sandybeach
Bronze Member
I need a sanity check - or a design that has already proven successful.
Today we took delivery on a new Branson 3510H with an Agri-Ease scraper/grade. I got to drive it for 15 minutes. Then my wife took over and wouldn't get off it. For 4 hours she graded a mile of rutted, potholed, washboarded hard-packed gravel. She also did a beautiful job on our 22% grade driveway.
That's the good news.
The bad news: the nicely graded road & driveway need some compaction. Especially the steep driveway.
I'm thinking of making a lawn-roller-on-steroids.
A used water heater, filled with water, weighs ~1200 pounds. Concrete, twice that. Either, towed behind Mighty Mo should compact it.
So .... water heater, weighty stuff inside, axle, tongue (to attach it to the tractor's drawbar).
For an axle, 1" rod (round) with substantial bearings where it attaches to the tongue.
For the tongue, 3/16" mild steel bent into submission - or a pre-fabbed hitch purloined from a trailer plus a hitch ball on the tractor's drawbar.
I can do all the needed welding. I've built a 6' x 12' utility trailer from scrounged mobile home hitches, and I've built wood stoves from (you guessed it) used water heaters.
Am I crazy? Will this work? What are the flaws in this napkin-sketched work of art? Has someone already been there and done that?
I await your comments with bated breath. Yes, that is the correct spelling of 'bated.'
Today we took delivery on a new Branson 3510H with an Agri-Ease scraper/grade. I got to drive it for 15 minutes. Then my wife took over and wouldn't get off it. For 4 hours she graded a mile of rutted, potholed, washboarded hard-packed gravel. She also did a beautiful job on our 22% grade driveway.
That's the good news.
The bad news: the nicely graded road & driveway need some compaction. Especially the steep driveway.
I'm thinking of making a lawn-roller-on-steroids.
A used water heater, filled with water, weighs ~1200 pounds. Concrete, twice that. Either, towed behind Mighty Mo should compact it.
So .... water heater, weighty stuff inside, axle, tongue (to attach it to the tractor's drawbar).
For an axle, 1" rod (round) with substantial bearings where it attaches to the tongue.
For the tongue, 3/16" mild steel bent into submission - or a pre-fabbed hitch purloined from a trailer plus a hitch ball on the tractor's drawbar.
I can do all the needed welding. I've built a 6' x 12' utility trailer from scrounged mobile home hitches, and I've built wood stoves from (you guessed it) used water heaters.
Am I crazy? Will this work? What are the flaws in this napkin-sketched work of art? Has someone already been there and done that?
I await your comments with bated breath. Yes, that is the correct spelling of 'bated.'