Has anyone had any experience with using a made-for-ATV box scrapers? The ones that seem reasonably priced (less than $350) look chintzy and the ones that look heavy duty are quite expensive (over $1000) I'd like to level my back yard a bit but before I buy something I'd like to know if it works. The few I've seen are cheap, expensive, and horribly expensive

Naturally, I'd like to check out "cheap" first.

 

Find 4 - 5 feet of railroad track (not ties, the metal rail). With a torch, blow a hole in the web at each end that's large enough to allow a heavy chain through. Run a single length of heavy chain through both holes and fasten it to itself sort of snug against the rail web. With a strap and hooks, you can adjust the drag angle by moving the hooks along the chain toward one end of the rail or the other. I used two hunks of track, each 6 ft long, behind a Toyota T100 4x4 to rebuild a road that wound up a mountain. The first couple of passes were easy, only the center of the road was dragging. After half a dozen passes, both peices of rail were level and tearing the hell out of the first 4 inches of topsoil across the full width of the road. That little Toyota never worked so hard in its life:-) 4x4 low bucking its way up a mountain in first with a 600 lb anchor. You can get scrap railroad track at any small railroad for cheap. Smaller hunks make great little anvils.