rear blade guage wheel 2

With snow just around the corner I needed to make a decent gauge wheel for my rear blade. Something to allow me to toss the snow without removing all of the gravel. So I ordered this wheel, hub and yoke from agrisupply.com for about $70, tossed in a few bits and pieces, and voila! I have it set up so the yoke shaft is vertical when the blade is about 2" up.

MagKarl said:

Nice work! Makes me think my blade could use a nice pin on appendage and steal the tail wheel off my mower during winter. Great idea.

Edit - Is that a chain top link I see? How's that work on a blade? Seems like if you drop your 3pt arms too low you're going to ride on the wheel and still not prevent the edge from biting. Curious.

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Yes, it is a chain top link. That allows the blade to generally stay closer to the ground, suspended between the rear tractor tires and the gauge wheel. I use the chain for a top link for my bush hog as well, for the same reason. I've noticed that many of the newer crop of bush hogs offer some kind of articulating top link attachment with built in "give". It probably would not make a whole lot of difference on my driveway.
Mostly I'll set the hitch arms at a comfortable height and leave them there. I've been running around the neighborhood and it seems to be working fine.
Before I started using a chain on the bush hog I pretty well bent up the top link on it - it puts a terrific strain on the link when the tractor heads up an abrupt hill and the 3 point has to compensate.

Eric McCarthy said:

To really set that rear blade off and make it a bad ass toy. Check out Fall Line and look into a polyurethane cutting edge. I'm thinking about geting me a chunk for my blade this year.

http://www.fallline.com/store/Results.cfm?Cat_ID=9&secondary=23

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I don't see an advantage in dirt/gravel roads. The nearest pavement is a couple of miles away. My problem has always just been pushing the gravel off to the side of the drive, then blasting it all over the place with the mower in the summer. I think these edges would be great on black-top. Let us know how you make out...