Hello all, i am wondering about the use of carbide cutting edges in the winter. Let me start out with kinda how this came about. A few years ago the company i work for bought carbide cutting edges for a couple of the graders to use in the summer for road grading and take them off in the winter and use regular cutting edges for snow removal. We have a rain that had turned over to snow and now the roads have a couple of inches of build up on them and we are out trying to cut this off the blacktop roads. I have a set of the carbide edges that are getting pretty bad and had thoughts of trying them in the winter just for this reason. My boss heard of this and said no that they are not made for that only for summer use. I talked to another company near by and they also have these carbide cutting edges and the salesman sold them just for this reason and said not to use them on gravel roads for it will break the carbide sections off if you hit rocks that dont move(lol) so to speak. I guess i do see that reason in the edges i was running this summer, i took the worst set to try them out and ended up loving them but yes they had chunks broke out of them. So what is your opinion, or dealings with these edges? Thank you
Most all of the State trucks run carbide edges on their plows. They will work great in the winter time too. I usually run just regular edges in the winter time because if you get too agressive on the asphalt with the carbides you will start to take the ashalt off. Also regular edges will conform to the wheel ruts in the asphalt better than the carbides
We have run carbides on our underbelly plow trucks. You can get a season out of a set of carbides with appropriate down pressure but they will not cut / peel hard pack off like a set of heat treated steel blades. I had a driver that didn't want a set of carbides and burned thru the set in 10 hours. (Should have fired him on the spot:Banghead). (All he had to say is "I want to change blades every 10 hours and he could have had regular blades)
two questions one are you talking straight edge blades that are carbide embedded or are you talking like planner teeth carbide blades. the county i used to work for ran straight steel blades in the summer for blading. They used carbide planner teeth blades in the winter for gravels only to break up the ice packs and get better traction. if you put them on asphalt A you will gouge the pavement, and B you will tear chunks out if the catch. nor for snow plows on pick ups we put joplin chat down to chip seal with and every but me had regular blades on theirs and i had carbide blades on a 8 ft boss v plow every one else changed blades about 5 to 10 times through the season. I never changed the blades once and could probably have gone another season on them. we take care of about 202 miles of road asphalt gravel and chip seal.
For starters we use carbides on our trucks as well, but i am wondering about using them on a grader for cutting ice and build up on gravel and blacktop roads. I realize they can chew up the blacktop because i use them in the summer and when i shoulder and have to clean spillage of the blacktop and even tickling it makes a mark. Bobcat......straight edge with carbide embedded segments. To start of this winter we had rain then turned to snow. Most of the blacktops ended up with a couple inches of hard ice build up and that is when i was going to try this out. I would go back after that to regular cutting edges but looking for something better then regular cutting edges for this reason. Thanks
i dont see an issue with it just pay attention to your down pressure and look at the results behind you. Its all a guessing game on new practices of doing something. try it one way and then another. You may try just putting it in float and see if the weight of the mold board and frame are enough to cut it. pay attention to bad segments in your asphalt roads if they are questionable about break up. That way when it thaws you dont have big pot holes every where from taking chunks out. all you can do is try and see what happens.