I know I haven seen many front blades on graders here but ive seen pics from Europe where most have them. I read an old Brochure on AC's D grader with front blade but that was a smaller machine. I guess it would be handy to knock down piles when spreading. Theres a big Deere down by the Divide Overlook park about five miles away with one on the parallel lift. I have a friend that works for a rural county and they have on for 20 miles of gravel road they maintain. He says its handy in a Washout of a road as the backhoe can stay at the pit or stock pile and load a few loads of gravel and he can push the pile in the wash then finish it with the blade. It saves time with the dozer or backhoe comming to push off. He also says its nicer as its got spot lights all the way around an all weather cab. He said when the road way floods he can take the front blade and atriculation and pushed a curved drain way our in the woods and still leave the tandems on the road. One of theirs was modified Degleman dozer blade off a large Steiger tractor. The other one is a factory Imac unit. Most folks I know say they like them but folks like my brother say he wouldnt have one as its not designed for it on a smaller machine. Id like yalls thoughts and opinions on them and other uses.
I've only ever seen them used for snow
It was an option to have a straight, non tilting blade on my '62 AW, and my '64 Galion. The operators manual for the AW (32,000 lbs, and 6x6) even shows a method of grubbing out stumps with it. The AW uses the same cylinder and lift linkage as the mid-mounted ripper. I have a blade off a log skidder sitting at my shop waiting to go on it. I think it will be good for knocking down piles of gravel on narrow roads.
Front blade on grader I can not imagine life with out a front blade. All of mine have had a front blade. Curent one has a 4 way blade. What can you do with one? Push trucks,push trees, push stumps. move bolders,knock down piles,ditchouts, backblade, lift flat tires into a truck, lift front of grader, plow snow... the list is endless. What I don't understand is how those of you that do not have one keep the front of the grader on the road with out that extra weight on the front axle. The few times that I have removed mine the front tires skate all over the place. Big Creek
We have a Champion 720 A with a blade on it and I would not be without it. We grade a lot of farmer's fencelines that have small piles of rock in them as well as small trees and the blade is invaluable for clearing them out of the way before grading. We also use it for knocking down piles and anything else that needs shifting. The one drawback I have found with the blade is working in confined areas, I have been concentrating on the main blade and forgotten about the front blade protruding three feet out the front of the machine. I have collected a couple of posts while turning, but one day I looked up and the front blade was about three inches from a large water tank. RnR.
I thought you guys had them on there to protect the tires from the grade stakes.
No Man! that's what the lowered bumpers on the trucks are for. Grader operators USE grade stakes.
The county where I grew up had a front blade on their 14G. I have seen them pioneer in roads in some pretty rough terrain with it. It was on a quick coupler, and in winter was swapped out for a "V" plow for the snow. I have wished I had one many times, as it would be very handy knocking down piles ahead of the main blade.
I think my brother and others that dont like them never have used on and dont see them as handy. I know mmy brother has run a large Cat grader with a push block for scrapers. On vacation in St Augusting Florida about every year we see at least 5 graders with blades on them. Every thing from Huber Mantainers Leeboy and old 12F Cats to a 14 and a 140 we saw. On the little Huber machines alot of them ran a rake on one side of the front blade that hinges up for clearing palmetto off shoulders.
i seen one on a contractors 140H CAT he loved the extra weight on the front if nothing else
Front blade with combo scrfier teeth We manufactured our first compact grader in 1980 and it had a front blade with combo flip down scarfier teeth. I don’t remember who else offered a front blade at that time. (I was only 8) My grandpa wanted it for working in tight places, knocking down piles, back dragging in corners, etc. Its funny that our very first grader would have it and still today it is the most popular attachment we sell. This image is slightly newer than 1980 but the design really hasn’t changed that much.
I saw a little 2 axle Champion at St. Augustine FLorida last year on a road maintenanc crew with a blade on the front doing some clean up work. I wanted to operate that badly lol.
