Henry Ledbetter and his friends can blade dirt and push brush with their loader-mounted blade, then pop it off quickly and lift and load with the bucket. Best of all, it will fit any bucket of a similar size.

"We were clearing some land and figured there had to be a better way to spread dirt," says Ledbetter. "It was a community project. All my buddies can hook up to it and use it to clean up from storms or put out food plots at our hunting clubs."

Frank Lusk has been involved in the dirt blade's development from the start. He describes it as the neatest implement he has seen in his 70 years.

"The first day we had it, I put it on my bucket and leveled a driveway with it," he says. "It cut off the high spots and leveled them off without getting any dirt in the bucket."

The blade is 38 in. high and 72 in. wide, sized to match a standard 6-ft. bucket and to drop about an inch below the bucket's cutting edge. It is made out of 3/8-in. steel with a 2-in. strip of plate steel welded along the bottom of the blade.

The blade has teeth made from 1 1/2-in. angle iron welded to the blade. They extend about 4 in. past the edge of the blade with 4 of them extending back up the length of the entire blade. The mount lets the bottom of the blade swing free when the bucket is tipped back toward the tractor.

"We mounted the blade to the top of the bucket using four 3-in. lengths of pipe as receivers" says Lusk. "One is welded to the top of the bucket to line up with a pipe welded to the top edge of the blade. To mount the blade, just line them up and slip a 6-in. pin through the pipes."

The mount makes it easy to swap the blade out on different loaders equipped with similar receiver pipes. "Just lean it up against a tree, pull the pins and drive away," says Lusk. "Pull up with a second tractor, pin the blade and go."