kbuegel said:
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.
kbuegel said:
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...
kbuegel said:
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.
