ptsg
Super Member
I'm back with a new project. This one will be the conversion of a traditional fixed 3 pt tiller to an hydraulic side shift tiller.
My dad has a couple of orchards with various types of trees and a bunch of varieties of the same trees. Fig trees, avocado trees, orange trees, plum trees, loquat trees, walnut trees, etc. The list is huge and goes on and on. The field has this more or less rectangular and the trees are spread in a grid pattern about 4 meters (around 13 ft) apart from each other.
These orchards need quite a bit of maintenance or the weeds and brush will take over everything. So it needs to be tiller 4 to 5 times a year, depending how wet the year gets. This year has been actually quite wet compared to what we were used to for the past 10 years+ as we were having a severe drought.
Anyway, the way I till these orchards in order to reduce the extra hand work around the trees to a minimum, is to do the passes, let's say East to West on the entire field, and then finish with North to South to get rid of the strip that the previous passes left in between the trees. This leaves like a 2 to 2 and half foot strip of untilled ground, that is mostly a waste of fuel and time for such a small strip, so I started looking at some alternatives to do this.
Here is a picture of one of the orchards after being tilled:
With that being said, I started looking at some specialized implements as they build all kinds of things for orchards and vineyards. Some crazy, yet effective stuff but I found these side shift tillers. Some manual ones, others hydraulic and another also hydraulic but a fully automatic system, it will pull it self out and retract one the feedback rod touches the trees.
The prices of these things also crazy by the way. I tried to find some used ones, but again, way too expensive, so I just decided to modify mine. I did found one the same width as mine for €1500 but it was manual side shift and I still had to add a cylinder to it. It also needed new tines. I paid like €800 for my current tiller.
All of the commercial available tillers will only offset to the right side. For me to do this, I would need to modify the drive train of the tiller, which I was not interested at all, plus I can use the offset to left as well as to the right. This fits my needs a lot better.
In my true faction, I'll use whatever I have in "stock", so this may end up limiting the design here and there. Let's start with the build.
I had this 50x50x5mm stainless steel square tube, just about the right length and also had a couple short pieces of 60x60x5 steel square tube that would fit over the stainless steel tube. I had to cut the steel tube lengthwise in order to get some play when it slides over the stainless steel tube, otherwise I'm sure it would bind and create all sorts of issues. I added a steel wire to fill the gap and make it easier to weld. This will create the entire frame that will slide left and right. I failed to take more pictures of this early stage, so the progress may feel all over the place.
I had a piece of C channel that I cut in half and this gave me two pieces of angle iron that will connect both of the short square tube pieces. I had to cut the edge on one of the pieces of angle iron to get some clearance. I also made the top pieces for the stainless tube and the mounts for it. It has to be able to pivot back and forth.
I then started the A frame that will create the mount for the top link and also the link that will connect to the back of the tiller. This is similar to schedule 80 1 1/4" galvanized pipe. On the corners, I just used a galvanized elbow for 1" pipe and also thread some short pieces of pipe to the elbow and then slide it inside the 1 1/4" pipe and plug welded it on various places. This should help reinforce the corners. You can also see the frame with the offset to the left and to the right.
More to come as I've reached the 10 images per post limit. I tried to resize all of the pictures but it's possible I may have missed a couple of them.
My dad has a couple of orchards with various types of trees and a bunch of varieties of the same trees. Fig trees, avocado trees, orange trees, plum trees, loquat trees, walnut trees, etc. The list is huge and goes on and on. The field has this more or less rectangular and the trees are spread in a grid pattern about 4 meters (around 13 ft) apart from each other.
These orchards need quite a bit of maintenance or the weeds and brush will take over everything. So it needs to be tiller 4 to 5 times a year, depending how wet the year gets. This year has been actually quite wet compared to what we were used to for the past 10 years+ as we were having a severe drought.
Anyway, the way I till these orchards in order to reduce the extra hand work around the trees to a minimum, is to do the passes, let's say East to West on the entire field, and then finish with North to South to get rid of the strip that the previous passes left in between the trees. This leaves like a 2 to 2 and half foot strip of untilled ground, that is mostly a waste of fuel and time for such a small strip, so I started looking at some alternatives to do this.
Here is a picture of one of the orchards after being tilled:
With that being said, I started looking at some specialized implements as they build all kinds of things for orchards and vineyards. Some crazy, yet effective stuff but I found these side shift tillers. Some manual ones, others hydraulic and another also hydraulic but a fully automatic system, it will pull it self out and retract one the feedback rod touches the trees.
The prices of these things also crazy by the way. I tried to find some used ones, but again, way too expensive, so I just decided to modify mine. I did found one the same width as mine for €1500 but it was manual side shift and I still had to add a cylinder to it. It also needed new tines. I paid like €800 for my current tiller.
All of the commercial available tillers will only offset to the right side. For me to do this, I would need to modify the drive train of the tiller, which I was not interested at all, plus I can use the offset to left as well as to the right. This fits my needs a lot better.
In my true faction, I'll use whatever I have in "stock", so this may end up limiting the design here and there. Let's start with the build.
I had this 50x50x5mm stainless steel square tube, just about the right length and also had a couple short pieces of 60x60x5 steel square tube that would fit over the stainless steel tube. I had to cut the steel tube lengthwise in order to get some play when it slides over the stainless steel tube, otherwise I'm sure it would bind and create all sorts of issues. I added a steel wire to fill the gap and make it easier to weld. This will create the entire frame that will slide left and right. I failed to take more pictures of this early stage, so the progress may feel all over the place.
I had a piece of C channel that I cut in half and this gave me two pieces of angle iron that will connect both of the short square tube pieces. I had to cut the edge on one of the pieces of angle iron to get some clearance. I also made the top pieces for the stainless tube and the mounts for it. It has to be able to pivot back and forth.
I then started the A frame that will create the mount for the top link and also the link that will connect to the back of the tiller. This is similar to schedule 80 1 1/4" galvanized pipe. On the corners, I just used a galvanized elbow for 1" pipe and also thread some short pieces of pipe to the elbow and then slide it inside the 1 1/4" pipe and plug welded it on various places. This should help reinforce the corners. You can also see the frame with the offset to the left and to the right.
More to come as I've reached the 10 images per post limit. I tried to resize all of the pictures but it's possible I may have missed a couple of them.
