Building a LARGE lawn roller

[LD1]

I had a new member on here stumble onto one of my pics of the lawn roller we made in the "show off your mig projects thread" and he PM'd me wanting some more info. So instead of PMing or e-mailing him I tought I would share it with the rest of TBN. As with most of our projects we took step by step photos along the way.

Just some details, The roller is 38" in diameter and 48" wide. The reason for these dimensions are that is what a rolled sheet of 4' x 10' steel comes out to be. However, we had to have it sheered into 2-2ft by 10ft peices because the local sheetmetal shop could only roll upto 3'.

The body is 11ga, which is 1/8" steel. The end caps and the center peice is 1/4". Dry weight is about 600lbs and it can hold about 230 gal of water. Which is 1800lbs. Total weight can be up to 2400lbs.

 

[LD1]

More pics

 

[LD1]

Feel free to ask me any questions if you like.

The only thing we actually had to buy was one sheet of 1/4" for one of the 38" circles, the 1 1/8" round stock, and the 11ga sheet. The sheetmetal shop only charged us $30 to roll and tack.

All the other stuff is from the steel pile out back, including the bearings. Total cost was about $250-300.

 

[beenthere]

Any problems with it pushing downhill? Similar in design to mine (a smaller diameter roller filled with 'crete and a rack for adding more weigh on top).

Nice job welding yours up, and thanks for the pics.

 

[LD1]

No issues so far but it's not too hilly here. We only fill it about half full of water. which makes the total weight about 1500 lbs

 

[spo307]

nice fab job:thumbsup:

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Holy LARGE lawn roller!!!

That thing should smooth out the bedrock 6 feet down.

The workmanship looks very good. Great Job. Are you going to paint any of it?

 

[LD1]

Holy LARGE lawn roller!!!

That thing should smooth out the bedrock 6 feet down.

The workmanship looks very good. Great Job. Are you going to paint any of it?

Yep it's painted, I just dont have any pics

 

[jimgerken]

LD1: you should now add a plastic scraper on the backside of the roller. Anytime you roll over dirt with any moisture on/in it, you will pick up a bit of dirt on the roller and everytime it rotates it will add more dirt to that spot on the roller. After while, you will see the depression you are making every rotation. Been there, done that.
GREAT looking roller!

 

[Diamondpilot]

The first thing I built when I got my tractor was a large lawn roller. Its 76" wide and 24" in diameter. I used 7/8" wall PVC Sewer Pipe for the main body and filled it with something like 26 bags of sac-crete. It also weighs about 2,600# total.

I went with the 76" length so it would fit on my trailer which is 82" wide.

Chris