Box Grader

[Ronmar]

I built this grader attachment initially to expand our driveway, but it has proven usefull in several other places and is real good at general leveling/smoothing. I modeled it very loosely after a Bad Boy grader. The front blade protrudes below the side walls approx 3/4" and the rear blade sets flush with the side walls. There is a swing down gate in the back that will prevent soil from passing over the rear blade and allows me to drag collected earth from one place to another. It is 5' wide by about 4' long and weighs around 400#. I made the cutting blades out of 4"X .25 angle iron placed open side down on a 6.25" piece of .25 strap to form a triangular tube. This has proven to be very rigid and resilient to large rock impacts. The leading edge is hardened by many weld passes ground down to a 1/16" cutting edge and this has held up well in our river rock strewn soil. The side walls are 2" X 10" box tube as it was the widest material I had readily available at a reasonable cost. Because of the front blade relationship, it is a very precisely adjusted implement. A single turn either way on the top link can drastically alter the way it shaves earth.







If I had it to do over, I would have re-oriented the angle iron with the open side forward, so the backside was a vertical drop into the center compartment area. As it is now, with a 45 degree slope on either side, clumps of sod tend to hang up on the top point of the blade triangle.

Ron

[FlyHiFlyLo]

That's really cool! I like the look with the use of tube.

[FLICK]

I read about you grader on another forum ages ago and thought it was great, I ended up saving your photos so I could steal ideas from your design

Good work Ron

Matthew.

[GuglioLS]

Nice Grader Ron,

How's it holding up? I'd be interested in a little more detail of the rear blade and how it's all put together. So a few more detailed photos would be much appreciated.

Larry

[Ronmar]

Thanks Larry, I will have to take some more pics as I lost most of the others in a computer crash. The blades are just a piece of 4X4X.25 angle iron, with a 6.25X.25 piece of flat strap welded across the opening to form a triangular tube. I placed the 6.25" side down. The bottom on the rear blade is flush with the bottom of the side tubes. I didn't do anything special to this tube as it is just designed to drag the loose soil and rock along to let it spread out, untill enough builds up to flow over the top of hte blade.

For the front blade, I set the sides up on 3/4" plywood. The leading edge I left on the ground, and the trailing edge I also put up on 3/4" ply. So the leading edge sticks down like the planer blade on a box plane. Since that edge does all the cutting, that is the one I spent the time putting a weld hardened edge on.

It has held up well. I have lost count of he times I have stoped the tractor with stumps and such and havn't bent it yet. I do all the ground engagement stuff at a slow bell though. I have used it in quite a few areas on my property so far to break up the whoop-tee-doos. On several occasions, the cutting edge has dug into and rolled free, basketball sized rocks. This lifts the whole thing into the air and the rock rolls under the first blade, then the second one just rolls it along till I lift the box and let it free.

Ron

[bjmad]

Wow!! I really like that. I use my boxblade and rear blade but it's still difficult to get everything to lay flat and level. That looks like it would work quite well. Thanks