Sully,
I'm gonna disagree with everybody here. My soil is red clay and can be very hard. I brought a John Deere 450G dozer out here and couldn't break through it to dig a hole. My neighbor hired a guy with a Cat D4 who has to use his rippers to break throught the surface.
I have a 35 hp Century tractor that I bought a used 5 foot disk for $300 out of the local classified ads. It has the cerated disks in front and the smooth ones in back.
Years ago a friend in California had a similar set up and we went through **** figuring out how to work it. Adding weight didn't really help that much, but what did work was to stick with it.
My setup isn't very big or heavy. Before I use the disk, I cut the grass and brush down real low. Then my first few passes accomplished almost nothing. Especially going through the thicker areas of grass.
I plan out a path to take that's a large circle and just keep driving around on the exact same tracks over and over again. It's like a huge waste of time until it happens. All of a sudden the ground gives and it turns to powder!!!
Once this happens, I just move my tires over half way to new soil and keep making my newly plowed area larger. This goes allot faster over the new areas than it did on the first area.
I don't add any weight to my disk, but can see where it could help and probably will the next time I use it. I have quite a few five galong buckets lying around that I'll fill with dirt and put on the disk to accomplish this.
I also have a 6ft boxblade with shanks and tried that too for breaking up the ground. It works to a degree, but all you get is chunks of dirt, not fine powder. The disk does an amazing job with time.
You said you had time, it will work and work well. Just realize it will take a very long time until happens, but the results are amazing!!!
Eddie