In Jan2020 I bought a box blade from Tractor Supply. The big advantage of the box blade vs. the original scrape blade is weight. It also has teeth that can really cut down into the road. We have developed a simple method for road maintenance, mostly with the box blade:
- Use the box blade with teeth down to cut into the road surface,
- Maybe put the scrape blade back on to pile dirt and gravel in the center of the road,
- Use the box blade with teeth up, not in road contact, to smooth the surface,
- Maybe compact.
The box blade's hard steel teeth are mounted on softer steel shanks. The teeth that came with the blade wore out in 2020, over just 40 hours or so of work. They also wore out on the backs, and not really on the cutting surface, so it is important to set the cut angle right. This image shows the original teeth one year after purchase:
The box blade is County Line 4 ft. It cost around $750 and was in stock at Tractor Supply Roxboro:
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/countyline-box-blade-sub-compact-4-ft-working-width
The shanks are 5/8 inch thick and take teeth for a variety of equipment. The first replacements were from Gannon Manufacturing via Amazon. They seemed to be meant for a loader bucket that has teeth on the front, but they fit our shanks and were pretty cheap at $6 each:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KS3QNN1
Old teeth can be removed with angle grinder or cutting torch. New teeth must be crimped on with heat using a "medium" oxy/acetylene setup with cutting tip. A few of our neighbors have that capability, or a welding shop should be able to do it quickly. Here is the procedure:
SETUP FOR CUTTING
To cut into the road surface, the back of the blade must be tilted up, so the teeth meet the road at a good cutting angle. Using a top link with an 11.25 inch turnbuckle, close it up until only 3 threads are visible:
With the blade tilted forward this way and the shanks all the way up, the teeth dig right into the road surface. Here is the view on the first pass with this blade setup:
All through 2020, starting with the blade flat, it took many passes to get to this point, and we never really got the blade to dig. Tilting the blade fixes that. This was the view after 5 passes in just a half hour:
SETUP FOR SMOOTHING
Nothing is free, so now when you reverse the teeth for smoothing you also have to relax the blade so it picks up dirt. I tried smoothing with the blade tilted and it would not pick anything up. So reverse the shanks as shown, then adjust the top link so ten threads are showing and the blade lays flat on the ground.
After a few smoothing passes, the road is ready to be compacted by normal car traffic:
