home made bale trailer

[kbuegel]

Actually the road was what caught my attention. The herringbone brick pattern is nice, but a brick road is very expensive in the US. But I've been considering building a brick road because we can probably make decent bricks on our property due to the amount of sand we have.

But your trailer looks great, and very practicle. I agree, the increased tongue weight should help keep it from sinking in soft soil. I think its not common because of the pain of getting the trailer on and off the hitch with all the weight on the tongue. But once its on there, it should tow very nicely.

Did you hook it up to your drawbaw on your tractor? Or did you consider using a bar across the lower arms of your 3-pt hitch? Since you can raise and lower the 3-pt, it may make the hitching process quicker and easier, and I think it can take the weight.

[bigballer]

is that a norwegian fjord in the background? nice looking horse, my friend has 3 of them.. good on the trails, they have stamina..

[Renze]

Originally Posted by kbuegel

Actually the road was what caught my attention. The herringbone brick pattern is nice, but a brick road is very expensive in the US.

I know brick roads are much more common in Europe, especially Holland.
Over here, the local town municipality usually pave asphalt over old brick roads because its costly to repave by hand because of the labour involved.
The best thing about the brick pavement is that if you buy it used, it will hold its value. second hand concrete or asphalt is worth nothing, you have to pay to get rid of it. Its also easy to repave when you need a street drain or electric fencing cable to go underneath. Or even when heavy trucks drive ruts in it after some years.

The road i live on used to be a dirt road but was paved 15 years ago, asphalt would be cheaper but it would be very impractical, because all utility lines (gas, water, electricity) run more or less in the middle of the road, because of all the big oaks on both sides, the middle of the road was easiest to dig back then. With bricks, the utility lines stay accessible without destroying pavement.

Originally Posted by kbuegel

I agree, the increased tongue weight should help keep it from sinking in soft soil. I think its not common because of the pain of getting the trailer on and off the hitch with all the weight on the tongue. But once its on there, it should tow very nicely.

That is also a difference in common practice on your side of the Pond: In America you see many turntable steered silage trailers. In Holland you'd see none, because tandems are easier to back up on old narrow farm yards, give increased traction on soft soil because of the tongue weight.
Most commercial manure tankers nowadays, have so much tongue weight that they are using a hydraulic cylinder connected to the point where normally the 3pt hitch top link is, to distribute the load to the front axle.
This to transfer even more weight from the dead trailer axles, to the driven tractor axles.

Most bale trailers over here are still turntable steered, but i chose to build it this way, because i can build it lower: A tandem has the axles in a fixed position, so i can put the crossmembers in such manner that the tires can pivot all the way up to the underside of the floor. With a turntable steered trailer, i would have to add the height of the frame rails to the floor height because the axle on the turntable, would have to be able to turn underneath the frame rails...

I find it easier to hook up this trailer, than our other turntable steered 2 axle trailer: With this tandem i can turn the parking stand to height, back up the tractor, slip the pin into the drawbar and turn the parking stand up...
with turntable steering, the drawbar triangle would require man muscle to lift to drawbar height, and to push it aside into the drawbar mouth.... (or an extra man, to hold the drawbar triangle while the other backs up the tractor)

Another reason for me, is that i dont have brakes on the trailer: A tandem cannot jack knife when the tractor wheels block, or when you back up an empty trailer through the mud and the front wheels just slide away...

Transferring weight to the tractor would bring 1000 kg to the tractor, and take that off the tandem: Its not just the floatation, but also: When i try to take off with 2 bale wagons, the tires spin because they dont have enough traction. With another ton of wheel load, i have a lot more traction, so i can take off easy with the old turntable 2 axle trailer hooked behind my new tandem...

Originally Posted by kbuegel

Did you hook it up to your drawbaw on your tractor? Or did you consider using a bar across the lower arms of your 3-pt hitch? Since you can raise and lower the 3-pt, it may make the hitching process quicker and easier, and I think it can take the weight.

I dont like towing on the 3pt hitch, because the carrying point is so far behind the rear axle: It will bounce like an idiot and make it drift all over the road. Not really a safe way to hook up 2 trailers with 12 tons of bales to your tractor

My plan was to build a pickup hitch, as is standard equipment in the UK and scandinavia. It is operated by the 3pt hitch, and once its up, it is locked in place by a latch. Its closer to the rear axle, so safer to tow.

[Renze]

Originally Posted by bigballer

is that a norwegian fjord in the background? nice looking horse, my friend has 3 of them.. good on the trails, they have stamina..

Yes i think its a fjord, but i'm not the horse guy... My brother lives next door, and has stables for rent... He gets the money, i just take care of the logistics (getting silage into the yard, taking horse sh*t out )
We have about 30 of them GrassDiesels now, of which 15 or 20 owned, the rest are stable guests...

[Renze]

I used the new trailer for the first time yesterday, to bring home 7 heavy wet bales of silage that we bought on the other side of the county.
I just threw the old plywood floor back on it to have a temporary deck.

It tows nice, and you can take off at full torque with no wheelspin due to the tongue weight. Because of the walking tandem, it runs as nice as the other 2 axle leaf spring trailer...
I just have to make sure to take wide turns on grassland due to the tandem friction...

After i got home, i hooked it onto the 3011 to see how it would take the tongue weight: I think i have to reinforce the drawbar, but it runs very smooth and the 3011 keeps the front wheels on the ground. When i braked very hard, the deceleration was very good, without blocking the tractor wheels !!

Later that day i went cultivating the horse pastures, for reseeding.
I attached the pictures to give you an idea of the size of the 3011, and because its just a beautiful scene.

[Renze]

Project completed: in this post, the last pictures:

I sprayed the wheels with a red colour of an old PZ mower we had at least 15 years ago... It might be 20 years ago that this mower got painted, but the 20 year old paint was still good so i used this half a can for the wheels.

I bought a 1 liter can of zinc phosphate based paint, because this sticks better to the galvanised side rails of the trailer.
The underside is painted with black varnish, a bitumen based product, alike car underbody coating from Tectyl, only black varnish looks like paint and not like molten plastic
I put on a new deck of 18mm coated plywood, and also put black varnish on the cutting edges where i sawed the sheets to size.

a friend of mine offered to mount the lights, an offer i'll gladly accept because i hate wires

[bake321]

Renze, enjoyed your post, I'm looking at the land of my fore fathers.

Bake

[case685]

Renze Really enjoyed your post too! My parents emigrated to Canada back in the 50's. My mother from Flakkee were her father grew beets and potatoes and my dad from Steenbergen were his father was a blacksmith. Gerry

[Renze]

Just in case you miss it the curve in the road on the most right part of this photo:
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/a...ler-afb003.jpg

is where this photo is taken:
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/a...ler-afb004.jpg


the first picture was taken at 5th of april, the latter at 3rd of may: You can see how only a month of time, changes the trees.

[case685]

Renze Beautiful looking farm you have there. Looks like spring is off to a good start. Ours has been warm and dry but we have had a couple good rains lately. Our trees have started budding this past week so were a little behind you. Gerry