Snow Attachments Idea for blading snow off of gravel drives!

[GoodGuy]

Do you have any pics you could post showing your modifications ?? We had 9" of snow here 2 weeks ago and without any frost in the ground yet, I made a "terrible" mess of my plowing. I was real frustrated when I was finished because I was very careful & still did a terrible job. Your idea sounds good & would like some pics if possible.

 

[beenthere]

Welcome to the forum.
Do you have a pic of your front blade?
That is what I went to as well, and it's 'heaven' compared to a rear blade (for me, anyway). There are many who don't mind the rear blade for plowing snow. That is okay too. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Ken_CT]

Has anyone mounted wheels on a front blade? This will be my first season plowing a gravel drive, and I ordered skid shoes for the blade that haven't come in yet. Wondering if wheels would be a better way to go. I would think the shoes would still dig in, while wheels would roll without disturbing the gravel as much. Any opinions?

 

[beenthere]

I have a 7' western plow on front, and don't use any skid shoes or wheels (now have asphalt drive but had gravel for years). Once the drive is frozen, no problem. When not frozen, I didn't plow. If anything, would drag it off backward.

 

[Freds]

I had skid shoes on my old rear blade and they left furrows. They DO keep the blade from digging in when using it with the concave side facing the direction of travel, but I still found myself trying to do most of my plowing with them off and using the back side of the blade.

 

[teadave]

the reason i had to use wheels instead of shoes(i made a set for the rear blade) is my neighbour has a 6" thick layer of 3/8" blue chip on his drive and since it has no fines, it never freezes hard enough for shoes. the wheels roll merrily along and prevent me from moving all his gravel too.

teadave

 

[Freds]

Some pics of the wheel attachments Henro and I made up for our blades can be found in the link he provided above. I'd like to see how yours attach, teadave. Any pics??? Huh, huh???

 

[RonTom]

Here's another idea I read on this forum several months ago. To prevent scraping gravel off while plowing snow you attached a round tube to the "cutting edge."
I built one using a flat steel plate that's been drilled to replace the cutting bar that's bolted to the blade. I then welded a steel tube (~1.5" water pipe) along one edge. The flat plate with tube attached is bolted up in place of the cutting edge normally mounts.
The idea is that the round tube riding on the gravel will leave & compact the first 3/4" of snow and gravel while scraping off the rest of the snow. Basically it eliminate the problem with "shoes" and wheels that can drop into low spots and allow the blade to dig into the gravel - the entire width of the blade now becomes a "shoe."
Now I'm just waiting for snow to see how it works. (If it never snows this year and I don't get to try it, that's OK by me!)
A potential problem may be excessive buildup of packed snow which could turn to ice. However, in years past when using my walk-behind snowblower I had to set the "skids" so they left ~1" of snow on the ground or else I'd be "blowing" all my gravel into the grass. Once in every few years I'd get too much buildup and have to add salt, but here in Ohio buildup generally isn't too big of a problem as there's usually periodic thaws.

 

[djradz]

Great idea, but tilting your blade back (lengthing the top link) does something quite similar. As the cutting edge of the blade (front of blade) is now somewhat off of the surface, even if only a 1/8" to 1/4", it seems to roll over gravel rather than dig in. I know on my drive, if I really want to scrape it tight, I get that front edge down so that is kind of "shaves" the surface. Because of this, I'm pretty sure your method will work really well. Good Plowing!

 

[GoodGuy]

RonTom...
Sure would like to see a pic or 2. I'm gonna do the same project & would like the pros & cons & any mistakes or improvements you have learned.