Stop the wave while leveling

[Vern2]

I was thinking about building a single wheel onto a rear blade or box blade. When your using a cut to lever, I find when I hit a small bump with front tires, the blade digs in. Then when you hit the bump again, well ... dig, dig. With a wheel the blade will lift up and no digging. If its real rough then lift the wheel. Use it as a weight, until you get to fine grading, let the wheel down. Will it work?

Building it ... (Wheel barrow tire, trailer jack, some angle iron, keep it simple.)

Thanks,

Vern

 

[gerard]

It will work the best if you put the wheel as far behind the blade as possible. That reduces the vertical travel of the blade in relation to the size of the hump you hit. That's how road graders work, by having the wheels far away from the cutting blade. Using a top link would work well to give you fine control of the wheel position but you might want to consider ising a pair of wheels. Using one will cause some side to side slop and I don't think it would be as effective as a two wheel set up. Sounds like a good project. I've always wondered why more box blades didn't come with guage wheels.

 

[3RRL]

They do come with gauge wheels on the high dollar hydraulic professional grading ones. If you build them yourself, you can add them on to our kind of boxblades we are using on our CUTS, which like you say, usually don't come with them. Here's a set I made to use on the rotary cutter, boxblade and soon the landscape rake. They are Quick Attach.

 

[MJPetersen]

Rob, Larry's landscape rake got to ya huh?? You going to out do him? HOW!!! His is one nice looking rake. Well he does not have quick attach wheels for it. . . yet. And you already have the coolest ones around!!

Sorry guys, I cannot figure out how to put the thumbnails in with the text.

Vern,

Maybe what I did when I built my RB will help give you some ideas on what you can do. I HIGHLY recommend using 2 wheels for stability. Gerard's suggestion of using a top link is what I did.

Mine can fold up because the part that attaches to the wheel frame can slide on the shafts to 2 different positions where it is pinned in place. Putting it "over center," allows you to get almost up against a garage door, building, or whatever. However, when it is pinned down you have very precise control of the blade position.

There is a close up of what I did. The wheels are to the right.

The wheels really help in getting a smooth surface with a whole lot less skill, frustration, and time.
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/build-yourself/118176-rear-blade-build.html?
Happy building,

Mike

 

[Runner]

Here's mine. I'm going to adapt these wheels to work on my landscape rake in the near future.

Word of caution, the cheapo HF air-filled tires seen in the picture lasted about an hour before blowing out and have since been replaced with solid rubber tires. I've read reports from others on this site of the same experience.

 

[teg]

Vern2, Let us know how it turns out. The wheel barrow tire might not hold the 3-600 pound box blade. I think all you need to do is extend your top link so that more weight is on the rear blade and the front cutting blade is not taking as much of a bite... extend the toplink so the front cutting blade will scalp the top of the waves. You'll have to run over the area several times but each time it should get better, NOT worse. Try adjusting the BB more.

If you are talking about very large waves (6" or more) then you need to be adjusting the 3ph to cut and dump until you get to the fine point of leveling. To me, BB takes lots of adjusting. I don't have gauge wheels but I've built roads and leveled many areas.

on edit; if you have a BB with a hinged rear blade - this may not work, this is for a fixed blade.

 

[Treemonkey1000]

Looks like some great ideas there. Those pictures got me to thinking why not use receiver hitches from trucks as your quick disconnect for the gauge wheel? That would be a bit of overkill. They are fairly cheap and sturdy. Then you can compact your system for storage. Although the flipped up set of wheels is an even better method. Solid rubber tires does make sense for the amount of pressure exerted behind the tractor.

 

[joe48]

Here's mine. I'm going to adapt these wheels to work on my landscape rake in the near future.

Word of caution, the cheapo HF air-filled tires seen in the picture lasted about an hour before blowing out and have since been replaced with solid rubber tires. I've read reports from others on this site of the same experience.

Runner, did you sneak by my place and copy my idea? Well great minds think alike!!
You did exactly what I did; I bought steel surplus tubing the same size as trailer hitch recievers for the blade and rake then longer pieces for the extensions to slip into the recievers. So now you can have different length extension bars, the smoother the grade desired use a longer bar.
Then bought 2 trailer tongue jacks and the largest swivel casters with the rubber tire (on sale at HF). Bolt the caster to the jack pad.

Now I can extend my wheelbase for smoother gradeing and adjust the jacks to level or crown a surface (road) as desired.
JUST REMEMBER WHEN MANUEVERING ,YOU NOW HAVE SOMETHING THING STICKING WAY OUT BACK.!!!

 

[Runner]

Joe,

I don't remember exactly who I copied my gauge wheel design from, but I definitely stole it from someone on this site.

RE: using receiver hitches - that's what the person I stole the design from did, and that is the right way to do it, or at least use material of that thickness. Instead, I used lighter gauge tubing and I'm afraid it may not be heavy enough. It looks like it's straining with just the weight of a 5 foot rear blade. Not sure what it will do when attached to the 6 foot landscape rake.

At any rate, if I was doing it again (and I probably will be) I'd use the thicker walled material.

