Foil

[J Berry]

New to this plowing thing this year, the plow I have came
with a foil on it should I take it off or just it on leave for the season?

As I stated above I am a virgin to this plowing thing
so don't trash me to hard

Thanks for any input
Jim~~

 

[cat320]

Well the foil is good if your gonna do alot of straight plowing and no pileing.But id your gonna push and pile a steel one is not really to good I would try to get some old conveor belt and put it on.when you start to pile it will fold up letting you get the best use of your plow.Ask dino on this forum what he would recomend.

 

[John DiMartino]

You didnt say,but I assume you have a Fisher plow.I have 3 Fishers,I with a foil,I have no problems stacking with it,the only thing i dont like is that when piling snow,the snow will come over the blade and lay on the top of the foil.When you back up and drop the blade to start pushing your next pass,the snow falls off the back of the foil,down behind the blade,This makes it impossible to scrape a lot clean without going back over it.I waxed the foil and it helped alot,but it still holds some snow sometimes.

 

[plowking35]

I say run what you brung. If it didnt have a foil, I wouldnt spend the money on one, I would do the coveyor belt thing, in fact I have and it works great. We also can get urethane snow flaps, but I would only buy one of those so I can look cool. I personally like the rubber flap design better than the foil, I find snow still easily comes over the foil, a flap on the foil may work very well also. The bottom line is if it aint broke, dont fix it, the foil will be better than no foil.
Dino

 

[GeoffDiamond]

Plowking wrote: If it didnt have a foil, I wouldnt spend the money on one, I would do the coveyor belt thing, in fact I have and it works great.

Coveyor belts on everyone of my truck plows, it's cheap and works great, and doesn't get in the way when stacking. I figure by useing conveyor belts, on my plows, I have saved enough money to buy another plow. Just ran the numbers and i saved 3 grand, no granted i would put anything on my v-plows, but still the cost savings are there.

Geoff

 

[finnegan]

I used to have a fisher with afoil on it ,it always took more time to clean up becuase of that damn foil....

 

I run all 4 of my Fishers with foils and we like them a lot and do not have any problems with stacking. The only problems we have ever had is when trying to get too close to a dumpster or light pole we have dented the foil a little bit, but we have tried the coveyer belt and find that while driving down the road the rubber will blow up and cause a lot of wind resistince. Just My two cents.

 

[cat320]

SLC my belt is alittle stiffer and does not move like that when i drive but is flexable enough for pileing

 

[nsmilligan]

I took my foil off, after I welded it a couple of times. I found stacking snow put a lot of stress on it and it would break at the mounts. Also I found in heavy snow it would cause the blade to lift as the snow rolled up against it, then your wheels were in a few inches of snow and end of push. The only place I really thought they were useful was when side casting on long runs or driveways, they do keep a lot of snow from blowing back on the windshield. I always thought it would be neat to have a hydralic one that would fold out the way at the push of a button. I think Diamond has a manual one that can be folded back.
Try it both ways. A couple of storms with it on, then unbolt it some fine day a try a storm or two with it off, and see what works best for you.

Bill

 

[slplow]

I had a snow foil on one of my dumps that I owned. After the first snowstorm I took the darn thing off! After stacking a snowbank, backing up the snow that was ontop of the foil would fall in the middle of parking lots. The best system that I found to work out with Fishers, is their metal snow deflectors and a piece of angle iron mounted to the top of that with an eight inch piece of rubber hanging down. But like everyone else says, if you are just plowing streets with straight lines, I would keep it on for that because it does keep snow off the windshield. hope this helps - my two cents worth!