Sebculb
Gold Member
Hola!
Just joking, it's not for a Halloween costume. Bout a year ago they took us on a class field trip to an industrial pineapple field and they had around a half dozen mid sized excavators stirring in crop residues before replanting. They were using these big ol' subsoiler things that were on in place of the bucket. Got the little wheels turning in my brain. In addition to a half dozen excavators, they had three bulldozers levelling and two big tractors pulling big disc harrows. Think it was an eight hectare field, they all looked like little yellow and green dots out in the distance. Quite a sight to see!
Anyways, the tractor I have is an old construction backhoe I thought it'd be great to make a similar, smaller type of attachment. I don't work "acreage" type fields, just big garden fields. The corn and beans field I'm prepping right now is about thirty yards by ten yards. Too small for pulling plows but way to big to do it by hand. Also, the rolling mountain terrain here doesn't lend Itself to pulling implements over long distances. I have a walk behind rototiller but it can't deal with tropical weed and brush residues, they just get wrapped up around the tines. What I've done until now is break up terrain with the hoe and stir in the brush a little, and then run the tiller around to break up the dirt goods and smooth things out. Figured the giant pitchfork as compared to the hoe's bucket would be similar to using a regular pitchfork for preparing a small garden bed instead of a regular shovel. The shovel works fine, but the pitchfork works better.
So the thing's made from one 20 ft long piece of 1" rebar. Configured it three tines 2 feet wide and 16 inches deep. Tripled up rebar triangular-like for the vertical tines and two side by side for the horizontal member holding them together. Made some little triangular pointy feet for the tips of the tines out of 5/8" rebar but that was probably unnecessary work. (Is it a subsoiler or a pitchfork?)
Welds look like crap cuz I ran through a kilo of 1/8 6013 instantly and it was Sunday with the HW stores closed so I had to use up all these 3/32 sticks I had. Nothing more tedious than filling in big gaps in big metal with little 3/32 welding sticks. That took too long! Ugly welds or not, that metal is never coming apart.
Set it up to bolt onto the teeth of the hoe bucket with six pieces of 1/2" threaded rod and a piece of heavy strap iron on the other side. The bucket teeth extend 4" down the backside of the tines so I tack welded them on there to give them extra support.
Field slopes sideways mildly, and it seemed dry enough, but a seven ton backhoe found the mud underneath the surface layers and stared sliding down instantly. Hardly rolled at all during the process. Pulled myself to the far end of the field with the hoe and walked/pushed myself forward as the field got forked up. In that respect the backhoe is cool cuz I wouldn't think a regular tractor pulling a plow would be able to work in those conditions. However, I have very little experience with real farm equipment and I imagine the old dudes know how to make it work.
The fork works awesome! Exactly like trading a shovel for a pitchfork when prepping a small bed, and exactly like having a giant pitchfork on the end of a hydraulic arm to prepare a really big garden bed! Unfortunately, the 1/2" threaded rods weren't really up to the task and started to break after doing about a third of the field. Dragged a bunch of extension cords and the inverter welder out to the field and tacked the thing directly on there as much as I dared; didn't want to make it difficult to remove or turn the bucket into one big heat affected zone. Was able to use it for about 15-20 minutes longer before the whole thing fell off. Finished the second half of the field with the bucket, worked fine, always has until now.
So I gotta beef up the mounting system. Perhaps get 5/8" hardened bolts and weld the hex heads to the fork? That oughta be stronger than 1/2" ready rod welded by the tip. If that doesn't work I'll have to make a mounting system that connects to the linkages directly and take the bucket off when I want to plow. That's how the big ones on the excavators were.
Pics to follow...
Just joking, it's not for a Halloween costume. Bout a year ago they took us on a class field trip to an industrial pineapple field and they had around a half dozen mid sized excavators stirring in crop residues before replanting. They were using these big ol' subsoiler things that were on in place of the bucket. Got the little wheels turning in my brain. In addition to a half dozen excavators, they had three bulldozers levelling and two big tractors pulling big disc harrows. Think it was an eight hectare field, they all looked like little yellow and green dots out in the distance. Quite a sight to see!
Anyways, the tractor I have is an old construction backhoe I thought it'd be great to make a similar, smaller type of attachment. I don't work "acreage" type fields, just big garden fields. The corn and beans field I'm prepping right now is about thirty yards by ten yards. Too small for pulling plows but way to big to do it by hand. Also, the rolling mountain terrain here doesn't lend Itself to pulling implements over long distances. I have a walk behind rototiller but it can't deal with tropical weed and brush residues, they just get wrapped up around the tines. What I've done until now is break up terrain with the hoe and stir in the brush a little, and then run the tiller around to break up the dirt goods and smooth things out. Figured the giant pitchfork as compared to the hoe's bucket would be similar to using a regular pitchfork for preparing a small garden bed instead of a regular shovel. The shovel works fine, but the pitchfork works better.
So the thing's made from one 20 ft long piece of 1" rebar. Configured it three tines 2 feet wide and 16 inches deep. Tripled up rebar triangular-like for the vertical tines and two side by side for the horizontal member holding them together. Made some little triangular pointy feet for the tips of the tines out of 5/8" rebar but that was probably unnecessary work. (Is it a subsoiler or a pitchfork?)
Welds look like crap cuz I ran through a kilo of 1/8 6013 instantly and it was Sunday with the HW stores closed so I had to use up all these 3/32 sticks I had. Nothing more tedious than filling in big gaps in big metal with little 3/32 welding sticks. That took too long! Ugly welds or not, that metal is never coming apart.
Set it up to bolt onto the teeth of the hoe bucket with six pieces of 1/2" threaded rod and a piece of heavy strap iron on the other side. The bucket teeth extend 4" down the backside of the tines so I tack welded them on there to give them extra support.
Field slopes sideways mildly, and it seemed dry enough, but a seven ton backhoe found the mud underneath the surface layers and stared sliding down instantly. Hardly rolled at all during the process. Pulled myself to the far end of the field with the hoe and walked/pushed myself forward as the field got forked up. In that respect the backhoe is cool cuz I wouldn't think a regular tractor pulling a plow would be able to work in those conditions. However, I have very little experience with real farm equipment and I imagine the old dudes know how to make it work.
The fork works awesome! Exactly like trading a shovel for a pitchfork when prepping a small bed, and exactly like having a giant pitchfork on the end of a hydraulic arm to prepare a really big garden bed! Unfortunately, the 1/2" threaded rods weren't really up to the task and started to break after doing about a third of the field. Dragged a bunch of extension cords and the inverter welder out to the field and tacked the thing directly on there as much as I dared; didn't want to make it difficult to remove or turn the bucket into one big heat affected zone. Was able to use it for about 15-20 minutes longer before the whole thing fell off. Finished the second half of the field with the bucket, worked fine, always has until now.
So I gotta beef up the mounting system. Perhaps get 5/8" hardened bolts and weld the hex heads to the fork? That oughta be stronger than 1/2" ready rod welded by the tip. If that doesn't work I'll have to make a mounting system that connects to the linkages directly and take the bucket off when I want to plow. That's how the big ones on the excavators were.
Pics to follow...
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