Earlier this fall I got a Piranha tooth bar. There are 10,000 posts about them. About 60% of the reason I got it was to be sacrificial and not ware down the cutting edge on my FEL bucket moving snow on our long gravel drive. It works well moving snow AFTER you do some learning curve of how to set the working angle and remembering it is out in front of your usual bucket edge. It is easy to have it gouge the driveway until you learn to use it.
So now we have a good solid base of frozen ground and packed snow to work with for the rest of winter.. Problem is it went to glare ice on a bit warmer day a while back. A real broken hip type of dangerous.
With the tooth bar on the loader bucket, I tipped it at about a 45 degree angle and back drug it on the glare ice of packed snow on the driveway. It seemed to work well. It worked best to go 2 directions with this pattern at 90 degrees down and across the drive and yard.
Today I did this procedure again. This time I tipped the cutting edge about 60 or more degrees from flat. As I have a more solid base frozen down now this worked well. Again dragging both ways down the driveway and across the driveway making a checked pattern of grooves in the ice.
The secret to making this work is to not take too much weight off the front tractor wheels so you still have some steering control. Better to make multiple passes.
DO NOT, repeat DO NOT go fast. Take is slow and easy as a ridge in the ice or a low spot will make the tractor front end skate sideways. You don't want to be going fast if/when this happens.
Traction is not a problem as I have heavy duty V bar ladder chains on loaded turf tires.
Next summer I plan to build a clip on bucket attachment with more ice cutting edges than the 8 edges on the tooth bar. I'm thinking 24 - 25 or so edges 3/8 thick across the bucket front.
Of course we use salt, sand, wood ashes, all the usual ice aids in the areas we use the most.
Tips, tricks, suggestions, experiences good or bad.
My 5 cents of experience.
So now we have a good solid base of frozen ground and packed snow to work with for the rest of winter.. Problem is it went to glare ice on a bit warmer day a while back. A real broken hip type of dangerous.
With the tooth bar on the loader bucket, I tipped it at about a 45 degree angle and back drug it on the glare ice of packed snow on the driveway. It seemed to work well. It worked best to go 2 directions with this pattern at 90 degrees down and across the drive and yard.
Today I did this procedure again. This time I tipped the cutting edge about 60 or more degrees from flat. As I have a more solid base frozen down now this worked well. Again dragging both ways down the driveway and across the driveway making a checked pattern of grooves in the ice.
The secret to making this work is to not take too much weight off the front tractor wheels so you still have some steering control. Better to make multiple passes.
DO NOT, repeat DO NOT go fast. Take is slow and easy as a ridge in the ice or a low spot will make the tractor front end skate sideways. You don't want to be going fast if/when this happens.
Traction is not a problem as I have heavy duty V bar ladder chains on loaded turf tires.
Next summer I plan to build a clip on bucket attachment with more ice cutting edges than the 8 edges on the tooth bar. I'm thinking 24 - 25 or so edges 3/8 thick across the bucket front.
Of course we use salt, sand, wood ashes, all the usual ice aids in the areas we use the most.
Tips, tricks, suggestions, experiences good or bad.
My 5 cents of experience.
