New 5075M is at the dealer's!

[pclausen]

Thanks, but that won't work since the rears on my 4700 have 8 bolts spaced evenly around the circumference.

I'm going to dig around in the online parts catalog to see what I can come up with.

 

[AKfish]

Thanks, but that won't work since the rears on my 4700 have 8 bolts spaced evenly around the circumference.

I'm going to dig around in the online parts catalog to see what I can come up with.

Something that I've noticed happening this time of year are the on-line auctions at Used Farm & Agricultural Equipment - John Deere MachineFinder.

Appears that many JD dealerships go through the shop and the yard for all those items that have been taking up space and collecting dust. Odds and ends and other clearance items.

Quite a few rims and tires and wheel sets.

Once you figure out what would fit.... you might just come across a "diamond in the rough"!

AKfish

 

[Zebrafive]

Thanks, but that won't work since the rears on my 4700 have 8 bolts spaced evenly around the circumference.

I'm going to dig around in the online parts catalog to see what I can come up with.

I thought we were looking for fronts for the new tractor, not rears for the 4700

 

[Island Farmer]

Hello All,

I wish that everyone had a nice Christmas and will have a wonderful new year.

Finally, I am going up to my dealer to see the new 5085M in person tomorrow.

I have a question for any of you that might like to weigh in. I would like to add some implements to my order. Here is a list of items that I am interested in:

For road and trail maintenance on my farm, and also to smooth and contour some of my fields.

A heavy duty 8' boxblade with rippers. Either a Woods or Frontier BB12.

A heavy duty landplane, the Frontier LP1208 looks pretty good.

A heavy duty back blade like the Frontier 2308, which AKfish has and likes.

A landscape rake (For rock collection. My place has a fair amount of the little devils.)

I do not have a lot of experience with any of these tools, although I have used all of them, at least a little, on friends places, or that I have borrowed over the years.

What about the idea of consolidating, is there some redundancy in the group of tools listed above?

Also, for the endless dead fall and blow downs.
A pto driven wood chipper like the Frontier WC1205 or WC1208

Is the idea of a pto driven chipper the way to go, or is it better to have a dedicated unit with its own power source?

As always, I really appreciate all of your input.

Thanks,

Island Farmer

 

[Martian]

Hello All,

I wish that everyone had a nice Christmas and will have a wonderful new year.

Finally, I am going up to my dealer to see the new 5085M in person tomorrow.

I have a question for any of you that might like to weigh in. I would like to add some implements to my order. Here is a list of items that I am interested in:

For road and trail maintenance on my farm, and also to smooth and contour some of my fields.

A heavy duty 8' boxblade with rippers. Either a Woods or Frontier BB12.

A heavy duty landplane, the Frontier LP1208 looks pretty good.

A heavy duty back blade like the Frontier 2308, which AKfish has and likes.

A landscape rake (For rock collection. My place has a fair amount of the little devils.)

I do not have a lot of experience with any of these tools, although I have used all of them, at least a little, on friends places, or that I have borrowed over the years.

What about the idea of consolidating, is there some redundancy in the group of tools listed above?

Also, for the endless dead fall and blow downs.
A pto driven wood chipper like the Frontier WC1205 or WC1208

Is the idea of a pto driven chipper the way to go, or is it better to have a dedicated unit with its own power source?

As always, I really appreciate all of your input.

Thanks,

Island Farmer

Go with the 8' BB42 series - they are the new BB12 series. So a BB4284. Box blade is definitely the most versatile attachment and will be a great ballast for you.

I've never had/used a land plane rake so I can't comment.

And a back blade is a must for grading as well IMO. Be sure to get a hydraulic version as well.

I was looking into chippers a little and I would go PTO driven - found them to be cheaper and do the same work. I would go with the smaller unless you really plan on clearing the entire forest or have really big logs to chip.

Everything else sounds good to me. Be sure to snap some pics while your at the dealers tomorrow!!

 

[Zebrafive]

PTO chipper gets my vote.

