skid shoes for rear blade

farmerjim · Nov 30, 2006

i just picked up a rear blade for doing snow removal. i'm planning to add skid shoes like a truck plow, so that when i blade the gravel portion of my driveway it doesn't tear it up very much. i plan to use the mushroom style shoes. has anyone modified theirs w/ skid shoes? just wondering if so what did you use? i have an idea to use some angle iron and sort of copy the design on my dads western plow. any thoughts/ pics may be helpfull are welcome.

DWW68 · Dec 1, 2006

I did exactly what you mentioned. I bolted the angle iron on using the outer bolts for the cutting edge. Then I welded a one inch (I think) black iron coupling to the angle iron in a verticle position for the stem of the skid shoe to slide threw. Because I do not change the heigth of the shoes, I used washers for spacers to keep them set. By cutting the angle iron at an angle on the bottom side, I can leave the brackets on all the time(just remove the shoes) and will not effect the use of the back blade with other uses. Sorry I do not have a picture ,but I think you can fugure it out. Hope this helps.

Dan

Toolguy · Dec 1, 2006

I made skid shoes for my Landpride RB. I used some 2" ID square tube and 2" OD tube with the holes already punched. I used some scrap 1/4" from an old receiver hitch for the skids. I welded everything together and then drilled the holes in the mounting tubes for height adjustment. I can get the height adjustment very precise by using different diameter pins in the adjustment holes. I use it mainly for scraping snow on my cement driveway. To get it just right so that the blade is held just off of the surface, I currently have 5/16" bolts in the holes. As the skid shoes wear I will put the 3/8" pins back in to raise it up 1/32". It doesn't seem like much but it makes the difference between scraping the snow off completly or leaving a thin layer that turns to ice. For scraping gravel the shoes can easily be raised to whatever height I need. The only thing I would do differently is make the skid larger. It would slide over gravel better if it had more surface area.

JoeL4330 · Dec 2, 2006

square tube setup is nicely done, but you lose the real advantage of the 'shroom shoes ...namely, they rotate and therefore are a lot more compliant ...watch them on a plow as it goes over some uneven base.

BTDT · Dec 3, 2006

JoeL4330 said:
square tube setup is nicely done, but you lose the real advantage of the 'shroom shoes ...namely, they rotate and therefore are a lot more compliant ...watch them on a plow as it goes over some uneven base.

Seems like something along the line of moon hubcaps for skids would be ideal, that way the curved part would ride up over obstacles, where a square shoe might catch on something. Looks like they did a nice job though, good job!