Road maintenance - Tuffline v. Grademaster v. Roadboss

[jenkinsph]

BFreaky,

I built this landplane from materials I had laying around last year. I had to buy the grader blades and plow bolts though. If I were to buy materials for another one I would make the sides taller and longer. Mine are 8 inch WF beam and would prefer about 12" height without the flanges holding gravel and dirt. Since it is 8' wide it still moves a lot of dirt or gravel though and is about all my tractor can pull without undue stress and strain.

I think there are at least two trains of thought going on with these grader/landplanes. With some designs you can cut agressively in a narrow width and carry more material to drop in depressions and holes for roads and driveways. I suspect that these have the blades set sligtly below the side skids to cut more agressively and are always turning up alot of material. The other method is to use them to make a field or lawn flat or planar so a wider unit is an advantage. My blades are flush with the skids wearplates and will dig in slightly but for the most part will slice off the mounds and drop the material in low spots, all the while carrying less material.

Since I already have a large boxblade with hydraulic scarifiers to rip and move large amounts of soil or gravel I was more concerned about planeing than dirt moving. I was more interested in greater width to flatten out lawn areas and touch up driveways and roads. In use I can smooth out the land in one axis back and forth then run perpendicular to this and have the full benefit of the 8' straightedge. The analogy being it is easier to draw a long straight line with the longest available straight edge. This gets the work area very flat and later on makes mowing at higher speeds much easier.

My grader blades are mounted to 1/2" steel plate set at a 45 degree angle that is 8" wide and has two 3x3x3/8" angle reinforcements. The grader blades themselves are 6" double edge blades 5/8" thick and 96" length bolt on.
Mine are set flush with the lower skid wear strips.

Overall I am very satisfied with the results after a year of use.

 

[BFreaky]

Thanks, this was very helpfull.
After reading all of these posts about these graders and box blades, my decision is to make an "All in one" attachment. It will have rippers at the front, grader blades with adjustable height position in the middle, and a movable box blade at the end, with hydraulic cylinder. I still have to work on the dimension details, but this is the idea...
Here's the sketch:



All opinions are very welcome

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Your drawing is great, this is a good idea. Some suggestions, hydraulic scarifiers would be a must. Have the middle blades a minimum of 24" apart, more if you have the room. Put stops at the rear for the rear blade to close up against. It will stay in the fixed down position better.

How tall are you thinking the sides will be? I would think 18" minimum, but then I don't know what size your tractor is.

Good luck with this project.

 

[BFreaky]

Thanks, it was just a quick sketch
My tractor is Belarus MTZ 820, 81 Hp, 4WD, weight with loader aprox. 4.5 T. It is very powerfull and I'm very satisfied with it. Here's the picture:



Well, I was thinking more like 32" spacing between blades, and for sideplates I'm not sure yet but they could be 24"...since the grader would be 8' wide...

The whole idea goes like this: if the road has a hard surface, i need the rippers to ripp it, then I need the grader to levell it, and if there is some adittional material (let's say piles of gravel brought there with trucks and placed on critical spots) then I can drag it with a box blade which I can lift hydraulically from cab aprox. an inch above the skids so i get a thin even layer on the surface of the road, and the job is done with one machine... fast, easy and cheap...

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Bfreaky, 32" would be great in my opinion, I'm going to spread mine apart one of these days. Just a suggestion, but with 24" sides which is what I have, I think that you might want to only go 7' wide. I am also in the group of people that think that angled blades will end up working better for you overall. While others have had good luck with their blades straight, they cut better when they are angled and you will have the rear of your implement to redistribute the material if it does happen to get more to one side than another. I suggest 7' wide because mine is 7' and my 75hp tractor weighs 12,000lbs and it is not much of a problem if I don't pay attention for the implement to stop my tractor. I would really have to stay on top of it if it was 8' wide. With your rear blade on the grader blade, you will have the capability of moving 4 cubic yards of material or more. 8-10k pounds of dirt and 1500-2000lbs with the implement and you will be trying to drag 10-12k pounds around.:shocked: Something to keep in mind when building this thing. :thumbsup:

 

[BFreaky]

It's a good suggestion and I will take that into consideration. Blades will be angled, that is the plan. The only thing that I'm still thinking about is which would be the best angle of blade knife for best surface penetration...I think 45 is too aslope, I would put more like 60 - 75 degrees towards the horizontal surface... what do you think?
Others may also comment on this...

 

[Compact1]

This was an interesting post to read since I own the Landpride GS1572 scraper (6' model). I decided to go with Landpride for a couple of reasons: the price was affordable and the overall weight was competitive. I bought the Landpride for less than $1,000 and it weights 594 lbs.

Here are some weight comparisons for 6' models ranked from heaviest to lightest:

Road Boss 900 lbs. (150 lbs./foot)
Dura Grader Industrial 830 lbs. (138 lbs./foot)
Landpride 594 lbs. (99 lbs./foot)
GradeMaster 560 lbs. (93 lbs./foot)
Howse Utility 560 lbs. (93 lbs./foot)
Tuffline 532 lbs. (88 lbs./foot)
Dura Grader Utility 470 lbs. (78 lbs./foot)

The heaviest contender of them all is Road Runner who doesn't offer a 6' model. However, their 7' model weighs a staggering 1,350 lbs. or 192 lbs. per foot! My little 33hp tractor could only admire the Road Runner from a distance

I have only used the front scarifiers a couple of times. I tried the grader on a gravel road that was harder than woodpecker lips and didn't have much success. I dropped the scarifiers and broke the surface then was able to effectively use the grader. It did a great job of "churning" the material and remixing the rock and fines. I was happy with the results.

The Landpride also has the ability to adjust the cutting depth of the scraper blades. I adjusted my blades so it digs deeper on the right side of my tractor and leaves more material on the left side of my tractor for crowning purposes. The scraper blades are also reversable.

Before my purchase, I really wanted the Road Boss but couldn't justify the money. Don't get me wrong...I would still like to try the Road Boss because it looks awesome! But I feel like I made a good investment - all things considered.

 

[BFreaky]

Well, since I'm gonna make an "all in one" machine, and it sure will be a strong construction, I think it will have plenty of weight, and a good pressure per foot...
It's good to hear opinions from every day users of these machines. To me these informations and experiences are very valuable and important.
When I start making this attachment, I will post pictures of my work during construction so you all can comment and express your ideas. I hope it will end up as a good and versatile machine

I'm sorry if I made some language or grammar mistakes in my posts, after all, English is not my basic language so I don't know all the right spelling of your language :ashamed:

 

[jenkinsph]

Jeff,
That is a nice grader with a good overall design, practical and should be effective.

 

[BFreaky]

So, are any of you guys grading some roads? Post some pictures if you do. I'm very interested in how the Roadrunner grader works...because of all of these adjustments it contains..:thumbsup: