New bx23 owner & rake question

[Ken_CT]

Got a new BX23 on Thursday and have been playing, I mean working with it for a couple of days. This is my first tractor, and it is amazing, it does even more than I expected. Here's a picture of a CT pebble it pulled out yesterday.
My question is, my driveway is about 450' long and I will be putting 3/4 gravel on it. Is a box scraper or a rear rake better suited to the task. When that chore is finished I will be spreading quite a few yards of top soil on the yard.
What can I expect to pay for either of these attachments?

 

[at_obuk]

The tractor looks great and CLEAN. Welcome may you have never ending fun with your orange beast. My question to you is that rock was very happy where it was, why would you want to disturb it?
I've used rakes for my drive and yard and have had a fair amount of success. However they are hard pressed to take that bump out of the middle of the driveway that develops after driving on it a while. Think a box scraper would be better, thats what I'm a gonna get in a bit.

Eric P.

 

[Ken_CT]

That rock was in place to sharpen my mower blades /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif. I dug the hole deeper and put it back so it could again sleep peacefully, but no longer do damage. The whole process was quite satisfying! I really was pleasantly suprised that I got it out, the BX23 is really impressive. A lot easier than digging them out with a shovel & crowbar.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Dargo]

I have the unfortunate job of taking care of my 900 foot long driveway. Only about the first 100 foot of it is concrete, the rest is gravel. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to afford concrete the rest of the way. Anyway, over the last decade I've found that a box scraper is by far my best way to keep the driveway in shape. It does a good job of cutting the middle hump out and carying the gravel to low spots without having all the gravel escape out the side where I don't need it.
I also have a 7' rototiller, a gill, a harrow, a plow, a disk, a cultipacker, and a rear blade. About all I don't have is a rear rake, so I can't comment on that. I find that I use the front loader and box scraper most of all when doing general dirt work. I use it (abuse it) for a battering ram if need be. It is one of the few tools I can't seem to destroy; and I can tear up an anvil! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Henro]

It is my experience that if you are only worried about spreading the crushed stone (river gravel never worked well for me...) then the landscape rake, especially with gage wheels, works better than a box blade.

Now if the driveway needs major work before the stone is spread, the box is the tool to get the job done.

I think my cheap KK box blade cost about half the price of the KK 6' rake with gage wheels.

Both are good at what they do.

I am able to pull the 6' landscape rake behind my BX2200 pretty well, and even better than before now that I have gage wheels.

It is nice to have both. With both, I find myself using the box first and finishing with the rake.

If I could only have one, I guess it would have to be the box blade though. Overall more useful from what I can see and cheaper too. A hard combination to beat...

Edit: This assumes use of the loader to do some rough spreading of the stone. Another advantage if a box blade is that you can grab a box full of stone from a pile and drag it where you what to spread it, something you cannot do with a landscape rake...

 

[Junkman]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I dug the hole deeper and put it back so it could again sleep peacefully, but no longer do damage. )</font>

Congratulations on your new machine. When it has a few battle scars, then you will really know its full potential.

In my opinion and experience replanting this rock is a mistake. A rock like that will come back up from below to haunt you in a couple of years. It is the frost that we get in New England that causes this. I have had rocks like that which were down more than 2 feet come to the surface under my paved driveway this past year. Last year was a record year for cold in CT and the frost pushed these rocks upward till they caused a bulge in the pavement. Whenever I dig out a rock, I alway put it somewhere it won't be a problem in the future and I never bury them. If it is on the surface of the ground, I can keep an eye on it not to ever cause me another days worry.

I can't comment on the box scraper, but I have two landscape rakes and they work well. Like any tool, it takes time to learn how to use it to its best advantage. I have many hours on my landscape rakes. I have my old one, which is left over from my garden tractor. That is the one that works the best since it has a scarifier bar and a leveling bar. Both of these "attachments" are drop down features. I also have a Howse landscape rake with gauge wheels. It works OK, but is a pain to reverse direction at the end of each row when you angle it. Don't know what part of CT your located. I am in the Northeast corner (Putnam area) and if you have an interest, you are welcome to come by and see mine. I even have an area that you can "test" it. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Treed_in_TX]

Here in central Texas I was living on an acre and a quarter of mostly limestone with just enough dirt to hold the rocks firmly in place. The rocks were from small size through table size. Dining room table size. Every year they would float up noticeably higher. I could mow one year and hit 4 rocks. The next year I'd hit 12. Alas, the only tractor I had was my Scotts 2554 (made by John Deere). It was and is a good mower, but it wouldn't be much good helping to removed those rocks. I did it the hard way for 5 years, a seven foot steel rockbar, pick and shovels. I'm closing escrow on a place with sandy loam and little itty bitty fist sized rocks. 15 acres of them. I'll be shopping for a little bit bigger tractor soon.

 

[bandit67]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I dug the hole deeper and put it back so it could again sleep peacefully, but no longer do damage. )</font>

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( In my opinion and experience replanting this rock is a mistake. A rock like that will come back up from below to haunt you in a couple of years. )</font>

Maybe Ken meant to say that it will no longer do damage this year. Next summer, he gets to dig it up again with the backhoe. Maybe he doesn't see digging and re-digging as work, but rather something fun to do instead of replacing that leaky faucet, repainting the house, etc. "Sorry honey, have to go remove a couple of rocks that are going to break the mower blades before I can take care of that..." /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif