We had removed the 3pt hitch attachment and just added a couple simple bucket hooks to the leading edge of this road plane in order to get a bit of down force, this controlled the hop and allowed the OEM tooth edge blade to just wear right the hell out in an afternoon. A half hour of hard facing rod application would last but ten or fifteen minutes of road repair. Because of the extra downforce it was also tough on the skid shoes, they were built up with some more hard face and that seems to help.
So the works begins! we have a plan, its not a good plan but still a plan. First a trip to John Deere in Pelham NH to pick up some road grader scarifier edges.
Then to do some minor hole drilling, add a doubler to the factory blade support and then hammer in some 40 Kennemetal rotating carbide inserts and presto, version 1 of the modified road plane.
First pass, this works pretty darned well, the bits are rotating and most of the material is moving between the bits as everything turns, the one issue is the greater force is causing the backer to twist some. On a real road grader the blade is well supported by an engineered and center driven mount point. Well, the torque generated by the taller edge to bolt mounting is causing a bit of twist, The rear smoothing blade is doing just wonderfully but the front blade is going to need a little help. My initial thought is a piece of 4-5 inch wide by 3/4 thick flat bar, with standoffs maybe 3 inches made from 1/2 inch steel bridging to a piece of 4x4 1/2 inch wall square tubing. The standoff gap would allow for getting the nuts on and off as well as accessing the bits for changing, and to make a truss type arrangement between the 3/4 plate and the 4x4 support.