Homemade cultivator project

[Kernopelli]

With garden season coming up soon I had started thinking about tilling. It seems every year I get a new caller asking about getting their garden spot tilled. (Usually goes something like this); " Hey Darryl, this is "so and so"....remember, we were in 1st grade together.....uh, I saw a tractor in your yard yesterday and was wondering if you would like to come by my place and till my garden for me? I'll buy the {beer,soda, cold water,etc}....waddaya say! Well, I get over there and their "garden spot" is an area of compacted clay resembling concrete that is so compacted and hard it won't grow weeds.
I have scarifiers on my box blade that I can use to break things up with before making passes with my tiller but then I'm faced with how to get the box blade and the tiller over there in one trip on the tractor. Sooo, I started looking through my scrap with the intention of building something relatively light and portable to make the initial ground breaking with. This is what I ended up with.

The first photo is some 2 1/8" OD- 1 7/8" ID square tube and some sweeps I had taken off a cultivator at the scrap yard a couple of years ago.

Second photo, drilling three evenly space 1 1/2" hole to accept the shanks for two sweeps. I can use either one sweep in the center or two on the outside.

Third is welding in a couple of cat 1 pins.

Four pic is how it looking so far.

Five is welding up a vertical support for the top link.

Six is 2" X 6" X" X 1/4" pieces that were drilled and then I welded in 1" bar stock for the top link attachment that mates with my quick attach.

Seven is the top link mate attached to the frame.

Eight is where I had to decide how to attach the cultivator shanks. I had originally decided to drill the shanks and use pins but after breaking 2 drill bits, decided I would just grind 3 flat areas along the length of the shanks to allow for some adjustment in their length and weld in some heavy bolts that would hopefully tighten up enough in the flat grinds and hold the shanks securely.

Nine is the finished product.

Ten is after taking it out and giving it a try in our extremely muddy ground. So far it worked great but I'll have to try it again when things dry out again.

 

[JOELENAHAN]

Excellent project! The only thing that I might do to stiffen up the project is to weld gussets to the top link post.

 

[jeff77indy]

I'm getting ready to start a 3pt 6 ft field cultivator project using a pair of wings taken off of a Danish tine field cultivator my Dad and brother have. My brother is cleaning up th old home place so I'm dragging a few prizes home for this and other projects.
Jeff

 

[Kernopelli]

Thanks,
actually, I found some 1/4" plate already cut into triangles in one of my scrap boxes that I intended to use just for that and I got ahead of myself and forgot to weld them in. I'll take your advise and do just that before I paint it.

This was one of those quick and easy projects that I like best. It accomplished several things at once. I already had everything so it was a good way to get rid of stuff just laying around and didn't cost anything to put together. Maybe my wife will make an extra $15.00 bucks for it when she has my estate auction (no nothing's wrong-just bad humor)

 

[charlz]

Do you have a pic of the ground from a little further back? I am thinking of making something like this to rip up my sons dirtbike track... it gets compacted pretty bad and I don't want to be wearing out tiller tines on it. It's either that or find a used box blade.

Thanks,
Charles

 

[Kernopelli]

I was going to finish welding in some gussets and painting it in the next day or so and will try to post some more pics soon. The picture of it attached to the tractor was taken after returning to the house after trying it out. I realized I had forgotten my camera when I was out in the field actually breaking ground with it so right now I don't have any pics of the "results".

For your purposes I would lean more towards getting that box blade w/ scarifiers. I have used mine many times for "track prep". You can use the scarifiers it to loosen things up (although I think a disc making several passes would be the best way for moto x purposes). The BB can also level/fill ruts and push up material for berms, jumps and whoops (although I have found you have to plan ahead for making a series of whoops mostly because you are only able to use dirt from the immediate area. Making the first one is easy but collecting and pushing up the inside face of the next one becomes more difficult unless they are spaced pretty far apart). Prior to getting an FEL I used my BB and a pond scoop pretty much exclusively for all my dirt work for the bikes and 4 wheelers.

To collect material for jumps, berms,whoops etc., being able to use the scarifiers on the BB to first break up the dirt then using the box blade to collect, drag or push it is much more effective. You will find that if the ground is at all compacted and you don't break it up first, if you simply drag the BB around you will usually only collect small amounts of loose surface material.

 

[Kernopelli]

Charles, here are some pictures I took yesterday. I went back out and tried using it in the same muddy field I first tried it out in. Because it was just turning heavy grass clumps and mud it appeared pretty similar to the very soggy ground that wasn't disturbed and was difficult to get a picture that showed just how well it was turning and breaking the soil. I found a firmer area with just a touch of gravel on the top to try it on and was very pleased with how it works.

EDIT; I forgot to mention this was three evenly spaced passes with the sweeps set 24" apart.

 

[charlz]

Looks good! Thanks! If a boxblade shows up for a good price I will probably get it.... otherwise if I get tired of waiting I may make something