STORMTRQQPER
New member
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2007
- Messages
- 7
- Tractor
- 2006 John Deere 790
No bigger than a 5' box grader for a 27 horse. Otherwise, it will add too much drag & all 4 wheels will start spinning.
Road and Driveway maintenance
- Thread starter kcook
- Start date
- Views: 10229
STORMTRQQPER
New member
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2007
- Messages
- 7
- Tractor
- 2006 John Deere 790
As far as brands go, there is not a whole lot of difference between most, except price. Unless you go with on that has hydraulic operated teeth, they are $500-$700.
darkviper said:Hoelscher Commercial Products - GR Grader
this would be the best for roads both grading and touching up. However i have not priced it yet but looks very expensive. But would give you the most flexabilityI just like the expensive toys so i had to throw this in here
of course if you were real serious then go all the way with the one pass solution
Caterpillar: Products>Machines
go for the cat 24 M now you are playing with power
It looks great but my guess its a little exspensive
KC
Tig
Veteran Member
Yeah, get the top link and the side link. I just finished building a TnT on my B7100. I learned a lot from the folks here while doing it. Pics in this thread.
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/customization/96304-need-hydraulic-advice-2.html
If you search the forums you'll find pics of some really profesional builds.
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/customization/96304-need-hydraulic-advice-2.html
If you search the forums you'll find pics of some really profesional builds.
daveinnh
Gold Member
We have a Kubota L4310 (bought used) and use a 7' Tufline rear blade for plowing(or dragging snow?). The Tufline has reinforcement behind the blade to resist crimping/bending. Ag tires loaded w/ Rim-Guard but w/o chains seems to work well in the snow and mud. (BTW, a neighbor bought R-4 tires and doesn't have clearance for chains). The (M-F) dealer refused to sell any more Landpride because of crimping.
Our drive is 700' with a 200' circle at the house in central NH. The drive is about 4-5" of crushed gravel placed above a woven geotextile. A no-name 7' landscape rack dresses up the drive about 3 times in April when the frost comes out and again after several heavy rains the rest of year. We bush-hog a 7 acre pasture area.
A box blade may be nice, but our 2 manually controlled implements work well. If you're considering on becoming a professional landscaper, I'd get rear hydraulics and control equipment angles from the cab, but that's lots more $$$.
Our drive is 700' with a 200' circle at the house in central NH. The drive is about 4-5" of crushed gravel placed above a woven geotextile. A no-name 7' landscape rack dresses up the drive about 3 times in April when the frost comes out and again after several heavy rains the rest of year. We bush-hog a 7 acre pasture area.
A box blade may be nice, but our 2 manually controlled implements work well. If you're considering on becoming a professional landscaper, I'd get rear hydraulics and control equipment angles from the cab, but that's lots more $$$.
patrick_g
Elite Member
kcook said:
KC, TNT is a wonderful thing and you don't find folks who have them and learn to use them saying anything bad about them, typically the exact opposite, rave reviews. Mostly the folks who are nay sayers don't have them or didn't learn to use them well.
You do want both a hydraulic topping lift and hydraulic tilt. Typically you would remove the non adjustable side and replace it with the manually adjusted one and replace the manual one with the hydraulic cylinder. This gives you the most flexibility. You will want self canceling control valves (spring loaded to the off position.)
With the two adjustable links (manual and hydraulic) controlling tilt, I can tilt the box blade so far that I can trench with it, dragging the "corner" in the dirt.
Hydraulic raise and lower on the scarifiers (ripper teeth) is another wonderful thing.
TNT is NOT RESTRICTED to making box blading easier and much more productive. You can use TNT with many implements. I find it useful when running the PHD by myself, especially if I am on uneven or hilly terrain. If I want to mow close with the brush hog but not plow a furrow with one side or the other I can touch up the side to side attitude with a flick of a finger while driving. Once you have TNT AND get used to it you will NEVER want to do without it.
Can you get by without it? Of course you can. You can eat soup or your breakfast bowl of cereal and milk with your fingers too but after you have tried a proper spoon for a while you sort of get to appreciate the technological advance.
Pat
Diesel-ME
Gold Member
Well KC, I guess you are getting just a few replies to this question
Before I bought my 96" landscape rake with flip down blade and guage wheels I spent lots of time reading all the road maintenance threads here in TBN. I found a TON of useful info - including reasons to start with a box scraper, a back blade, pull-behind road grader and a landscape rake - clear as mud....
In any case, I was just re-reading your original post in this thread and it occured to me that you may be in the same situation as I am whereby you need to maintain a nicely built road with a good top coat of gravel (I assume this is what was implied by a new road "built to county specs..."..).
