Any tips for getting a PHD to dig thru hardpan?

[patrick_g]

I really don't like snakes.

Warhammer

Maybe you aren't cooking them right. Rattlers usually taste like chicken with a texture of lobster tail.

Pat

 

[tglass]

warhammer, never heard of this hardpan till I moved to Texas and drilled post holes. Asked my neighbor thinking maybe my drill stem was dull. His reply was you ought to hit it with a plow, and no it's not your drill tip. If you find an easy way let me know.

 

[gerard]

get a revolver with some snakeshot shells for the snakes. (.357 or .44 work well!) For the holes, I didn't see anyone else mention it and it may bot be your problem BUT if you started the hole through ANY grass, make sure you raise the auger and clear any grass off that wrapped around the tip. Make the auger not bite at all. Also use grinder to keep fresh edge on blades. (I've also used the 6 foot pry bar technique for downforce with a lot of success, as mentioned you just have to be careful and not have the lever all the way down so if it breaks thru nad starts to go down, it doesn't go all the way in and bury itself before you can clear it. (Not an issue is you have two people and the tractor man can control the depth while the second applies the downforce.

 

[bcarwell]

Had a similar problem north of Austin. After <much> reading and experimenting I found the best solution is a different kind of auger tip: called a "fishtail" (rather than a spiral it has two point spaced about 4 inches apart, about $40 - $80 bucks). Found out about it by talking to Rhino tech support. Really broke through the Central Texas limestone rocks/hardpan (and I've got a small Rhino and compact tractor without much weight). But I found it was a combination of things: the different bit tip, water as has been suggested, and then if it was really stubborn, using a San Angelo pole right in the center of the hole to break things up a bit a few inches down to let the auger bite. And also moving forward a bit and drilling at an angle and then moving back and drilling again at an angle would break it up. But I still intend to weld a weight holder on the PHD boom and load it with a few hundred pounds of my sons weighlifting weights, as I think that's a poor man's hydraulic downpressure equivalent which should help. I've got about 50 holes to dig in this awful limestoney soil, so I'm trying to get my act together and avoid renting a hydraulic rig or whatever. Bottom line is a combination of the things suggested above seemed to cut down the time substantially because, with a spiral bit, I was doing like you were, sitting there for a 1/2 hour while the bit did nothing but polish the hole. Grrrrr. Good luck !

Bob

 

[wftree]

I can tell you what NOT to do!

I have a layer of soft shale down about 24". I was putting in a riding ring for my wife and had to do some cut and fill to level the spot. Where I did the cutting I could only get the PHD down about 6" then hit the shale.
My brilliant idea was to use the blade of a John Deere 450 dozer for down pressure

The result = When I pulled up the auger about 3 inches of the end was gone. I touched the end, luckily with gloves and they smoked.

It is really hard to tell how much down pressure there was with the blade!

 

[RWolf]

Had a couple of holes to dig and ended up using about 100 - 200 lbs of tractor weights tied to the end of the boom.