Building a Chainlink Harrow

[UpstateNYMarine]

Trying to clean up our land we bought here in New York and found several large rolls of chainlink. Pretty good condition just too beat up to make into a fence again. So I am looking to make a chainlink drag harrow for my JD 2320 out of some of it. Have a buddy that wants to make one as well in order to take some off my hands. I am looking for any pics or advice on how I should go about doing this. I have some ideas but was looking for others advice on what works best and lessons learned type of things.

Thanks in advance for the help guys.

 

[RonMar]

The last one I built was about 6' square for behind a friends garden tractor to smooth her arena. What I did on that one was to join the link fence like the installers do to sections of fence. They use a single zig-zag wire to lace it together. I took a piece of pipe a little longer than the fence mat was wide(6' tall). I welded each end of a about a 10'-12' length of chain to each end of the pipe. To the middle of this length of chain I welded a large 2" washer for the draw pin to drop into on the tractor I wrapped the end of the chain link around the pipe and laced it back to itself as tight around the pipe as i could manage. I took another piece of pipe and rolled/laced the back end of the mat around it. on the rear pipe, I welded a couple of bolts onto the pipe in amongst the mesh to keep the pipe from sliding out the ends. This was the easiest way I came up with to attach the mat to a pipe. I surely wouldn't want to try and weld that fence wire to the pipe

 

[SkunkWerX]

You can slide a piece of 1/4" thick flat stock into the chain links at one end, like they do for fastening the fence section to an end-post.

Drill holes in the flat stock, use washers and bolt the flat stock to the fencing so that it cannot slide out. If you use EYE bolts you can attach your drag chain to them.

On the tail end of the chainlink section(s) , you can also attach flat stock, bolt it, and that keeps the tail section from jumping, hopping, and bunching.

Once you have the flat stock secured in the tail-end, you can add a thick piece of rebar, or anything else that may give the type of finish you want.

 

[hbaird]

If you have any roots or other things that can catch the links, try using thin nylon rope to connect to the tractor. It will break under stress and save everything else
Harold.

 

[SkunkWerX]

If you have any roots or other things that can catch the links, try using thin nylon rope to connect to the tractor. It will break under stress and save everything else
Harold.

hbaird has a very very good point!
We used our harrows on the local Little League fields to groom them, so we didn't have large rocks, roots and stumps to deal with.

It is an excellent idea to have something like 1/4" or 3/8" poly rope that will snap, saving your harrow!