Box Blades & Graders in Jasper, TX

For most driveway and gate work, yes, as long as the blade suits the tractor. A compact tractor runs a narrower, lighter box blade well. What it can't do is drag a wide, heavy blade through clay without spinning or bogging down. Frame size and weight matter more than the horsepower number. Three tractors can share a rating and be built for three different jobs. Look at your three-point hitch's lift capacity and the blade's weight together. For a long lane or a new pad, a bigger tractor makes the work go smoother. Bring your tractor's make and model to Buna and compare.

Yes. Once the brush is cut and the stumps are out, a box blade knocks down the high spots and fills the holes. That gives seed an even bed and lets rain soak in instead of running off. Drop the scarifier shanks on the first pass to loosen packed ground, then raise them to smooth. A lot of buyers at our Buna store are deer hunters and cattle ranchers, and a plot cut out of the woods is a job this tool handles. Roots will catch the shanks in old timber ground, so go slow and stop to pull them.

It does. Clay grabs the blade when it's wet and turns hard as brick when it's dry. Work it when it's damp but has stopped sticking to your boots. Loam moves easier and smooths out with less effort. Along Sandy Creek you'll find both loamy and clayey soils, sometimes on the same place. Use the shanks on dry clay. Leave them up on loose loam, where they'll only dig furrows. Either way, take thin cuts. A blade that's loaded too full of clay leaves lumps behind it, and lumps turn into ruts the next time it rains.

Keep the crown, and keep the gravel where it belongs. A drive washboards when traffic pushes gravel into ridges and the dips between them hold water. Run the box blade with the shanks up and let the back edge do most of the work. Pull gravel from the edges back toward the middle so the crown sheds water to each side. Go slow. Speed makes a blade bounce, and a bouncing blade cuts its own washboard. Grading after a hard rain, once the drive dries, keeps you ahead of it. A drive that's kept crowned stands up to truck traffic a lot longer.

At our Buna store. You can look at the box scraper's edge, its shanks and its side plates up close, and see how it hangs from a three-point hitch. Ask about the IronCraft and Modern Ag implements while you're there, too. The lot changes, so if you're making the trip for one particular blade, call the store first and make sure it hasn't sold. Bring your tractor's make and model along. That way you can weigh a blade against your hitch's lift capacity right there, instead of guessing at it once you're back home in Jasper.