New-fangled Old-timey slip scraper

smiley · Mar 2, 2018

I'm sure that many of the younger and non farm folks won't know what a slip scraper is, but it is the way dirt was moved with horses before tractors, scrapers, loaders, dozers etc. were invented. You can google it and see more of the real thing. I have a real one at home in NY that I used behind a tractor years ago. We also made one from a 55 gal drum cut in half lengthwise to dig a 33 x 16 foot swimming pool (in pure sand) at our first house in Fla in 1972.

I have a couple piles of shredded trees/compost that I wanted to spread and that's a lot of shoveling and wheel-barrowing so thought, without a tractor or anything here in Fla., what could I use to spread it. I had an old 100 lb propane tank out back and an old hand truck meant to move 30 gal drums around the garage. No monetary investment involved so what do I have to lose. You can see the results in the photos. It works ok but would be better with a bridle and longer flat bottom to carry more like the real ones. One photo shows the scraper is in the background and a rope and pulley attached to a palm tree, to move the compost into a blind corner. Hooked the wife up to the other end of the rope and hollered giddy-up but she couldn't move it so I had to let her use the car.
So, if you've got some loose material to move go for it. If you want to dig a pond, get ready to sweat.

cqaigy2 · Mar 2, 2018

Ah yes, the good old days. :laughing:

Bird · Mar 3, 2018

I've seen pictures of those things being used to build Lake Murray at Ardmore, OK, many years ago (before they had anything other than horses or mules to pull them). And there was one on the farm my Dad bought in 1950. When I was about 12 years old, he wanted to move some dirt with it by pulling it with his company truck, a one ton Studebaker pickup. Unfortunately (for him), I just could not get that thing to dig in to scoop up dirt without it digging in too much and flipping forward. I just wasn't big enough and heavy enough to handle it. He finally asked me, "Can you drive the truck?" You'd have to have known my Dad to really understand how things were. He never allowed a kid to drive at all until we took driver's ed in high school. But he also knew that his sister and his mother had been letting me drive their cars from before I was 10 years old. So I was more than surprised when he asked if I could drive the truck, and of course I assured him that I could, and did. So we got a lot of dirt moved with him using that scoop and me driving.:laughing:

Here's some pictures of exactly the one we had.
horse drawn scoop - Bing images

Kernopelli · Mar 3, 2018

Nice job! You remind me of someone I know. When I was about 10yrs old, my friend's father dug a small pond with one behind a mule. He was a concrete finisher so when he got home in the evenings, he would start moving dirt. You know, that's how you unwind after pushing concrete all day!! I see him regularly still today at auctions and I've told that story to a lot of the old auction codgers when we're standing around shooting the bull. That man's ability to work hard, physical labor was almost super human. He is 80 and still going strong, he works in his shop everyday, gets out at night and spends a lot of time buying/ selling tractors and trucks.

flingwing1969 · Mar 3, 2018

Here is a TPH mounted unit in action - this is a Fargo brand I picked up at auction - not so much for the scoop as for the TPH assembly that I thought might come in handy if I needed to build a TPH attachment of some sort.

Much easier on a tractor than by hand.

smiley · Mar 3, 2018

Bird said:
I've seen pictures of those things being used to build Lake Murray at Ardmore, OK, many years ago (before they had anything other than horses or mules to pull them). And there was one on the farm my Dad bought in 1950. When I was about 12 years old, he wanted to move some dirt with it by pulling it with his company truck, a one ton Studebaker pickup. Unfortunately (for him), I just could not get that thing to dig in to scoop up dirt without it digging in too much and flipping forward. I just wasn't big enough and heavy enough to handle it. He finally asked me, "Can you drive the truck?" You'd have to have known my Dad to really understand how things were. He never allowed a kid to drive at all until we took driver's ed in high school. But he also knew that his sister and his mother had been letting me drive their cars from before I was 10 years old. So I was more than surprised when he asked if I could drive the truck, and of course I assured him that I could, and did. So we got a lot of dirt moved with him using that scoop and me driving.:laughing:

Here's some pictures of exactly the one we had.
horse drawn scoop - Bing images

Boy does that sound familiar. My father drained the pond so we could clean it when I was about 12 so we could clean it with the scraper
and I insisted on trying it with the same results as you except, I didn't get to drive the doodlebug (Model A with worm drive tractor conversion and lugged steel wheels). He didn't think I could drive it but little did he know that when I'd go over to my buddy's, his grandfather let us take turns tearing all over the back roads in a 39 Bantam named Nelliebell.

smiley · Mar 3, 2018

Kernopelli said:
Nice job! You remind me of someone I know. When I was about 10yrs old, my friend's father dug a small pond with one behind a mule. He was a concrete finisher so when he got home in the evenings, he would start moving dirt. You know, that's how you unwind after pushing concrete all day!! I see him regularly still today at auctions and I've told that story to a lot of the old auction codgers when we're standing around shooting the bull. That man's ability to work hard, physical labor was almost super human. He is 80 and still going strong, he works in his shop everyday, gets out at night and spends a lot of time buying/ selling tractors and trucks.

He's got me by a couple years, but I noticed that I can do about everything I used to, just not nearly as fast or often!

smiley · Mar 3, 2018

cqaigy2 said:
Ah yes, the good old days. :laughing:

I second that

Xfaxman · Mar 3, 2018

smiley said:
I'm sure that many of the younger and non farm folks won't know what a slip scraper is, but it is the way dirt was moved with horses before tractors, scrapers, loaders, dozers etc. were invented. You can google it and see more of the real thing. I have a real one at home in NY that I used behind a tractor years ago.
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Yep, then they were adapted to the tractor 3 point.

I had one that was reversible and 36" wide: