by Raymond Alexander Kukkee

Created on: July 08, 2008   Last Updated: August 01, 2008

A box blade, also known as a box scraper, is one of the ultimate and most useful landscaping tools. Carefully used, box scrapers can create perfectly graded golf greens, dirt racing tracks, fields and trails, but let us first examine how to level your own back yard using a box blade.

Box blades may be used for the removal of roots and trash, removing topsoil to establish driveways, cutting or building grades and leveling building sites. Preparing grades for drainage, scarifying, or backfilling holes or trenches are other possible applications, but the primary use of a box blade is the spreading of topsoil and gravel, and surface grading in preparation for lawn and turf, be it sod or seed.

To level your yard using a box blade, you require an appropriately sized box blade and tractor. Do obtain a unit that is reasonable for the size of your project. Using a 42" lawn-tractor size box blade, it would take weeks to landscape a 20 acre estate-sized project, and if your yard is a small city lot, a huge unit is difficult or impossible to operate properly for lack of room to maneuver. Do apply common sense in the selection of both box blade and tractor.

Box scrapers commonly range from a small 42" unit that might be pulled by a small garden tractor or quad, to much larger 6' and 8' landscaper models that require more powerful wheeled tractors to pull them. Box scrapers are usually equipped with removable scarifier "shanks" that are adjustable in height. The shanks serve to rip and loosen the soil to allow the cutting blade to move and level it as the unit is dragged forward. The number of shanks on any box blade is limited by the horsepower available to pull the unit. It is important to recognize that the horsepower requirement changes substantially with additional shanks, depending upon soil conditions. Your 16 hp 2WD lawn tractor will not pull or operate a 6 foot box scraper with 6 shanks fully extended or not.

A 42" unit pulled by a 16hp garden tractor or quad may have 3 shanks, while a 6' unit could have 6 or more shanks and require a tractor of 40 hp or bigger to operate it satisfactorily. Depending upon the manufacturer's design and the size of the unit, the shanks may be raised and lowered hydraulically, mechanically, or simply by manual adjustment. Smaller box blades designed for use with a small lawn tractor may have wheels that are adjustable in height to control the depth of cut and thickness of soil spread.

Moderately easy to master, box scrapers used by homeowners

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