I have found the rake with blade to be real easy to use. I can get a good crown (or re-crown as the case may be) by cranking down the right top link. I start by using the blade to cut in and drag gravel in from the sides (angled). Then I flip the balde up and make a few passes with the rake. The last pass is with the guage wheels down. I also find that it's easy to scrape gravel up and then back up and push material back into low spots with the rake. I also like the visibility of the rake - you can easily see the material you are working with.
The only problem with this setup is cost - but if your road is good enough you could skip the fancy models with the blade option and add wheels later. Also the rake and blade are not going to rip down into hard packed material like scarifiers on a box scraper do. So ultimately you'll want both I'm sure.
Let us know what you end up with.
~paul
Before I bought my 96" landscape rake with flip down blade and guage wheels I spent lots of time reading all the road maintenance threads here in TBN. I found a TON of useful info - including reasons to start with a box scraper, a back blade, pull-behind road grader and a landscape rake - clear as mud....
In any case, I was just re-reading your original post in this thread and it occured to me that you may be in the same situation as I am whereby you need to maintain a nicely built road with a good top coat of gravel (I assume this is what was implied by a new road "built to county specs..."..).
I have found the rake with blade to be real easy to use. I can get a good crown (or re-crown as the case may be) by cranking down the right top link. I start by using the blade to cut in and drag gravel in from the sides (angled). Then I flip the balde up and make a few passes with the rake. The last pass is with the guage wheels down. I also find that it's easy to scrape gravel up and then back up and push material back into low spots with the rake. I also like the visibility of the rake - you can easily see the material you are working with.
The only problem with this setup is cost - but if your road is good enough you could skip the fancy models with the blade option and add wheels later. Also the rake and blade are not going to rip down into hard packed material like scarifiers on a box scraper do. So ultimately you'll want both I'm sure.
Let us know what you end up with.
~paul
Diesel-ME said:Well KC, I guess you are getting just a few replies to this question
Before I bought my 96" landscape rake with flip down blade and guage wheels I spent lots of time reading all the road maintenance threads here in TBN. I found a TON of useful info - including reasons to start with a box scraper, a back blade, pull-behind road grader and a landscape rake - clear as mud....
In any case, I was just re-reading your original post in this thread and it occured to me that you may be in the same situation as I am whereby you need to maintain a nicely built road with a good top coat of gravel (I assume this is what was implied by a new road "built to county specs..."..).
I have found the rake with blade to be real easy to use. I can get a good crown (or re-crown as the case may be) by cranking down the right top link. I start by using the blade to cut in and drag gravel in from the sides (angled). Then I flip the balde up and make a few passes with the rake. The last pass is with the guage wheels down. I also find that it's easy to scrape gravel up and then back up and push material back into low spots with the rake. I also like the visibility of the rake - you can easily see the material you are working with.
The only problem with this setup is cost - but if your road is good enough you could skip the fancy models with the blade option and add wheels later. Also the rake and blade are not going to rip down into hard packed material like scarifiers on a box scraper do. So ultimately you'll want both I'm sure.
Let us know what you end up with.
~paul
Any brand name? What model?
KC
Diesel-ME
Gold Member
KC,
I went with a Woods LR108-2 with blade and wheels. Based on pricing on the 108 ($1700 out the door), I'd guess that a model 106 (the right size the the tractor size that you mentioned) would run you $1400-ish...??...just call a few dealers. They probably have $150-$200 to negotiate with on the final price BTW.
Land Pride also makes some very similar stuff. I checked a few local dealers and found that Land Pride seems to run a for more $$s for some reason. Looks like they make nice stuff though. You would probably want an LR15 Series rake.
The only real draw back of the rake/blade is that you are not going to be able to cut down through hard packed gravel to completely eliminate rough areas like you can with a box w/ scarifiers. But for a smallish tractor I would think that you could drag a much wider rake/blade, say 72" than you could a box. Folks who I know that have 20-something HP tractors usually have 48" box scrapers - but I'm no expert about sizing in this case. The dealers will usually give you an honest assessment of the right fit for your needs.
~paul
I went with a Woods LR108-2 with blade and wheels. Based on pricing on the 108 ($1700 out the door), I'd guess that a model 106 (the right size the the tractor size that you mentioned) would run you $1400-ish...??...just call a few dealers. They probably have $150-$200 to negotiate with on the final price BTW.
Land Pride also makes some very similar stuff. I checked a few local dealers and found that Land Pride seems to run a for more $$s for some reason. Looks like they make nice stuff though. You would probably want an LR15 Series rake.
The only real draw back of the rake/blade is that you are not going to be able to cut down through hard packed gravel to completely eliminate rough areas like you can with a box w/ scarifiers. But for a smallish tractor I would think that you could drag a much wider rake/blade, say 72" than you could a box. Folks who I know that have 20-something HP tractors usually have 48" box scrapers - but I'm no expert about sizing in this case. The dealers will usually give you an honest assessment of the right fit for your needs.
~paul