This is the front blade that we have been buying for our graders. I've always had a front blade. As said above, it comes in handy for many different things. The blade that you see below is an excellent product...
It could have been this one!
Is this blade comeing with the new graders I run an old 720vhp with a front blade the welder made up still it works great use it a lot pushing trees off road knocking piles down etc
Yup...you must work for DOT?
Yes i work out of Rexton
Welcome to HEF! I work out of District 5 (Instructor). Hey Gramps!..there are 2 of us here now...lol. Are you getting a new Volvo tigtim?
I dont know doubt it . my old girl is getting tired . was a hard winter on it 21 days straight cutting banks wideing roads cutting ice had fun still not a job
I hear ya..my last grader was a 1996 Champion 720 VHP. I got it brand new, run it till 2001 then took this job. Its still going strong...good machine..
This one is a 1997 was run real hard before i got it needs a lot of work i got a lot of it done. but i dont think they want to put much more on it . down all week for a battery box were you teaching on the opp course in the Miramichi?
Yup...
I was there in 2007 you wouldn't be from Chipman anyways nice talking to you
Looks like we have met then..I'm the one from Chipman
that was a lot of information in the time frame we had. > seen your thread on skim patching . Got to do that last summer it was different got a thumbs up from the chip seal foreman sorry to be off topic again
It was me that lead it off topic..lol. Good talking to you..now.. back to front blades
what size volvo's are they getting now ? and does the harness for the new front blade stay on or do you have to take it off when you change over for the one way plough
We looked them over but I can't think of the exact size etc..We don't have a new one in my area yet. Same harness for both..
We bought this front blade at a farm sale. Had a manual angle bracket and a main beam that went under the tractor and hitched to the rear. I took it to a machine shop and had them remove the main beam and build a saddle to fit our scarifier beam. Tried it once and realized it stuck out too far forward. I remodeled it removing the angle system. Now the front tip of our scarifier beam is touching the back side of the moldboard. Can't angle it but it sure is more useable and doesn't get in the way so bad. If you need some pictures I can take some. I use the same rectangular pins that hold my snow plow to hold on this blade. Real simple to drop and pick up. We paid $600 for the blade assembly. Paid the shop another $400 to adopt it to our grader. Very handy attachment that I use a lot.
No doubt you already know this little hint, but you can get a usable amount of angle from your front blade by using full articulation, if you have the room to manoeuvre. We use it when backfilling trenches and the like. Cheers, Greg
In Germany the most graders have a front blade since years, I wonder, why not all have it, it is a good thing on a grader ,makes it more flexible.
The downside of having a front blade on a grader is that most grader operators that I have come across are unfortunately not intelligent enough to use it correctly. The grader ends up doing work that should rightly be done by a wheeled or tracked dozer and so gets broken on a regular basis. My 2c ............
I run a dozer blade on my 772ch absolutely love it very handy to have it on there I'm running the johndeer stinger bit cutting edges on it right now for when I'm maintaing my roads if I have to do dirt work I just put regular cutting edges on it here's a picture of it
The pushblock on front of the blade is made of like 2" steel. Plenty of weight.
I have seen front blades on many graders around Europe, but this one from Sweden, is properly the most advanced I have ever seen.
That appears to be a very versatile front blade. Looks to be built heavy also. Funny thing about it. At first glance I thought it was great that it angled. Then a second later I thought, wow, it angles the wrong way!!!! Then realized in it's part of the World traffic must drive on the left side of the road rather than right side as here in U.S. Ours does not angle or tilt but I use it a lot. Carry it any time I'm doing dirt work.
The blade on the Swedish Cat is made in Norway by a company named Gjerstad. They have a number of options on theese blades. Here is some pics of ours: This is the simplest version on this cat, only swing and lift: We even got the front/back tilt and the quickconnection option on our blades. Theese blades are realy solid, but u got to use common sence anyhow.
