Land plane blades straight or angled ?

[/pine]

In my experience...just grading over and filling potholes only makes them re-appear is short order...

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

Did you make it 3ft for weight issue or other? I have not figured out what width I want yet but length is 5 ft.
Yours sure looks heavy duty.

My lane is about 1200' with a nice grass strip down the middle that my wife is quite fond of. The 3' width was picked to match with the average width of the tire tracks. My total length is also 5'. Heavy duty was the plan. Material all came from the scrap yard up the road, including the cutting edge that had never seen dirt. Total investment of $250

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

In my experience...just grading over and filling potholes only makes them re-appear is short order...

That is often the case. That's why it's important that the cutting edges can go below the side runners, to help get rid of them.

 

[oosik]

I ended up with a Land Pride LPGS - GS2584. It weighs 800# but at times I've placed my precast concrete square(400#) on for added weight. The blades are set at 3/4" below the side skids and they are slightly angled. I've check but there is little sideways movement of material. I drop the scarifier shanks when fixing a pothole. Otherwise, I find, the newly added material will not "bond" with what was there and will eventually be a pothole again.

 

[goneblue]

I finished both sides and have most of the steel cut ready to assemble. I determined the width by the amount of steel I have which will be 70" wide.
I think I will go with the straight blade design as most have here that built there own. Going to be about 700 pounds.

 

[PILOON]

Over the years I have made a few.
We found that 3 blades worked best. 2 blades angled one way and the third (middle) angled the other way.
Th 2 blades got about a 25-30 deg angle while the third (middle) about a 45 deg angle.

The concept was that the 2 angled blades would want to steer the drag off to the side and that the 3rd wider angle would concel or correct the side drift. It worked nicely!

With this 3 blade design the bumps get topped, the gravel travels form side to side and fills in all the dips.
Withe 3 blades generally 2 serve as a kinda support while the 3rd scalps the bumps.
3 blades serves (works) very similar to land planes that slide on skids.

We also made the downstream blades extend the width of the previous blade in order to catch the run off material.

 

[goneblue]

I have never seen one with 3 blades. How long was it to accommodate 3 blades at such angles?

 

[bcp]

There are lots of variations on multi-blade graders. They seem to be more popular in northern Europe. In the US, they seem to be mostly for grooming snow trails.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFwvLZt6xzQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95xj2iBZJmk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geux6Z6SsLA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7EhMy6retk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLi_tP6818A

 

[goneblue]

Lots of serious road graders out there. One with 2 angled blades and a straight one in the back did good. I may have to rethink my design.

 

[/pine]

That is often the case. That's why it's important that the cutting edges can go below the side runners, to help get rid of them.

Again, just my experience...but my point is/was that just a blade will never penetrate deep enough to reach the soft material (below) that causes potholes...hence if using any type of grading blade...potholes should be addressed first with scarifiers/rippers prior to just surface dressing with a blade/plane etc...