Arena Equipment | ABI Equine

Watch the videos on trail maintenance and food plot prep...

Hum, $1,400 to 21,000 and you have to call for a quote.

chipsndust · Dec 4, 2007

"I've been reading about the heavier box blades with attached cutters and would like any advice/experiences/suggestions. How wide should it be??"

I think my tractor is a lot smaller than yours, but I've had success in leveling/improving ATV trails. For several years, I used a drag, which was a piece of 6" X 5' steel channel connected with chains behind the four wheeler. This kept brush and grass down, but didn't level the trails much. When I got my CUT (JD2305), I used a 4' Woods box blade. After a little practice, I found that I could level the trails. You need to experiment with setting the depth of the scarifiers, and get the "feel' for removing tree roots and larger rocks.
Others may have different advice, like I said, I think your tractor is bigger, so you may have other options.

Riddler · Dec 4, 2007

You have a large machine (100HP??), so you're not limited, certainly.

I have done alot of grading to create or improve dirt roads on my 50 acres using a 45Hp tractor and a 6' heavy duty box blade. In my case though, I invested in "top and tilt," so I could hydraulically adjust the angle of the box blade relative to the rolling angle of the tractor. You need to do that in order to cut a level surface along a slope, create gentle slopes in drainage swales, crown roadways, etc.

I can't imagine what it would be like to get off the tractor and manually adjust the height of one of the lower link arms and length of the top link arm every time the cut angle needed to be tweaked. Then again, if the roads you are going to smooth out are mostly flat already, being able to raise and lower the box blade as is (with the 3pt hitch lift) may be all you need.

Nothng beats a dozer for shaping ground, but with a large tractor like yours, a stout box blade, and a bunch of practice, you can make some significant, long lasting, changes in your landscape, especially if you add top and tilt capability to the mix.

As far as the size of the box blade goes, you want to at least be able the cover the width of your rear wheels. My 6' unit does that, but sometimes I wish it was even wider, so I would have a little more room between the outside edge of the box and the side of the tractor. With only 45HP though, I suspect that anything wider than 6' on my tractor might bog down too easily while I am grading. I doubt you'll have that problem though.

Gittyup · Dec 4, 2007

i find a six way grader blade better for the initial leveling as the angle and cut can be tilted severely. They won't level along a path like a box blade, but side-to-side, they can make quick work of it. Of course t-n-t accomplishes similar things with a box.

Rara Avis · Dec 5, 2007

sunspot said:
Hum, $1,400 to 21,000 and you have to call for a quote.

Price varies due to size of unit and add-on components you order...

EddieWalker · Dec 5, 2007

A dozer will work good for big areas and moving lots of dirt, but for trails, it might do more harm then good. They are also not very good for stump removal and would be my last choice when hiring it out. Number one would be an excavator.

Are the trails already there? Do they just need smoothing out?

If they are in place and you are looking for a way to smooth them out, then I'd get a small disk and drag that around on the trails first. I've found that just doing this a few times will smooth out the trails allot. Then after the ground is all disked up, I would drag it smooth. You can build a drag real easy with a large log and some chain. Wrap the ends of the chain around the ends of the log and attach the middle of the chain to your tractor tow bar. If you have some chianlink fence, wrap that around the log and let it drag behind the log. The fence does an amazing job of smoothing out the trails!!!!

If you have a box blade with teeth, then you can lower the teeth and use that to break up the ground. It's not going to do as nice a job as a disk, but with enough passes, you will have the ground in good enough shape to smooth out with a drag.

Eddie

3RRL · Dec 5, 2007

I have a 55hp tractor and a heavy duty 7' boxblade that I used to make and clear several trails on my property. I picked out paths to avoid the large Oaks and went around them. I popped out big rocks and smoothed, even leveled the roads and trails using the boxblade and sometimes the fel bucket and grapples on it. But most of my work was with the boxblade. I do have the top n tilt to manipulate the box and that made it much easier. The big thing I wanted was a cleared trail, semi level for access into the rest of my property via riding or walking. So I didn't want to take out any trees. Now, the animals use the trails too.

I made the trails 7' wide ... the width of the boxblade. There's plenty of room for the tractor, Blazer or ATV to ride on. They are also perfect width for taking walks side by side without one person having to walk in the tall grass or shrubs. You can go here to see one of the trail/road projects I did.
Pushing in Roads and Trails
Also in this thread where I did another section.
3R Home and Barn Project
It has lots of photos and a video too. It starts around post #144, but there was a lot of other prep work done with the tractor in the beginning of the thread. Anyway, they both show what you can do with the tractor and boxblade and different techniques I used to make the trails.

Northland · Dec 6, 2007

EddieWalker said:
You can build a drag real easy with a large log and some chain. Wrap the ends of the chain around the ends of the log and attach the middle of the chain to your tractor tow bar. If you have some chianlink fence, wrap that around the log and let it drag behind the log. The fence does an amazing job of smoothing out the trails!!!!
Eddie

This sounds like an innovative way (without making more of a mess) to keep my trails clear as well. Thanks for sharing that tip.