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About 20+ years ago, I decided to put some sort of blade on the front of a Farmall SM with a loader. My top priority was going to be able to push a little dirt around which had been dug up and left pretty rough. The more I thought about it, the more carried away I got, and I built far more blade than I needed for the dirt pushing, but the end result was a much more effective snow-pushing machine than I expected. I removed the bucket from a BushHog/Freeman 2000 loader, started putting pieces where I wanted them to end up, and began welding. I put a piece of channel iron on edge, stuck the loader arms inside the channel from the back, and welded in some tabs with holes so I could pin the channel to the loader arms the same way the bucket had mounted. Then I welded two smaller pieces of channel iron vertically to this one in front of the loader arms. I tipped them back about 10 degrees or so, and made braces that fit between the loader arms and these vertical pieces, which were about 3' long. Then I mounted a used road grader blade on the front of the lower channel iron and covered the front with some steel sheet that was over 1/8" thick, and added more braces where I thought they might help. By this time.... some of my neighbors were having more fun at my expense than the law should allow! You'd have thought I was Noah building the Ark! The blade ended up being 8' wide and about 40" tall. Even I was beginning to think I had WAY more blade than tractor. I pushed a little dirt with it that summer, had reasonable success in doing what I wanted to do with it. Even found out it was heavy enough that it did a pretty good job of grading when dropped to the ground and dragged backwards. (Single-acting hydraulics on the SM) When winter came, I put the thing on the tractor again and to my pleasant surprise, and the amazement of my neighbors, I had a snow-pushing machine! I added some weight to the back of the SM, set the blade about 3" off the ground, put the tractor in 4th gear, and cleared snow off the road that was stopping the 4wd trucks. It's not spring loaded, it's not fancy, it doesn't even angle to the side, but snow has to be drifted pretty badly to stop the old thing! Every year I tell myself I should build another one in a V shape, but so far, this one's done quite well. I think a 3 pt blade on a loader frame would be a very good way to start constructing a workable front blade. Be advised, however, that any tractor of more than 4000 lbs. is going to put severe strain on that blade and its mounting if you go fast enough to build up momentum and then hit something!
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