Digging with a box blade

[lwcmattlifter]

Im going to be grading a 18'x26' site to build a garage on my property. I have a gradual grade that on the high side is 2 ft, all is virgin soil.

In the past, I have used a skid loader with a toothed 4n1 bucket. This setup worked very well for light excavation. Currently I no longer have this setup. I do have a 30 hp TLB.

The big question is what is the best way to go about grading this site. The way I see it, I have 3 options.

1. Use the back hoe to dig most of the site, bucket is 18." Then use loader to move material out of the site. I do have a tooth bar that can do light digging but I think it would be too hard on the tractor to try to break ground (hard clay) with the bucket.

2. Borrow a local friends 6" HD box blade. I have never used one before but understand that if the scarifiers are set low, it can be used similar to a dozer, breaking ground and grading. Please correct me if i'm wrong. Is it possible to remove 2' of dirt with this setup.

3. Go pick up the wheeled bobcat w 4n1. It hasnt been run in 3 months and I have no clue if the battery is dead or fuel is bad. I would have to drive an hour just to spend the rest of the day messing with it.


Whats my best option? The box blade should be easier to cut an even grade with than the hoe/loader right? How much longer would it take using a box blade vs bobcat? If its several hours, I would be ok with that since it will most likely take at least that long to get the skid loader to my property.

[Ozz]

Go buy yourself an older, small track loader. I have an older loader, but I've owned it for ten years... They can be found for cheaper, like 5-6k locally, and last really long. I have 6,000 hours on my 941B and will probabaly get twice that out of it.


I just bought a '02 JD 555G, but the '78 (I think?- Might be an '80 model) 941B out performs it with nearly 4x the hours, less HP and some beating by inexperienced operators.

Another option would be to call a small, local track loader guy like moi and have them do it. The majority of them are either semi-retired or have nothering better to do, but run the loader really well and will do it for next to nothing.

I'm not exactly semi-retired, nor retired, but run my biz.

[alanauer]

A box blade is easy to control and the cuts are even, level, and gradual. But it needs strong traction and can have trouble with rocks and hard clay. Maybe use the hoe for initial work and the blade for finishing.

[godflesh]

I use a 5ft box blade to bust heavy pack soil like what you are wanting to dig. I weight it with about 200lbs of ballast and put the rippers all the way down until I get close to my level. If you use a 6ft HD box blade and weight the hell out of it, you should be able to move close to a half yard of dirt per pass. Ive found that pulling the dirt out is easier than pushing it out with a loader or dozer. But that's just me.

[krackerjack9]

Box blade should due it no problem. Instead of putting down all 6 rippers, depending on how hard the ground is and if you have a traction issue I put down the middle ripper and the 2 outside ones this way you get more PSI per ripper to break ground might take you 2 or 3 passes, pick up a load of material in your bucket for more traction, if you have 2wheel drive then it might take you a bit longer

[Ron D.]

Do you need to remove the dirt from the site, or take the high area dirt and grade it to the lower area? If you need to remove the dirt from the slab area, I would dig it with the backhoe, put it where you want it with the loader, then spread/level it with the box blade. If you're grading the dirt from the high area to the low area, I dig/loosen the dirt with the backhoe and then drag it to the low area with the box blade.

Good luck,
Ron

[jigbuilder]

I've leveled a site for my 40' X 60' tractor shed and a 18' X 40' 5th wheel RV shed with my 50 hp blue tractor and a 6' box blade. Both are on a 2' slope.
I drop the BB rippers all the way down and cross/crisscross the pad site to rip the turf/rocks. I drag, and use the tractors FEL, turf into one area out of the way to move later. Once the Bermuda grass turf is out of the way its pretty easy for the box blade and rippers to move dirt.

I've also built a (approx) 30' wide x 80' X 6' deep small pond on a slope with the BB/rippers mostly. The FEL comes in handy moving piles of dirt/debree. The FEL pretty worthless digging in dry hard pan/rocky soils. I'm in northeast Oklahoma with hard/sandstone soils. My son lives in central FL in sandy soil and can dig a hole in short time big enough to bury his green 30 hp tractor.

What equipment to use depends on soil types. I think you will find the box blade with rippers a good tool for leveling small pad sites.

[lwcmattlifter]

I ended up buying a used heavy duty 5' Howse box blade. With the rippers all the way down, it pulled roots and rock fine as long as I kept the tractor in 4wd. I made a few passes then moved the dirt to the dill pile with the loader. I ended up grading about 12" further down than the picture, then dug the footer with the backhoe. Having never used one, I am very impressed with what a box blade is capable of doing.