 

[AKfish]

A heavy duty 8' boxblade with rippers. Either a Woods or Frontier BB12.

A heavy duty landplane, the Frontier LP1208 looks pretty good.

A heavy duty back blade like the Frontier 2308, which AKfish has and likes.

A landscape rake (For rock collection. My place has a fair amount of the little devils.)

Also, for the endless dead fall and blow downs.
A pto driven wood chipper like the Frontier WC1205 or WC1208

Is the idea of a pto driven chipper the way to go, or is it better to have a dedicated unit with its own power source?

Heavier duty - the better. Generally, gotta go up the number scale with Frontier. Heavier duty implements start at the 3 series and goes to the 4 series. One and 2 series is pretty light duty.

If you have a boxblade and a landplane - you don't really need the HD rear blade at all!

My rear blade use is for snow removal and corral cleaning. Those chores are not a good fit for either a box blade or a landplane... But, you likely don't have alot of snow that stays for very long and probably spread your manure in the fields. Takes 3 years to compost manure up here before spreading!!

Have you ever used a rock bucket? Lot's of models for the skid-steer guys. Would likely be quicker and easier to use than the landscape rake - and would serve double duty with your A300.

A pto unit is way cheaper! But, it ties up your tractor... Really depends upon how much use you think you have every year with a chipper. If you have quite a bit of work for a chipper - IMO - I wouldn't want a big unit (4"-6" stuff) pounding on the pto clutch of my tractor!

AKfish

 

[Island Farmer]

Thanks MartianTractorMan, Zebrafive, and AKfish,

I went up and had my first look and drive around the lot in the new, 2.5 hrs. on the clock, 5085M. It is a very, very nice tractor. I am really impressed. Of course it still doesn't have the loader, or many of the extras like the exterior mirrors etc. Even so it looks really nice. I didn't take any pictures because it was at the end of the day and it was raining very hard. I am going in again on Friday, and I will definitely take a couple of snapshots and post them.

I was going over some of the possible implements with the dealer, I will list them and what I am now thinking, so if any of you have any thoughts fire away.

Frontier BB4284 box blade with hydraulic rippers.
The tractor will probably end up 7' wide, so this should be the perfect width.

Frontier RB2308 back blade with hydraulics.
AKfish, you are right that I can take care of the infrequent snow with my front bucket fairly easily. When it comes to maintaining my dirt roads and trails on the farm, and finish contouring land after softening it up with the rippers in the box blade, I thought the RB2308 would be great. Also the RB2308 could be used for creating and maintaining swales, although there might be a better tool for this. Any additional thoughts on this would be appreciated. The dealer was actually steering me away from the land plane and advocating for the RB2308.

Frontier LP1208 land plane. Road and trail maintenance and contouring land. Again, like I said in my last post, I haven't had that much experience with back blades and have not used a land plane.
Any additional elaboration on back blade vs land plane, or in addition to, would be greatly appreciated.

Frontier RT1270 tiller like AKfish has, or the dealer recommended the RT2283 because it would better match the track of the machine. Again, I don't have any experience with tillers this big so any specific advice would be great.

Frontier WC1208 8" capacity pto driven, hydraulic self feed, chipper. This is in the 11k range, the only justification for this is that it actually takes a lot of time to burn up all of the material that my farm generates each year, and after all of that work there are no chips to use. After reading AKfish's comment, I am worried about how it might work my tractor, and also that a dedicated machine might be better in other ways. From what I have seen, for somewhere between 10k and 15k, I could get a clean used dedicated Bandit or Vermeer.
Any more thoughts about chipping?

Thank you all for generously sharing your experience.

Island Farmer

 

[Martian]

Island farmer,

Your landscape attachments all sound good to me. I have a ten year old Deere tiller and don't remember the model name so that won't be much help to you. I've never owned a land plane either but I imagine it as being more finish grading compared to a box blade being heavy scrapping then back blade being a medium duty and then light. But it would be better for finish grading - I've just never had the use. I'm not sure on your wheelbase but I like to have plenty of hang over so you can get close to stuff without having to have the tractor that close.

