what size box blade for my 15hp 4x4 beaver?

[Freakingstang]

wanting to get a box blade to do quite a bit of leveling and grading in the spring. Found a couple 5' on CL relatively cheap. Does this tractor have the power to pull a 5' or should I hold out on a 4' box blade? Rear track width is 37-38" the 5' would be nice for my horrible ditchline if the tractor will pull it.

thanks
Steve

 

[PILOON]

I drive a MT180D and use a 5 ft back blade which I have really loaded up at times moving truckloads of fill and gravel.
I am reasonably sure you will not have problems with a 5ft box blade.

In fact my blade started off as a 4 footer as I feared the mitsu would not handle more.
I very rapidly added 6" per side and never looked back.
I even weigh it down to take bigger bites.

 

[284 International]

Since Piloon says he uses a 5 foot blade I believe him, but I've never even bothered to attempt using my 5 1/2' box blade on anything smaller than my Ford 1700. The other machines just don't have the mass necessary to work a box blade and rippers if it's over 4' wide. My 42" blade actually works better on the small (15 PTO hp and less) machines. If I tried to use my big box scraper on my ST1440 (The same as an S373) to rip and move dirt, it would be hopeless.

If I were trying to just drag gravel, move fill, or smooth a road it would probably work, but it's not going to do any fresh cutting or leveling with the big box. I've had that 5 1/2' box stop my IH 464, which weighs somewhere around 6500lbs, with the rippers down. A 4' box full of soil will stop my loader equipped Yanmar 1401D, roughly the equivalent model to the Beaver.

You'll be able to get by with it, probably, but resign yourself to not being able to lift it when full of dirt, or not being able to fill it, and not being able to use all the rippers. On the other hand, for smoothing and dragging, it will be clearly faster, and should work fine.

 

[Freakingstang]

Since Piloon says he uses a 5 foot blade I believe him, but I've never even bothered to attempt using my 5 1/2' box blade on anything smaller than my Ford 1700. The other machines just don't have the mass necessary to work a box blade and rippers if it's over 4' wide. My 42" blade actually works better on the small (15 PTO hp and less) machines. If I tried to use my big box scraper on my ST1440 (The same as an S373) to rip and move dirt, it would be hopeless.

If I were trying to just drag gravel, move fill, or smooth a road it would probably work, but it's not going to do any fresh cutting or leveling with the big box. I've had that 5 1/2' box stop my IH 464, which weighs somewhere around 6500lbs, with the rippers down. A 4' box full of soil will stop my loader equipped Yanmar 1401D, roughly the equivalent model to the Beaver.

You'll be able to get by with it, probably, but resign yourself to not being able to lift it when full of dirt, or not being able to fill it, and not being able to use all the rippers. On the other hand, for smoothing and dragging, it will be clearly faster, and should work fine.

I plan on doing alot of fresh ground breaking in the spring. My property basically grades towards the house and want to grade it like it should. I also have two horrible ditch angles I want to get rid of... I guess I was thinking along the lines of what you were thinking...5' would be quicker for the gravel I'm going to be moving, but not nearly ideal for fresh ground work. I've used a 5' on a 30 hp tractor and kinda stopped it in its tracks too

 

[284 International]

You might have good luck trying a sub-soiler type implement first, and cross-hatching the area, then using the bigger scraper. If the 5' boxes are cheap enough, you may be able to pick up both implements for the price of a 4' box, and be more productive. I just know that a 5' box with rippers is going to strand that little Beaver hopelessly if you're trying to do new work. I bet if it were broken first you could put it to work usefully, though.

 

[PILOON]

If you plan on ditching then I think a standard back blade might be better suited as properly angled with the 'digging' corner lower you can actually excavate a suitable ditch.
Also (with practice) a standard back blade can move and soothe or level as well as a box blade.
Besides much less costly.
If you have trouble controlling the blade you can always add guide wheels as many on TBN have done. Skids would also do the trick.
Basically a box blade is a simple back blade with skids to control depth.
My solution is to do all my smoothing work pushing backwards as at that time my wheels are driving on a flat smooth surface and I eliminate the woopy doo up and down.
Since I have a FEL I use that to move quantities to where I wish to grade finish.
With my methods I can spread a 16 ton load of dumped crushed stone in about 1 hour to whatever coverage I want and leave it as slick as if a grader had done the job.
For the ultimate final finish I drive forward pulling the back blade reversed and make a couple of passes.
Then you hope for rain to complete the compaction process!