On the other hand, the trailer jacks do work very well for this, although I had a little trouble welding them to the tubing without burning through the tube of the jack (attributable, I'm sure to my less than stellar welding skills).

Still, the design worked and I levelled 25 tons of gravel on my driveway this spring with this setup and it made the job easy and quick. I'm just not a good enough operator to do this without gauge wheels.

 

[flusher]

I was thinking about building a single wheel onto a rear blade or box blade. When your using a cut to lever, I find when I hit a small bump with front tires, the blade digs in. Then when you hit the bump again, well ... dig, dig. With a wheel the blade will lift up and no digging. If its real rough then lift the wheel. Use it as a weight, until you get to fine grading, let the wheel down. Will it work?

Building it ... (Wheel barrow tire, trailer jack, some angle iron, keep it simple.)

Thanks,

Vern

Here's what folks up here in the North Sacramento Valley use to solve the problem you're facing.

T. G. Schmeiser Co., Inc.

From what I hear, these things work fine.

 

[radman1]

They do come with gauge wheels on the high dollar hydraulic professional grading ones. If you build them yourself, you can add them on to our kind of boxblades we are using on our CUTS, which like you say, usually don't come with them. Here's a set I made to use on the rotary cutter, boxblade and soon the landscape rake. They are Quick Attach.

I think your gauge wheels are all wrong. Your more than professional job makes the rest of us look like we're building with tinker toys.

 

[joe48]

Runner
You need to go to a heavier wall sq. tubing. What I used is about an 1/8" thick wall, or about the same has a commercial hitch reciever tube wall. With our CUTs that should be more than adequate. If your building up a back blade to run behind a 100hp fram tractor, well , you'll need stouter stuff!!!
As for burn thru, you either have your amperage up too high or oyu are trying to stay in one place and weld in one pass. With a typical 220 AC buzz box, 1/8 steel wall 1/4" surface, 3/16" -6011 or 6013 rod ,I'd probaly run about 70-90 amps, and adjust by results.

 

[bucmeister]

Rob,

That is some mighty impressive work.

 

[Runner]

Joe,

You're right, I think I was running about 115 amps on the old Powercraft welder so that's probably what I was doing wrong. Actually, the whole project was more of an experiment than anything. I'll probably redo the whole thing using regular receiver hitchs and thicker walled tubing.

Thanks for the pointers.

 

[PILOON]

Another thing on my 'to-do' list of projects!

I did actually purchase 2 trailer 'jacks' at Cosco for about $19. ea, so almost there as I have some 20 ft of 2 x 2 tubing as well as the 2 x 2 ID reciever material. (pricy stuff!)

Now need 2 decent wheels as for sure the trailer plastic things will last about 10 ft or so!

Need to go to scrap yard and hope to find 6-8" solid swivil casters.

Also I did buy a box of 1/8 welding rod just last week (wow, prices sure went up on that!)

 

[suncoast]

If your steel is clean don't use 6011 welding rod, it has a tremendous amount of spray and clean-up is time consuming. 6013 is fine, 7018 gives an excellent bead and the slag almost falls off. It is also a stronger weld. If you keep 70 series rods in an airtight container you don't need to redry. Throw in a packet of gel absorbent like you find in beef jerky bags and this takes care of any moisture issues. (If you don't leave the container in your swimming pool).

 

[artp]

3RRL

Those are some great pictures! I am envious of your craftsmanship. For those of us who are not skilled in fabricating is there a commerically available set up that I could easily attach to my 5ft Kioti box blade?

 

[3RRL]

3RRL

Those are some great pictures! I am envious of your craftsmanship. For those of us who are not skilled in fabricating is there a commerically available set up that I could easily attach to my 5ft Kioti box blade?

Thanks Art.
Not sure about your question though?
I've never seen a set of quick attach gauge wheels like that available. I'll bet that it would be a pretty good seller for guys who need them but don't have the tools to make their own.

 

[artp]

3RRL



I was curious so I googled gauge wheel and found the following web site

Roll-A-Cone Homepage

and follow the product link to gauge wheels


I was wondering if you or any of the guys on this forum had run across this company before. It appears that they are fabricating something that might work for those of us who are not able to make our own. What are you thoughts?

 

[3RRL]

Art,
Never came across that company myself, but I just looked at their gauge wheels and they are definitely heavy duty for sure with adjustable turnbuckle like my hydraulic cylinder. I would go for it (depending on cost of course) but it looks like you still need to attach them some how to your implement and also provide the tire ... if I'm seeing it correctly? But they look pretty good to me. How much are they?
One thing I did when I made mine was to consider being able to lift them up, out of the way when used on my box blade so I could still do some dirt work bulldozing in reverse. Looks like on there models if you removed the turnbuckle and fastened the wheel up some way it would do the same too, however, the base would be in the way of the rear blade. I took some time making them, but I think the design is neat and the mounting base is out of the way. I also have my gauge wheels made so the can be used/switched to different implements. I have a landscape rake I will add the little receivers to so I can put the wheels on that if I want. Just need to get around to it.
If your interested, here is the build thread and some photos/links to other related threads.
Modify Brush Hog Some More
Hyd Quick Attach Gauge Wheels