4 of the Most Important Things To Know About Box Blades

1. What is a Box Blade?

Hi, it’s Mike from asktractormike.com. One attachment that a lot of people get when they buy a tractor is a box blade, and box blades are really useful tools both for leveling ground and for maintaining gravel driveways.

Box blades are a tool that have a lot of uses around the homestead. If there’s rough ground that needs to be leveled and prepared for seeding or a gravel driveway that has developed a “hump” or crown from years of use, a box blade can fix those, and other, problems.  

2. What are the Main Differences Between Box Blades?

At first blush, there’s not much difference between box blades, other than price. But, with most things, you get what you pay for. This blog talks about the different options that are available so you know what you’re buying. Most homeowners can get by with about the cheapest box blade you can find, but if you use it a lot, or you’re in really rough terrain like I am in the Missouri Ozarks, a heavier built model may be worth the extra money. Many of the major manufacturers of box blades make an inexpensive model and a deluxe model. Some even have an intermediate line. I’ll give you some tips on what to look for in this blog so you get one that will work for you.

3. How Do I Buy a Box Blade?

Now we’re going to talk about what to look for when buying a box blade and I will explain how to use it and adjust it.

Let’s say you’re getting ready to buy a box blade. The first thing to look at is how thick is the metal on the box blade. There’s a tube that goes down the center of the box blade, and on the more expensive box blades, those will be heavier built and reinforced, and on the cheaper ones, they’ll be lighter.

The next thing to look at is, of course, the sides and the back. The part that takes a lot of stress is this back part here where the cutting edge is, and you want to make sure that’s pretty thick metal and well built.

The cutting edge is the next thing we’re going to look at, and that’s really the business end of the box blade. You want a curved cutting edge for digging, and a lot of the more expensive box blades have a replaceable cutting edge. The cheaper ones will just have a welded piece of metal right there, so you want the replaceable hardened steel cutting edge if you can get it.

The next thing we’re going to look at is how it hooks to the tractor. The cheaper box blades have pins that stick out that you’ll put your three-point arms around. The more expensive box blades will have a couple of brackets that come out, and they go on each side of the three-point arms of the tractor, and then you put a pin through there. I like that setup better; it’s probably a little easier to attach, and it’s stronger. Box blades take a lot of torque, and if you have two brackets there, that’s better than having just the one pin.

The next thing we’re going to look at on the box blade is the ripper teeth or scarifiers. These are teeth that every box blade comes with, and they allow you to dig down in the ground if you’re trying to move compacted soil. You got to watch out for roots and everything with them.

There are a couple of different ways they attach to the main frame of the box blade that you want to look at. The one I like the best is the one with holes through it, where there’s a little loop on the box blade where you put a pin through to keep them up or down; that’s my favorite.

The second kind is one that’s kind of got a notch in the Ripper teeth that attaches to the frame of the box blade. I like these less.

All of this stuff I’m going to tell you, if you find a good deal on a box blade on Marketplace or Craigslist and it has none of these things, you’re probably going to be okay because for a homeowner, just about any box blade will do the trick. If you’re going to be using it a lot and putting it under a lot of stress, you need a heavier built box blade.

One last thing about picking out a box blade for your tractor: make sure you measure the back tire width of your tractor and get a box blade that’s slightly wider than the tractor. This particular box blade barely cuts out the tires of the tractor; if I were buying one, I’d try to get one just a little bit wider.

4. Using and Adjusting Your Box Blade

When using your box blade, the first thing we’re going to do is hook it up to the tractor and make sure it’s level. And that’s level from front to back, and level from side to side, and that’s if you’re just leveling out dirt.

Now, a little trick on a box blade: if you back up, you’re going to get more digging power than if you’re driving forward. And if you think about it, that’s the reason bulldozers have the blade on the front and not on the back. So, we’re actually making our tractor more into a bulldozer. We’re going to take our tractor, and we’re going to back up with everything level against that crown on the driveway, and what that’s going to do is work that gravel up to the surface and let us knock that down and get it a little more level. It’s also going to take the grass out of the center of the driveway.

Now, when we’re done with that process and we’ve kind of worked up the gravel a little bit, we’re going to come the other way to level it out. And before I do that, I’m going to adjust my box blade so it has a slight angle to one side. The reason I’m doing that, when you think about it, you don’t want your driveway dead level. If it’s dead level, water’s going to stand in it. When I’m spreading my gravel, I’m going to drive down the right side and then turn around and come back the left side, so I’m making the same angle on both sides of the driveway.

And if I’m doing this right, this is going to make me an excellent driveway. A lot of times, your gravel gets worked down in the soil, and when you run the box blade over it, it’s going to bring it back up to the surface and it’s going to make your driveway just a lot more usable and save you money having to get more gravel to put on the driveway.

Final Results and Tips

After about 20 minutes, the job is finished using the push first and then drag forward. In other words, reverse first and cut the crown, and then drag forward and let the gravel just kind of sift through the box blade, and it will look like a brand new driveway.