Baymule
Herd Master
50's to low 60's all summer? Heck, that's our winter! With dips in the 20's, usually doesn't last more than a week.
Tractors and must have attachments
- Thread starter Lereg
- Start date
Kyanite
Ridin' The Range
We have a John Deere 3038e 37 hp, or 30 on the PTO. We bought it with two implements, the loader, box scraper and snow blower. It doesn't have backhoe capability, which I think I'm going to wish I had, but it just wasn't in the budget or what was available when we needed the tractor. We do want to get an auger. I have a walk behind cub cadet rototiller and my garden isn't huge... yet, so that suffices. We will consider getting the mower for it if we don't get the old craftsman riding mower running. The biggest reason we needed it was maintaining our driveway (box scraper) and the snow blower. We get so much snow that there isn't anywhere to plow it to by late winter.
Alaskan
Herd Master
Yep...snow barfs.
We use the plow on the plow truck as long as we can (sure is faster, and has heat with an enclosed cab), but the blower chews up the berms.
Box scraper? So...not the back blade..something else?
We use the plow on the plow truck as long as we can (sure is faster, and has heat with an enclosed cab), but the blower chews up the berms.
Box scraper? So...not the back blade..something else?
Baymule
Herd Master
Box scraper, back scraper......haha we call ours Box blade. Same thing, different names.
Mike CHS
Herd Master
I use our front end loader all of the time but our other most used attachment is a landscape rake. I use it on the driveway a couple of times year to put gravel back where it belongs but it really pays for itself when we do tree trimming. I turn it so it is reversed and the tractor is pushing with it rather than pulling and it does super getting rid of brush and tree limbs. I had several people recommend not getting it but I never regretted it. Stay within its capabilities and it really pays for itself.
Actually, there's a box blade which has digging tines that dig the dirt up to be collected in the box and leveled, and then there's a "scraper/grader blade" that resembles the center blade on one of the big road graders... It's like a plow blade that's used to scrape high points level without digging it up like the teeth on the box blade do.
Box blade
Scraper/grader blade
greybeard
Herd Master
The box blade teeth (usually called scarifiers) are movable--you can set them at different depths or raise them up completely out of the way, or take them completely out by removing one pin and use only the blade portion of the box blade.
Box blade is mostly to move a large amount of dirt or substrate and spread it as you go without losing any along the outside edges of the blade. It does have it's limitations---you can't do much digging becase the sides won't allow penetration.
Regular blades are versatile, in that you can swing the blade at an angle. Handy for reworking a road and pulling the gravel or dirt back onto the center and then blading it all down flat, but they are usually too light in weight to do much digging in hard ground too.
No backhoe? This may be an option if you need to do digging and transporting what you dig to a different location:
Most are reversible--you can pull it or push it. Dumping is achieved by a handle on the end of a rope that trips the release.
I've worn out several in my life.
Box blade is mostly to move a large amount of dirt or substrate and spread it as you go without losing any along the outside edges of the blade. It does have it's limitations---you can't do much digging becase the sides won't allow penetration.
Regular blades are versatile, in that you can swing the blade at an angle. Handy for reworking a road and pulling the gravel or dirt back onto the center and then blading it all down flat, but they are usually too light in weight to do much digging in hard ground too.
No backhoe? This may be an option if you need to do digging and transporting what you dig to a different location:
Most are reversible--you can pull it or push it. Dumping is achieved by a handle on the end of a rope that trips the release.
I've worn out several in my life.
Alaskan
Herd Master
Thanks for the photos and explanations.
The box blade looks like a weeny root rake.
We have a bunch of weights to put on our back blade to help it out
The box blade looks like a weeny root rake.
We have a bunch of weights to put on our back blade to help it out
