How many others double up your blades? When we change our blades, we take the front set and swap ends, so the outside ends become the centers in the rear set. With our 16 foot moldboards by the time the rear set is finished with, they are pretty much 4" across. We use 1" x 8" x 8' installed with grade 9 3-1/2" plough bolts with washers to install. Searching through our used blade racks when I used to work in my first field, a former co-worker would routinely have used blades that were 8" on the outside ends and 4" on the center, he refused to double. So how many double? As a side note we change blades with the moldboard parallel with the frame and facing up, about waist high. I use an IR composite body 1/2" impact gun to fasten the nuts upwards. I have used a CP steel body 3/4" in the past, and now I don't mind double checking with breaker bar and a snipe instead.
I'll try to take some pictures of our blade racks to show how much actual use we get. As an aside, I wish I had pictures of me working my first summer in training with my Dad. We had 2 Cats doing a 2 pass staggered about 150' apart to not disrupt the haul road traffic. 160H in lead and my 140H following.
We have a hard time getting a hard cut on washboard, "chuck" holes (you know- those deep sharp tire sized little ones you get on a high traffic road after a couple of days of drizzling rain), or any good hard clay road when we double the blades. We also have to be careful to not take the crown out of the softer roads. We also tried doubling them up for snow plowing, but at times, you had to heat them with a torch to get them loose. So we put an extra blade on the wing were we wear the hardest, and don't worry about the rest.
I went to carbide blades. That ended my problems. We rotate once a season just to keep the wear even. On out snowplows, we weld the worn edge onto the new edge at the bottom. That way we get 100% out of our plow edges.
What ratio do you think the carbide edges outlast the standard ones? Most of our work is in granite, so we can chew up a set of 8"x5/8 curved blades in a week. I've never seen anyone doubling up here, we don't get much snow work though. Cheers, Greg
Deere Stinger blades, if you're working in gravel you'll never go back....
I also switched to carbide edges from Black Cat blades. Put around 1000 miles of gravel road maintenance on a year. Two years on this set and I see no reason why they won't last a third season. They are spendy but I was spending a little more on regular edges a year so they have paid for themselves with ease. I really like how you always have a straight edge. It makes blading intersections and radiuses a pleasure instead of those dang outside tips always gouging. You do have to be careful if you have a lot of larger rocks that are just poking through the surface. The carbide is really brittle and can shatter if you hit something just right. It is more of an issue the faster you are moving so if you know where your trouble spots are you can just slow down a bit in those spots. Don't get me wrong they are pretty tough. I have had some rather hard jarring hits with no damage. I just try to be careful but you know how that goes.
I've been preaching Black Cat stingers for years, but with no luck. We used carbides one winter. They held up pretty good, as long as you didn't hit a manhole. but we have not done any plowing with the grader for at least 7 years. My 2011 Volvo came with a set of winter tires, as it was ordered in for the city of Moncton. They put 101 hours on it, and the tires and the wing have sat in a container ever since. In the summer, when she wears up bad in the center, we just cut it with the torch, and a straight edge. I do mostly asphalt prep with it. We don't do any road maintainance, as the city has their own grader, as well the county and there is a contractor here with about 10 old graders that does work with the logging companies. Things have been so slow here with road work, that the grader only has about 1200 hours on it anyway. If not for our small graders being busy prepping driveways, I'd probably already be working out west.