rear mounted grade blade

[eddie]

good day folks...i'm a bit curious if any of you folks can give me some tips on grading my (600 ft.) driveway with a rear mounted blade or will i be better off using my loader bucket to put a finish on it? i'm a novice with my little orange tractor and would appreciate any feedback. thanks.

 

[todddrummey]

Hi Eddie,

I also have a long driveway to maintain. My little B6000 has a front end loader as well as a rear blade. Neither of these seemed to help much. The blades would just scrape along the surface. Just wouldn't bite into the road. I found a solution though. My grader blade has an edge on top and bottom. I can either pull forward with one edge, or flip the blade and push backward with the other edge. My solution was to weld some 1/2 x 1 "teeth" to the top edge. Now I flip the blade and drag it behind with the teeth down. It scarifies the road, and I can then grade with the other edge. It works great.

Todd

 

[stuart]

I have the same equipment on my B7001, and about the same length of driveway. After almost 40 years the fines in the gravel were packed very hard.

The rear blade is gravity down, and it tended to bounce a fair bit. I was wondering if a few hundred pounds added weight would help. I think the idea of some teeth on the blade is good. On mine, the cutting blade can be removed with 4 bolts and turned over, separately from changing direction. There are pics of it in my gallery.

http://www.orangetractortalks.com/forums/album.php?albumid=12&pictureid=182

For smoothing out after scraping, I found the loader bucket, running in reverse, to work best. There are a few threads here about grading and road building that may help.

Last summer the dust was so bad that I had the whole driveway paved, so I can't provide any more ideas or results.

 

[eddie]

thanks for the feedback gentlemen, sounds good to me. I have the same blade as Stuart, mine is 5ft. I like the way you used it for roots. Putting teeth on the blade also makes sense, i have an old piece of hardware here that has a dozen spikes fastened to a grid. It looks like it was built to drag behind a tractor but I'm not sure what it was originally built for but it could loosen up the gravel a little bit. Will give it a try.

 

[stuart]

That sounds like a diamond harrow. Intended for smoothing out the dirt after plowing or rototilling, or for smoothing off the gopher holes and mole hills. I expect it would need a significant weight on it to make the spikes dig in, but I would be concerned that the spikes might not be hard enough steel for extended use.