Quicky scrap boxblade

[GrizzyDan]

I finally found time to break away from other projects and dedicated the afternoon to building a boxblade. My goal at around 1pm this afternoon was to have it built and smoothing road before dark and it turned out to be successful.

I found several pieces of guard rail buried under decades of oak leaves, the cutting edge is used 7' plow blades free from the county, 1/4"x12" x 3' or so plate cut from mobile home Ibeams as torch practice years ago, and whatever scrap I saw first that looked like it would work as I went along.

It's nothing fancy, but it works.

I put about an hour into dragging a small section of the road just before dark, this is one of the lesser grades on the mile and a half of road I have to maintain. I have about 5 hours into the BB so far and plan to clean it up and add a piece of square tubing for ripper teeth, a few more crossbraces and abuse it until it breaks.. then build it stronger =)

Idk about you guys, but I know where I'll be all day tomorrow. :tractor:

 

[GrizzyDan]

Oh, and I still have the rear plow blade to attach ^_^

After those pics I adjusted the upper link some more and got the sides to stop digging into the road. I set the forward blade 3/4" below the box and so far I can't complain. It's fairly heavy although I do wish I had some thicker plate for the sides. One idea was to weld on a strip of 1/4-1/2" x4+" strap to the bottom edge however I'll watch for now and see if it warps at all.

 

[handirifle]

I am very impressed, nice job and fast work. I do have a question, what are the brackets on top of the blade for?

 

[handirifle]

Oh, yes, I would like to see pics of he cutting blade without dirt. Can't get a mental pic of what it looks like.

 

[GrizzyDan]

that is just excess material which I didn't want to take the time to cut off, I was too excited to try it out lol. They look to be what used to hold the guard rail to posts. Made for good support and extra weight. I will add more pics tomorrow of the blade and hopefully more smooth road. Gotta love action pics =)

 

[creekbend]

Innovative. :thumbsup:

 

[handirifle]

Another question. I found someone giving away some 2 3/8" galvanized pipe (I am aware of the issues with welding galvanized) but am wondering if galvanized is strong enough for something like this? How thick would the walls be?

I wouldn't mind making something like yours, if I could do it from cheaply acquired materials.

 

[GrizzyDan]

Wore down plow blade mocked up on the rear.

Basically what it consists of.

Really did make things easier welding the strap pieces in first for backing but it could have been done without them and plenty of clamps.

I would imagine that galv tubing comes in different thicknesses and can't say what you'd end up getting, however, larger diameter tubing usually is pretty thick unless it's galv conduit. I built the spine on my log arch out of a piece of 3" galv tubing and it's held up to several 1500lb logs. I do however want to add more support to it before I go larger.

 

[GrizzyDan]

No pics taken today, yet I finally did break it after running it 6 hours straight. I had a good thing going breaking the crown with the loader bucket tilted down just slightly and dragging it smooth with the box. I even went against my better judgment and cranked the angle adjuster to cut in several hundred feet of ditch even though I don't have all the bracing and triangulation done yet. She held together with the box FULL and overflowing. There was dirt and rock piled to the tires infront of the box, yet it wasn't until I got to a sticky situation having pulled a lot of material down a few feet away from a culvert and needed to get the material out of the ditch.. I used the loader to scoop it out and drove through the ditch where the neighbor had been piling previously... the box bottomed out once my rear tires hit the ditch.. I was stuck. When I tried pushing myself out with the loader I heard a loud BANG and sure enough my welds on the upright channel snapped where it meets the 4" cross tube.

I expected it to break at some point, I was rather curious about it to be honest. I wanted to see how well single pass and stich welds would hold up in this application. I wanted to know if the "Quicky" would hold up.

My Agenda for tomorrow = braces, reinforcement, extra passes on certain welds, and plan some kind of ripper setup. An old timer gave me the idea of chaining a chunk of I-beam to the bottom of the loader bucket. I think this would be great for breaking the surface of the road, maybe even cut some notches or weld some dull teeth onto it to really rip through the hardpan.. cut and smooth in one pass (in a perfect world) Just a thought.. I have some 12" x 1/4" I-beam I might be able to beef up and use Or maybe something like a tooth bar, or loader rake.. something with the strength of the former and functionality of the latter... :confused2: guess I'll sleep on it.

Ramble out.

Dan

 

[GrizzyDan]

Been working and haven't had time to get any work done on the road, but I fixed what I broke on the boxblade and found a 10' chunk of 12"x2" channel that weighs close to 200 lbs for the loader mounted scarifier. I cut it down to 7' and started in on a quick mount for it. I'll post up another thread on it. I'm not sure if I want to leave it flat or cut teeth into it for maximum ripping. I plan to hardface the teeth if I do. Still far cheaper than buying ripper teeth for the boxblade and more efficient too. I won't be able to tear down deep like I can with rippers, yet it doesn't take much to make my tractor lose traction anyway.