Discs- how much weight is too much?

[Gamemaster]

I picked up a set of vineyard discs at an auction and there were two round steel weights, ( approx 6"thick 12-14" diam. )thick steel. An old-timer there said they were from an old JD for bolt-on wheel weights. I would guess they weight approx 75# each ( pretty heavy to lay on the tail-gate and slide in my truck. I recently found an ad in the paper for two 50# lifting weights. ( $20 for both ). How much weight is too much for discs? What is the pros and cons of the weight. I figure the extra is for more aggressive and deeper penetration but could the discs collapse from too much weight ?.

 

[CDsdad]

I have a 7' medium duty disc. Manufacturer recommends no more than 25 lbs per foot if any weight added. I'd go by manufacturer recommended if you have any way of finding out.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

I picked up a set of vineyard discs at an auction and there were two round steel weights, ( approx 6"thick 12-14" diam. )thick steel. An old-timer there said they were from an old JD for bolt-on wheel weights. I would guess they weight approx 75# each ( pretty heavy to lay on the tail-gate and slide in my truck. I recently found an ad in the paper for two 50# lifting weights. ( $20 for both ). How much weight is too much for discs? What is the pros and cons of the weight. I figure the extra is for more aggressive and deeper penetration but could the discs collapse from too much weight ?.

Yes, it's POSSIBLE to do harm to a disc with too much weight, however unlikely that is.

How much is too much?...... Can the tractor lift it? Can the tractor pull it when it's on/in the ground?

I've seen some unreal amounts of weight piled on a disc before. In most of those cases, the operator was trying to work ground that was just too hard. In most cases, that was resulting from ground being too dry.

I bought a used disc last summer to fix and re-sell. The original owner decided to weight it enough to penetrate dry sod in one pass. It's a King Kutter HD model. He got the blades in the ground alright. Then the frame tried to rotate around and forward of the front axle, collapsing the upper portion of the hitch frame. In addition to the old hitch, I've added about 750 lbs of old railroad rail to my scrap pile.

As is the case with about everything, there is a reasonable limit to the weight you can add.

 

[bucmeister]

What I noticed on an old Amco Offset drag we have is that much of the extra weight is in the blade spacers on the axles. The outside spacers look fairly normal to what you see on all discs, but the rest of them are much larger in diameter across the full length between the blades meaning that the frame and bearings are not having to deal with the extra load and shock adding weight to the frame would cause. That is when the light came on in my pea brain!