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Road Leveler Made From Used Grader Blades
Old road grader blades can be turned into a low-cost driveway leveler, says S t a n Harder, St. Brides, Alberta, who made a "double triangle" leveler out of used cutting edges off grader blades that he got free from his local county highway department.
The leveler is made entirely from 7-ft. long blades bolted together into the shape of two triangles. The first triangle gathers gravel and dirt from an 11-ft. wide area and leaves a 2 1/2-ft. windrow for the second triangle, which redistributes the material. The sides of the first triangle and back of the second triangle have blades stacked and bolted together to provide adequate downpressure. The 5 blades on back of the second triangle drag straight behind the tractor to spread the wind-row evenly across the road. A single blade bolted across the sides of the first triangle serves as the pivot point for the rear triangle.
A pair of 7 1/2-ft. long steel cables run from the leveler to the tractor. "I arrange the blades with the cutting edge facing back-ward," says Harder. "The leveler flows with the terrain and cuts off the bumps and ridges. The blades come with pre-drilled holes so I didn't have to do any cutting at all. I use long telephone pole bolts to stack the blades which makes it easy to pile on more blades if I need more down pressure. If too much gravel is going over the back I just take a couple of blades off.
"My neighbor has suggested using it to level gopher mounds in hay fields. The side blades would cut the hills and the back blades would distribute the soil. I don't think they would damage the hay at all because the blades are perfectly flat on the bottom. You could make the leveler wider to cover more territory or run two levelers side by side and pull them with a bigger tractor.
"I found that 7 1/2-ft. long cables work just right. If the cables were any longer the leveler would drag too far behind on corners and end up in the ditch. Any shorter and it would get caught in the rear tractor tires."
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Stanley Harder, Box 86, St. Brides, Alberta, Canada T0A 2Y0 (ph 403 645-1881).


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1997 - Volume #21, Issue #6