# 4 in 1 blade or sectional push for skid steer



## drewskie (Oct 12, 2015)

Hi guy just wondering what your thoughts are on buying a ami 4 in 1 blade 9-14 wide or going with just a straight arctic sectional snow push on yours or my skid steers.
I will have employees running the equipment and i have 229 jd and 299 cat skid steers with winter tracks.

Is there any one that has used both with skid steers, i have only seen 4 in 1 blades used on loaders?


----------



## jhall22guitar (Dec 11, 2011)

Are you talking about the Kage boxes? They are great.


----------



## drewskie (Oct 12, 2015)

No the 4 in 1 blade has moving wings on both ends and it also angles as well. The one i am looking at is a ami reactor 4 in 1.
http://amisnowblades.com


----------



## John_DeereGreen (Jan 2, 2011)

It depends on what you're plowing. We had 2 Arctic Sectionals replaced with Boss (mistake) 1 HLA Snowing, and 1 Kage.

Open lots with islands and straight runs, no doubt the Sectional. If you've got more intricate stuff or apartments/HOA's that have things to go around the wing plows will help. One thing I like about the wing plow is being able to open it up almost all the way and cover more footage in the same amount of time. The boxes are nice too, more simple no actuators or cylinders/wiring to dick with in the middle of the night. And a lot cheaper.

Those blades you linked to look like HLA's with black paint to me.


----------



## LapeerLandscape (Dec 29, 2012)

John_DeereGreen;2037331 said:


> It depends on what you're plowing. We had 2 Arctic Sectionals replaced with Boss (mistake) 1 HLA Snowing, and 1 Kage.
> 
> Open lots with islands and straight runs, no doubt the Sectional. If you've got more intricate stuff or apartments/HOA's that have things to go around the wing plows will help. One thing I like about the wing plow is being able to open it up almost all the way and cover more footage in the same amount of time. The boxes are nice too, more simple no actuators or cylinders/wiring to dick with in the middle of the night. And a lot cheaper.
> 
> Those blades you linked to look like HLA's with black paint to me.


I thought the same thing, just like a HLA. I just looked them both up and they are about 5 miles apart.


----------



## John_DeereGreen (Jan 2, 2011)

Forgot this...for what it's worth, I don't know that I would buy another HLA blade, unless they have seriously improved their paint process and the wing actuators are more reasonably priced to replace or rebuild. Love the production, paint job sucks and actuators have been less than trouble free and they're far from cheap when they screw up.

Check out MetalPless...PM Neige, or I'm sure he will be along soon.


----------



## Neige (Jan 29, 2008)

drewskie;2037215 said:


> Hi guy just wondering what your thoughts are on buying a ami 4 in 1 blade 9-14 wide or going with just a straight arctic sectional snow push on yours or my skid steers.
> I will have employees running the equipment and i have 229 jd and 299 cat skid steers with winter tracks.
> 
> Is there any one that has used both with skid steers, i have only seen 4 in 1 blades used on loaders?


We have lots of clients using the 4 in 1 plows (hydraulic wing plows) on their skid steers. The most popular is the plowmaxx 0830-13 that is a 8 foot moldboard with 30 inch wings. The beauty of this kind of plow it will always fit the need of the operator. They can size it to what would work best depending on snow amount, snow density, and what he wants to do. It can be a containment plow, straight plow, angle plow, pullback plow, and any other combination the operator would like. All our plows are built with oscillation (the plow can float left and right) and has built in slip for up and down movement. You can also get the LiveEdge option getting you that bare pavement scrape. Once you try a hydraulic wing plow plow its hard to go back to a pusher box. Its all my old company uses now.


----------



## LapeerLandscape (Dec 29, 2012)

Neige;2037560 said:


> We have lots of clients using the 4 in 1 plows (hydraulic wing plows) on their skid steers. The most popular is the plowmaxx 0830-13 that is a 8 foot moldboard with 30 inch wings. The beauty of this kind of plow it will always fit the need of the operator. They can size it to what would work best depending on snow amount, snow density, and what he wants to do. It can be a containment plow, straight plow, angle plow, pullback plow, and any other combination the operator would like. All our plows are built with oscillation (the plow can float left and right) and has built in slip for up and down movement. You can also get the LiveEdge option getting you that bare pavement scrape. Once you try a hydraulic wing plow plow its hard to go back to a pusher box. Its all my old company uses now.


Sent you a PM


----------



## SWestwood (Feb 26, 2015)

Both the sectional and winged plows break easily and cost a ton. We were running sectionals for a while but couldn't stand the maintenance cost. We switched back to pushers and used a protec steel edge last year. Worked great and didn't have any issues.


----------



## John_DeereGreen (Jan 2, 2011)

SWestwood;2037641 said:


> Both the sectional and winged plows break easily and cost a ton. We were running sectionals for a while but couldn't stand the maintenance cost. We switched back to pushers and used a protec steel edge last year. Worked great and didn't have any issues.


I strongly disagree with wing plows breaking easily. Ours has had zero issues other than the hydraulic actuators failing. Aside from chitty paint, but that doesn't really affect how well it plows.

MetalPless fixes the HLA actuators by replacing them with normal hydraulic cylinders as they should be. That alone would sell me over HLA. Not to mention the Livedge!


----------



## 1olddogtwo (Aug 6, 2007)

^^^^^^ agreed

As far as sectional plow, the blocks are designed to be the weak point on purpose for reasons.

Train ur people, hold them accountable, wtf.

We run almost 30O sectionals on every event, that's 6000 blocks....I think that says something.

Westwood,Do you have limiters?


----------



## WilliamOak (Feb 11, 2008)

1olddogtwo;2037752 said:


> ^^^^^^ agreed
> 
> As far as sectional plow, the blocks are designed to be the weak point on purpose for reasons.
> 
> ...


Tons of salt saved will forever be cheaper than blocks.


----------



## jomama45 (Dec 25, 2008)

1olddogtwo;2037752 said:


> ^^^^^^ agreed
> 
> As far as sectional plow, the blocks are designed to be the weak point on purpose for reasons.
> 
> ...


All that says is that the dummies running the equipment have no other choice....................


----------



## 1olddogtwo (Aug 6, 2007)

jomama45;2037784 said:


> All that says is that the dummies running the equipment have no other choice....................


Hahaha. A few in every crowd


----------



## John_DeereGreen (Jan 2, 2011)

Hire operators and not machine jockeys makes a big difference. Once you have good guys, a lot of the problem fixes it's self.

I would MUCH rather replace a few blocks a season over multiple pushers as to lose the salt savings they give us. Doesn't take long at these prices to pay for them.


----------



## alpine779 (Feb 16, 2010)

We have purchased two 2 AMI 4 in 1 reactor 10-16 blades through our local cat dealer. We have them installed on our 924's. We had a busy season and put approximately 325-350hrs on the unit. We didn't find any out of the ordinary issues with the paint, they both had normal paint wear in our eyes. We found them to be a tough unit, the only issue we had was with the heliac actuators on the wings. Heliac had a bad batch of motors and they would weep/leak fluid out of the seals. They still operated but leaked. We went through a couple sets of these motors before everything got figured out. We did receive great service and had zero downtime with the unit. All repairs were completed once the shift was done and covered under the 2 year warranty. Parts also came in next day. We did contemplate the metal pless blades but it was a 12k difference between the two companies for 2 blades through our cat dealer. It does look like the metal pless blades may clean better but we do not use salt exclusively here and snow packed lots are common until the first warm up and we cut them down. We just sand the crap out of them to prevent slip and falls. So with that in mind we are satisfied with the results from the AMI blade. Hope this aids in your decision making.


----------

