Rubber Scraper for LP RB1572 Rear Blade

[Fatfenders]

Since we're enjoying a little reprieve from cold weather in Northern WI, I worked on fabricating rubber scrapers for my Land Pride R1572 rear blade today. My company will be doing snow blowing this Winter with my LX2610HSDC set up with a 64" Commercial Snow Blower and the Land Pride RB1572 (72") rear blade should be the perfect compliment for that. Adding the rubber blade will prevent damaging my client's concrete or asphalt driveways.

As you may know, I am certainly not the first person to do this, but this is the process I used.

I purchased one of these at a Fleet Farm in Antigo, WI. This seems like it would be a common item at any farm supply store. This mat is listed as a 4' x 6' x 3/4" thick mat.
Fleet Farm Stall Mat <- Click

The mat is VERY heavy, so with my wife and daughter's help, I moved this mat from the back of my truck to my flatbed trailer. This job would be very difficult without a large flat surface to work on. For cutting, we positioned the mat with the piece I was cutting off, hanging off the end of the trailer. The mat was cut with a Milwaukee 7 1/4" circular saw. Cutting rubber creates a LOT of drag on the blade. A lesser quality saw may not have handled it. As it was, while I was cutting, my wife pulled to cutoff piece away from the cut to prevent the saw from stalling due to drag. This method creates a lot of rubber powder and occassionally a little smoke. I wouldn't cut it in the house...

There are no pictures of the cutting as we the three of us had to focus on the cutting. What we ended up with was 8 strips of rubber, 6"x 72" (the width of the mat). Conveniently, there were grooves about 1" apart on the back of the mat, so no measuring was needed. IF I were to do this again, I'd cut them at 11". That would provide 4 strips 11" x 72". The 11" wide strips would be reversible when one side wears out and save drilling half the holes.

I laid the steel blade edge on the rubber strips to mark for holes. I used a round soapstone a little smaller than the diameter of a pencil to trace the hole position onto the rubber. Here you can see one hole started on the right side of the rubber and the next holes marked as squares in white. Tried a Sharpie and couldn't see it.

Drilling the holes was quite a challenge, until I figured out how to do it without leaving a rubber plug in the hole saw. A 3/4" (19mm) hole saw was used to make the holes for the 5/8" x 2 1/2" Grade 5 bolts.

When drilling the holes, drill about 3/4 of the way through. Using a small screwdriver poke through the center of the whole created by the hole saw. Then flip the rubber strip over and drill slowly from the back side using the pilot bit in the hole created by the screwdriver. You'll then be able to easily pull the rubber plug out of the end of the hole saw. CAUTION - the hole saw will be HOT!

And this is the finished product. The blade is now assembled and ready to use. The bolts should have washers which I'll add soon. The bolts are held with a lock washer and nut. I'll likely replace the nut and lock washer with a nylock nut.

There is a little over 1" of rubber past the edge. I will be interested in seeing how this works with the blade facing forward or back and how long it lasts. With 7 extras, I should have a good supply of blades for a few Winters anyway.

 

[85Hokie]

Excellent write up with great pictures.
I have cut these mats before - not fun at all with ant tool!

 

[chim]

When I built the cab for my L3200 I used a "cow mat" from Tractor Supply to close the area under the seat. It ran from fender to fender and from the sheet metal at the rear of the floor and curved up to fasten to the back wall of the cab below the window.

This was made in one piece and I discovered that the difficulty in cutting it varies with the approach. With the material laying flat, I heated a carbide-tipped circular saw blade to the point that it warped and wobbled. It laughed at my razor knife - even with my favorite Irwin bimetal blade.

However, when the rubber was bent as hard as possible over an edge while cutting, it behaved like a whole different material.

As a side note, I did a couple rubber edges for blades and used tire tread. We have one on a Montana at work that's at least 8 years old and has lots of wear left. At first I thought we should have made it twice as wide so we could flip it over when it wore down. It'll still be in use long after I retire.

If you're careful that material can be had for free along most highways from big trucks shedding retreads.

 

[bearskinner]

Great job, and very heavy duty. I helped a buddy make a light version for the 4’ blade on his quad. North 40 ( like tractor supply) here has rolls of tread material, much like 1/4” thick tire sidewalls is various widths. You buy it by the foot off a large roll. We did 7” wide, centered the holes ( like you said, so it’s reversible when you wear it down.) he calls it his driveway squeegee.

 

[BigG]

Belting for a round baler might work for this and would be a lot easier to work with. It is already cut into strips.

 

[sheepfarmer]

This is a fwiw heads up for those people looking for stall mats for this and other purposes. I have bought stall mats from TSC for the last 30 years and they don't look the same from one year to the next, but they all worked. The last batch I just walked in and said I needed 5 stall mats and didn't go out to the yard to look at them. Well the "up" side had round knobs all over it, which catch the pitch fork, and would make that style unusable for snowblade purposes.

 

[Ping]

Fatfenders,
good write up. I’m using a similar looking mat on both my front and rear blades and it wears like iron. I plow gravel, asphalt and concrete. Are you pulling or pushing with your blade? Reason I ask is, I got 4 years out of the first piece before it tore at one of the grooves. If you’re only plowing traveling forward, you might want to put the grooves to the rear.
regards

 

[Fatfenders]

Great job, and very heavy duty. I helped a buddy make a light version for the 4’ blade on his quad. North 40 ( like tractor supply) here has rolls of tread material, much like 1/4” thick tire sidewalls is various widths. You buy it by the foot off a large roll. We did 7” wide, centered the holes ( like you said, so it’s reversible when you wear it down.) he calls it his driveway squeegee.

I saw a similar material, "corded" in the middle at Fleet Farm. I considered doubling it up for my plow but planned on buying the mat and stuck with it. I can see how it would great on smaller, lighter plows!

 

[Fatfenders]

Fatfenders,
good write up. I’m using a similar looking mat on both my front and rear blades and it wears like iron. I plow gravel, asphalt and concrete. Are you pulling or pushing with your blade? Reason I ask is, I got 4 years out of the first piece before it tore at one of the grooves. If you’re only plowing traveling forward, you might want to put the grooves to the rear.
regards

Thanks for the feedback. This is a new tractor for me and I'm new to "tractoring" LOL. I've done a bit of reading on rear plows, how people use them, on what surfaces with a particular focus on removing snow from gravel Seems the majority either turn the plow "backwards" or they put a piece of pipe on the bottom and use them normally.

I'm removing snow for my business and most driveways are gravel, so I opted for rubber edge and plowing backwards. Being my first Winter doing this, I guess I'll see how it goes. I thought about the grooves for the exact reason you mention...

 

[SidecarFlip]

I bet you smelled 'peachy' by the time you cut all those strips....

 

[Fatfenders]

This is a fwiw heads up for those people looking for stall mats for this and other purposes. I have bought stall mats from TSC for the last 30 years and they don't look the same from one year to the next, but they all worked. The last batch I just walked in and said I needed 5 stall mats and didn't go out to the yard to look at them. Well the "up" side had round knobs all over it, which catch the pitch fork, and would make that style unusable for snowblade purposes.

Interesting. The mat I purchased has a psydo diamond plate look, but they are very small and much farther apart that what one visualizes diamond plate.