As for the wood chipper it, IMO, is one of those attachments that as cool as crap to have but how much you actually use it and if it lays for itself is doubtful unless your using it a lot. I would love to have one and I'm sure if you can bag them some way and sell it to some local shop that deals with wood hips they might buy it, dye it, and sell it. But you being on an island I don't know if you'd have something like that. If you can afford it though it will save you a lot of trouble over burning.

Are you going to be getting a top and tilt system? They will help with all of the landscape attachments you plan to get. See if your dealer sells them or you can find a couple of members like MtnViewRanch on the forums that sell top and tilt kits. Everyone seems to be happy with his stuff. It's on my docket for spring.

Also with all of the new attachments you plan on getting I would look into the iMatch system. All of the attachments you list here would be iMatch compatible to my knowledge. Be able to switch in and out very fast with all of your different stuff. For the few you have left you could easily fabricate them to work with iMatch.

 

[AKfish]

Frontier BB4284 box blade with hydraulic rippers.
The tractor will probably end up 7' wide, so this should be the perfect width.

Frontier RB2308 back blade with hydraulics.
AKfish, you are right that I can take care of the infrequent snow with my front bucket fairly easily. When it comes to maintaining my dirt roads and trails on the farm, and finish contouring land after softening it up with the rippers in the box blade, I thought the RB2308 would be great. Also the RB2308 could be used for creating and maintaining swales, although there might be a better tool for this. Any additional thoughts on this would be appreciated. The dealer was actually steering me away from the land plane and advocating for the RB2308.

Frontier LP1208 land plane. Road and trail maintenance and contouring land. Again, like I said in my last post, I haven't had that much experience with back blades and have not used a land plane.
Any additional elaboration on back blade vs land plane, or in addition to, would be greatly appreciated.

Frontier RT1270 tiller like AKfish has, or the dealer recommended the RT2283 because it would better match the track of the machine. Again, I don't have any experience with tillers this big so any specific advice would be great.

Frontier WC1208 8" capacity pto driven, hydraulic self feed, chipper. This is in the 11k range, the only justification for this is that it actually takes a lot of time to burn up all of the material that my farm generates each year, and after all of that work there are no chips to use. After reading AKfish's comment, I am worried about how it might work my tractor, and also that a dedicated machine might be better in other ways. From what I have seen, for somewhere between 10k and 15k, I could get a clean used dedicated Bandit or Vermeer.
Any more thoughts about chipping?

Thank you all for generously sharing your experience.

Island Farmer

Island Farmer;

Are you considering a Top N Tilt configuration for your 5085M? If so, using a TnT with the HD box blade is nearly a duplication of what the HD rear blade offers. However, if you've got drainage ditches or swales the rear blade with 3 functions would do an admirable job cleaning up and re-working the shoulders. Have to clean out the excess material at the bottom, though.

In my experience, a landplane is an easier way to smooth and clean-up the surface of a secondary (gravel) or dirt road as opposed to a rear blade. If you've ever worked a road-grader (maintainer) you know how easy it is to REALLY SCREW UP a road surface when you're a noobie (me)! A rear blade is nearly as sensitive... gotta really be on top of it and quick on the hydraulics!

If you're using the tiller for crop field preparations - tillage - in lieu of a disc harrow and plow; go with a big as you've got horsepower and wallet! I use mine to rework tired/weedy pastures and hay fields. Don't care if I've got part of the rear tire in the tilled/untilled ground. I'll just go over it again... and again until it's ready to plant.

Just my opinion on the self-propelled wood chipper versus a pto machine. But, I'm sticking with it... especially if you're really gonna chip EIGHT INCH material! Have a friend who's an arborist/logger/landscape manager. He's got a monster, Vermeer chipper with a turbo'ed Cummins in it and when he chunks in some of those limbs/roots that are >6" into the hopper - that machine pulls DOWN... Not on my tractor - thank you very much!

Sure lookin' forward to your pictures.

AKfish