Box blade or tooth bar for grading grassy area? Or neither?

[Sporto]

I agree with the tiller idea or using a disc as sod is a royal pain. my first choice would be the tiller and box blade. the tiller makes the sod easier to level, very little clumping

 

[Lencho]

Have you considered raising the pool instead? It would be a pain to drain and disassemble it up but then you could build up the ground under the pool and add a bit to the low area as well. That saves tearing up all the grass and a muddy yard until the grass regrows.

 

[nbryan]

Ya, I'm thinking this may be the way to go. I can attest, based on the prices and availability I'm seeing, that these things definitely keep their value. Now just to FIND one....

I'd be putting my BB1560 box scraper on for that job, for sure. The BB1560 is a hell of a solid unit. And sized perfect for our B2650 machines. It's enough ballast too, that the rear tires remain firmly planted with the loader or pallet forks lifting all that the hydraulics can manage.

 

[BetterThanAShovel]

Have you considered raising the pool instead? It would be a pain to drain and disassemble it up but then you could build up the ground under the pool and add a bit to the low area as well. That saves tearing up all the grass and a muddy yard until the grass regrows.

No, that's not possible, even if I wanted to go through all that pain. (We put the pool together ourselves, including ground prep, because no one else could get to it until the summer was already gone. We DID it...but I don't ever want to do that again). The pool has to be built on undisturbed ground, so you can only remove soil, not add any. The risk of ground settling unevenly is too great. Because our backyard is a little sloped, one side of the pool is below grade, but the other side is about even. I think with the backhoe and a box blade (if I can find one) should make it so that a little over half of the base around the pool can drain away. The rest will hopefully drain to that area..

Our backyard has only ever really been ugly grass, it's mostly shaded area, so we have nothing like a vibrant lawn. We can deal with a year or two of basically no grass in the backyard while it grows.

 

[old George]

Buy a heavy box blade, sized to the outside edge of your rear tires,
Yes get the indivdually adjustable up and down 7 or 8 teeth
Box Blades last forever and work great with practice moving dirt and shaping an area,

If you need to cut a high area down-- a few inches, or feet, -- harrow or roto-till the high area first, makes life much much easier

If your tractor lacks a rear hitch float control, learn to feather the rear lift handle up and down w your right hand while steering with the left

With a little practice you can do wonders with a box blade,

Understand over time you are going to buy a variety of implements, in 20-30 years, your heirs can sell most of them for as much or more than you paid for them [ rotary mowers being the only exception] But Lord willing and they are still on the land.... they won't sell the implements just buy a new tractor and love you all over again for buying quality back when the price was so low

 

[Lencho]

No, that's not possible, even if I wanted to go through all that pain. (We put the pool together ourselves, including ground prep, because no one else could get to it until the summer was already gone. We DID it...but I don't ever want to do that again). The pool has to be built on undisturbed ground, so you can only remove soil, not add any. The risk of ground settling unevenly is too great. Because our backyard is a little sloped, one side of the pool is below grade, but the other side is about even. I think with the backhoe and a box blade (if I can find one) should make it so that a little over half of the base around the pool can drain away. The rest will hopefully drain to that area..

Our backyard has only ever really been ugly grass, it's mostly shaded area, so we have nothing like a vibrant lawn. We can deal with a year or two of basically no grass in the backyard while it grows.

OK then, time to get a Box Blade as most are recommending. I also started with just the FEL and Backhoe. A heavy Box Blade came next and use a dolly to store the backhoe. Swapping is worth the time and effort.

 

[mikester]

a regular blade with a set of gauge wheels will do the trick

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Landplane

 

[B737]

Landplane

on a grass yard????

I agree with @nbryan. Till with tiller, then you will be able to use box blade, or preferably a rake with gauge wheels.

dragging a rear blade, or box blade is likely going to be a waste of time with huge chunks of sod getting in the way, just going to turn into a giant mess.

I have a land pride BB1260, it is way too light. I will second the 15 or 25 series. In order to effectively use my 1260 I add 500 pounds of suitcase weights to it, I suspect it won't be long for this world, am somewhat eager to replace it with a proper heavier one.

 

[jyoutz]

One of the projects that I want to get done this summer is re-grading of the backyard area. There is a low spot that collects the rain water and turns to mud. Also, we put in a pool last year in the backyard, and I want to grade away from the pool so water doesn't collect around it as well.

That means a lot of grading/scraping. The backhoe on my B2650 will work just fine for breaking up the soil...but I'm not sure what the best tool will be for working in the gradual slope in the whole yard to achieve drainage.

I've attached a terrible picture of the project area. As you can see, the ground is higher than the pool right now, so that has to be removed and the pool has to become the high point. Where the plastic water pistol is is the current low point of the yard. The entire yard slopes towards the trees in the background, so that's where it all has to go.

I've been considering something like a piranha bar for the bucket since the ground here is mostly clay, and pretty hard to dig into with the smooth front bar on the bucket currently. But for so large a project, I'm not sure even a tooth bar will be practical.

At the same time...I'm not sure there's enough OTHER work around here to justify a box blade. I'm almost sad that we paved our gravel driveway, heh. The local store appears to have a 72" box blade I could rent, but ideally I should be using a 60" to keep from getting bogged down.

Any suggestions on the right tool for doing a lot of re-grading of this grassy area?

Thanks.

I would use a pto rototiller to break up and soften the soil and grass, then a blade to smooth and level the ground.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

on a grass yard????

I agree with @nbryan. Till with tiller, then you will be able to use box blade, or preferably a rake with gauge wheels.

dragging a rear blade, or box blade is likely going to be a waste of time with huge chunks of sod getting in the way, just going to turn into a giant mess.

I have a land pride BB1260, it is way too light. I will second the 15 or 25 series. In order to effectively use my 1260 I add 500 pounds of suitcase weights to it, I suspect it won't be long for this world, am somewhat eager to replace it with a proper heavier one.

I just throw some sand down, then land plane it smooth, the grass grows through the sand.
It's how they do it on the best golf courses.

 

[BetterThanAShovel]

Well, there's been no luck so far on finding a decent used box blade in the area, and I'm not ready to spend on a new one. So I pulled the trigger on the Piranha toothbar. Dunno when it'll get here, hopefully just weeks.

Thanks for the input to all. I think between the backhoe and the toothbar, I'll at least get something going to allow proper drainage, and that'll give me time to get a good deal on a boxblade to do it properly later.

 

[TheShadyKubota]

Well, there's been no luck so far on finding a decent used box blade in the area, and I'm not ready to spend on a new one. So I pulled the trigger on the Piranha toothbar. Dunno when it'll get here, hopefully just weeks.

Thanks for the input to all. I think between the backhoe and the toothbar, I'll at least get something going to allow proper drainage, and that'll give me time to get a good deal on a boxblade to do it properly later.

Message anyone who has a tractor for sale and try to snag a BB off of the total sale of the unit. That's what I just did.

 

[PNWBXer]

Message anyone who has a tractor for sale and try to snag a BB off of the total sale of the unit. That's what I just did.

Where would one find such a deal?

 

[TheShadyKubota]

Where would one find such a deal?

We have Kijiji up in Canada.. maybe Craigslist or something similar in the states?

 

[BetterThanAShovel]

Message anyone who has a tractor for sale and try to snag a BB off of the total sale of the unit. That's what I just did.

That's a pretty good idea. I'll broaden my search to include tractors.