Only the cutting edge you say? Sometimes the hasty choices that we make regarding our snow plow are not so “cutting edge”. The cutting edge of the skid steer plow is like the sole of your boot, or the rubber on your wheels. Decisions that you make when purchasing your snow plow cutting edges can directly affect how your customer views you, your level of service, and your profitability. Most of the time “heavy duty”, and “thick steel” are safe assumptions when you are selecting these, however there have been advances in technology lately that you should take into consideration in order to stay relevant and beneficial to your clientele. The main things that we are going to point out in this article about cutting edges will be how well they perform, how long you can expect them to last, cost, and ease of replacement and procurement. In some cases, your consideration of cutting edges can also determine what plow you will purchase. Let me explain.
Thickness Of The Edge: Bigger Isn’t Always Better
The thickness of your cutting edge plays a role in its performance and longevity. For instance, a ¾ thick steel cutting edge will last longer than a ½” thick steel edge of the same material. The downfall to the thicker edge is that it will not scrape hard pack as easily. The thicker the cutting edge, the more floatation it will have. Put it like this, you wouldn’t try to scrape your icy window with a blunt object, no, you use something with a thin, but strong edge to it. However, the edge has to have a certain thickness in order to be strong enough. For instance, the taller the edge, the thicker it has to be or it will bend. Especially if you are using rubber, plastic, or polyurethane. So there is a balance between longevity and scraping ability. Typically for steel edges that sweet spot is 5/8” thick, and for polyurethane it is 1.5” thick.
Trick For Doubling The Life Of Your Cutting Edge
- One ‘trick’ that I would mention is that sometimes in order to get extra time between changes the highway department will double up the cutting edges on their plows. Here is what some of the experienced Snow-Fighters of plowsite.com have to say about pairing the cutting edges: https://www.plowsite.com/threads/doubling-up-cutting-edge.159444/
- Thicker Lasts Longer, But Cuts Less
- The Edge Has To Be Thick Enough To Support Itself
Bolt Pattern: Strength And Simplicity
The bolt pattern of your cutting edge is a consideration, especially if you are running different brands of plows with different patterns. If you have two different plows with two different bolt patterns, you might want a cutting edge that can accommodate either one. This will keep your shop and inventory simple and reduce cost and overhead from SKU’s that you have to stock. The strongest, and most common bolt pattern is commonly referred to as “standard highway punch”. This basically means that the holes are square and probably countersunk. They are placed 1.5” down from the top of the edge, and each end has a hole at 3”, 6”, and then 12” thereafter repeating. This has been adopted by most of the highway department plow manufacturers as the standard. However, there is no regulated standard, so make sure that when you are selecting your snow plow or snow pusher, that you consider the potential headache of replacement plow edges!
Getting Your Snow Plow Business Off The Pavement
Cute play-on words! But seriously, the height of your cutting edge makes a difference in it’s longevity, and the overall performance of your plow. For instance if you were to replace a 6” wide cutting edge with an 8”, you would increase it’s overall life, right?? Yes, of course, but there might be some adverse effects to this, such as raising the overall height of the snow plow and decreasing your visibility, or negatively impacting the trip mechanism of the plow. Suddenly you might experience unwanted tripping over packed snow.
- No Snow Plow Manufacturer Wants You To Know This Trick! (Except For KAGE!): Most snow plows are not designed to handle the increased height of a 8” cutting edge, however our plow system has been tested using both 6” and 8” cutting edges. Both will not adversely affect the angle plowing performance of the plow itself!
- Usable Height – Where’s The Meat?: Every cutting edge has to be bolted to the bottom of the moldboard or trip edge. There is a certain amount of the cutting edge that will never be used, and will have to be thrown away at some point. The part of the cutting edge that hangs below the mounting surface of the plow, well, this is the meat, and this is what does the work. Pay close attention to this when you are purchasing a snow plow, because you don’t want to have less ‘meat’ than unusable cutting edge. You might end up paying for an unnecessary portion of the edge over and over again!
Do I Want A Reversible Cutting Edge? Will This Give Me More Wear Life?
In my experience a reversible cutting edge is a sales tactic more than a beneficial feature. Ultimately the amount of usable ‘meat’ on the cutting edge is still the same, and you just have more time spent to ‘flip’ it. Avoid having to do more maintenance on your plow, just get edges that are durable, and do not require unbolting and re-bolting just to get all of the wear life out of them.
Composition – What’s Truly The Best Material For My Skid Steer Application?
With all of the advancements of the steel, plastic, rubber, and polyurethane industries, this is arguably one of the more confusing decisions to make. Also, it takes time to try different things and find one that works. Let me help shed some light on all of these and at least help you make a decision that will suit you without having to spend months or years deciphering all of these options.
- High Carbon Steel: High Carbon Steel is a common term for most standard cutting edge manufacturers. This usually refers to a ASTM A1080 hot rolled steel. Found to be one of the most cost effective and wear-resistant steels.
- Heat Treated Steel: Heat treating, or case hardening can be done to many different types of metal to increase its hardness and wear-resistance. The keys to this are: increased cost, and are they case hardened, or through-hardened. If a cutting edge is made too hard, it can become brittle. You don’t want chunks of your cutting edge laying all over the grass in the spring.
- Carbide Insert: A carbide insert is certainly popular with snow fighters that need longer wear life above all from their cutting edges. You can benefit from having the same cutting edge thickness, and increase your wear life by sometimes 4x. The key to this is extra cost. There really is no downfall other than price and availability.
- Polyurethane: Polyurethane is a fairly new option for the snow plow industry. It is a hybrid of the steel option, the rubber option, and the plastic option. It combines some of the positive attributes of each of those, and creates a very unique edge in it’s own class. The positive traits that it has is: longer wear life than rubber or plastic, usually it lasts as long as steel. Quiet, usually these edges are used where noise is kept to a minimum. Surface wear, this material is OK to use on virtually any surface, whether that is freshly seal coated blacktop, cobble stone roads, runways, or painted parking decks.
- HDPE “Plastic”: HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) is not to be mistake for polyurethane. Often times the two are mistake for each other, but their performance is vastly different. When choosing a snow plow cutting edge, I recommend staying away from any HDPE or UHMW products.
- Rubber Edge: Rubber edges are usually used when cost is the only consideration. Rubber can be purchased in rolls, cut and drilled to fit basically any application. However, rubber is great for NO application. It doesn’t scrape or last.
The angle of attack is important to consider when you are thinking about scraping and the ability of your snow plow to scrape cleanly.
The angle that the cutting edge is at is determined by the plow design. Your cutting edge will scrape differently depending upon what angle it is from the pavement. Check out this video about the cutting edge and how important the attack angle is for scraping cleanly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXLhypOYaJc
Cutting Edge Availability
Have you ever called your normal supplier for cutting edges just to find they are sold out for two weeks? You say “well I need them tomorrow!”. If you have a snow plow that requires uncommon or proprietary bolt pattern, you may be stuck high and dry. If you have a KAGE Skid Steer Or Wheel Loader Snow Plow, you will never be left high and dry. We have amped up our supply chain and perfected our logistics process for getting you the cutting edges you need right away. Also, if you want to shop around or buy them locally, you are more than welcome to since we use the common “standard highway punch” for our skid steer and wheel loader models.
For a quick, fun video watch Kristin Stephan speak on the snow plow cutting edge we offer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c93Fp6vq8z4
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