The Cowboard

I have been thinking about getting a land plane to maintain the 3/8 mile of gravel road I do for my neighborhood. I do not see many of them in central Nebraska for some reason so no one locally I can ask regarding their experience. Maybe some folks on cowboard are familiar with them and can offer some help.

I have a 35 horsepower Farmall 340 with a loader on it. My road is about 10-11 feet wide and goes up to about 14 feet wide. It is gravel with a clay base within a year or so the gravel or crushed concrete all goes south.

There are several consdierations

1) Width of the land plane. Some say not to get it more than half the road width which would 5 feet or so. Other say get it at least the width of the tractor, which is six feet.

2) Shanks or not. I do have a box blade with shanks.

3) Weight. The local Case-IH dealer sells Land Pride. The price is competitive and Land Pride is a big manufacturer and own now owned by Kubota. Their model is a lighter model of about 600 pounds for a 6' unit.

I have also looked at EveryAttachments. They have a heavier unit that also runs more. For their heavier unit the 6' weights 759 pounds but it is also about $1,850, including shipping, The Land Pride is $1350.

Now EveryAttachments has a lighter duty one called Land Shark. For its 6 foot unit with shanks is $1320 shipped to a local freight terminal. So, it is competitively prices with Land Pride.

4) Local dealer (Case-IH with Land Pride or going with Internet with EveryAttachments

5) Another local dealer (Massey-Ferguson) is dealer for Befco, which I think is a little heavier built than Land Pride, but the dealer has been slow in getting back with me


Any advice and suggestions welcome!! Thanks in advance.

The little city i worked part time at had one, 5' behind a little JD hydro tractor. It was a Roadrunner brand. The good part was it was adjustable for depth so as the blades wore you could drop them down easily. It didn't have teeth but had the serrated rock cutting replaceable grader blade for the front of the 2 blades. Many of the city streets here don't have a lot of gravel and there are some big round rock barely under the surface. I had to dig some out so the grader didn't hit them and bounce up. I really liked it, it moves the gravel to the left and puts a crown in the road. They had a old road grader but this was so much faster and easier. Made a very smooth road and looked like it had fresh gravel added when done. We ran it every other week when the road was wet. I could do all the roads in a 1/2 day, grader took most of 2 days and was not near as good. We could keep the roads pot hole free much cheaper. Grader used a lot of fuel and maintenance....James

http://www.lewistownrental.com/itemimages/2848.jpg

James, Thanks Larry