I started another road tube replacement project yesterday. Didn't get done today but will finish in 3-4 hours. Shot some pics of front blade use. The project was removing a 35' tube and putting in a 70'. I pushed a pile of dirt yesterday before the backhoe was there. Then today we swapped out the tube and I pushed dirt the rest of the day. Got the dirt off the road bank. Sorry I didn't get a pic of it before starting. Was about 6' tall and steep. One pic shows my attempt to push dirt in the hole with the moldboard. Another one shows using the front blade. When doing projects like this the front blade is kinda like the Capital One Credit Card, I never leave home without it. Here's the pics.
Oooppss, musta maxed out the pic thingy. Here's some more.
Finished today. Land owner is happy. So I'm happy. Now he's got a nice flat area to build his fence and doesn't hafta worry about water washing it out at the tube.
Thanks very much for this interesting photos Lots of people think that grader can only make fine grading, but they can lots of more with the front blade, so no dozer need (I like graders lots of more than dozers, are more interesting for me ). Have you push with the front blade trees too?
grader without a front blader is not a grader, we use it a lot in Europe is actually a standard attachment
A grader with a front blade is only a compromise for those who can't afford a proper dozer............:tong:tong
We work differently than in the U.S. mobile excavator here has a trailer along with up to 5 buckets. with a loader, we also use four attchments. So it is with a grader, we do as much as possible with a machine. Here is the link to the pictures, http://www.bouwmachineforum.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=30201&hilit=bakkenwagen
And there was me thinking the Dutch had a sense of humour...........
No, a grader can do more jobs, they can doze and grade Grader are nicer than bulldozers I looooooooovee graders are the best machines for me
I'll put my D10T and/or 854K (just in case it's a job for a tracked or rubber tyre dozer) and a 16M up against any grader with a front blade you want to name, any time, any place - and we'll see which one gets most work done most efficiently ........
How do you maneuver a grader around in tight places? I know they artic and all but they are twice the length of a dozer Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk
We have also a lot of humor Nige :laugh:laugh:falldownlaugh
Then we have used smaller graders, then you can get into tight spaces.
Yair . . . schuiver . I think that is quite impressive, what that inner circle would have perhaps a six foot radius? I have often thought a small grader would be a niche machine for road maintenance on rural property's but it seems over here they have never taken off. Cheers.
This does not work yet with a Laser Grader, such a small circle.
What a bad comparison, both machines weight lots of more than a 16 M..... Fact i: a grader can do more work like a small dozer, because a grader works a lot faster than with crawlers....a grader is always better than a smaller dozer
But I'm not from west of the Atlantic and the spelling I used is correct according to my Oxford English Dictionary ...... :tong:tong
Yes, but Nige, you have a british sense of humor (humour).
I would never state a grader is better in all applications. As I would never state a dozer is better in all applications. If in either of those applications one machine was truly better, the other machine would not be produced. In my case I don't have access to a dozer of any kind without hiring it. In my case it's most cost effective to complete my small jobs with the grader we have, front blade installed. I would also add, if you've never witnessed an experienced operator use a modern grader in tight places you might not fully understand or appreciate how well they work there. I've not taken actual measurements, but our grader has an amazingly small turning radius for a machine of such length. I don't carry our front blade all the time. But when needed, it's a great addition. Ours attaches using the scarifier toolbar so can be dropped and/or picked up in a minute or less. Several times I've carried it to a jobsite, set it down and rip up the roadbed with the scarifier, pick it back up and replace a culvert improving the machine efficiency immensely.
That's right what you say, when a grader has additional things like front blade, ripper etc, you can do more work with it. And a front blade is one of the usefull things what a grader should have. We in Germany know only graders with front blade and it is very needed for earthmoving and push other material what trucks have dumped. When you want to make big earthmoving, you need a big dozer like D6 and more, but a grader can do jobs like smaller dozers, the only thing whats better, that dozers can turn on their place and drive in steep places.
On a russian site are pictures from a front blade which can crease in the middle and moved to every site too: http://www.sdm25.ru/novosti/novosti_20.html