Building a Land Roller

[WWhunter]

I am wanting to build a roller to smooth out some property I have so as to enable me to mow it easier without being bounced to death.
I have an 8' section of 31" diameter "oil pipeline" type pipe. This is about 3/8" or so thick so should be plenty stout. I plan on welding the same thickness caps on it. These caps will have a bung cap on each end to enable me to put water/sand/whatever inside for additional weight. I'm not an engineer of any type and am concerned with flexing of the axle if it is not strong enough.
My question is, will an inch and a half diameter shaft (for the axle) be sufficient? I as going to weld a few gussets on the axle/cap to help and then mount it with pillar block bearings on a framework.
What say you experts?

 

[Tractor Seabee]

I am designing a winter project for a roller to drag with my BX; so interested in passing on ideas,

A lot of missing info to base an opinion on. 31" pipe will hold a lot of water per LF. Questions?
-How long will the barrel be? That will determine the weight and be an axle design factor.
-Have you considered the slosh factor? Maybe install some baffles.
-Water is easier to adjust weight if necessary than any other filler. Drain in the winter to prevent freeze up
-Lifting with the 3 Point? Another factor in axle and frame design and weight capacity of the hydraulics.
-Pulling with the draw bar? Another design factor.
-What is you tractor?

Help us help you but need to pin down the variables.

Ron

 

[bcp]

Hills? Flat land?

Wide one piece roller will skid around corners.

Bruce

 

[boggen]

not nocking your roller idea... but have you consider ripping up the entire area, with say "box blade, rear blade, disc, etc... etc.." take your pick of 3pt hitch stuff. and smooth things out? it might come down to ripping things down a few inches. and compacting the dirt as you build the area back up.

example. i have put in a few good ruts in the yard "running tractors / vehicles through it" there is no way a roller would flatten things back out to get rid of bumps. even though it is only 1/2" to 1" little baby bumps. i have had to rip the area up. and then re smooth it all back out. then sprinkle a little grass seed and wait 1 year for majorty to fill in. then about 2 to 3 years for entire area to look normal again with full grass coverage.

in a couple areas... i have had to go deeper up to about 1 foot. and do some "re-landscaping" to deal with run off water better. the area was filled in with loose soil and never compacted. not even tractor driving back and over it a few times every few inches. just dumped and smoothed on top. result was frost heave "ground water" was freezing and causing the ground to shift and move all about un-predictably as the ground froze, and then come spring it was un-thaw all out of whack. leaving ugly mess on top. re-smooth it on top and maybe last 1 to 2 years. until i dug down and re compacted the dirt better and dealt with run off water better.

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sloshing water... even in a 55 gallon drum. can get rather scary. pending on size of tractor and hills dealing with. in a small size S-10 pickup truck... you might think your good breaking to slow down till the water sloshes and pushes you on forward.

not sure how to deal with "sloshing" beyond filling the roller up full of water "more full it is, the less sloshing that will happen"

sloshing is not just the "jerking back and forth you will fill" but it might cause "pot holes" per say. as the water sloshes inside the roller it forces the roller back and forth compacting some areas (errr making pot holes) to not compacting at all in other areas. going slower (as in MPH miles per hour) and filling roller nearly full if not all the way full of water will help with sloshing.

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for a "fill port" make it say 1.5" to 2" in size. plenty of room to shove a garden hose down inside and at an angle. without being eye level with hose and hole and micro managing feeding the hose into the "fill port"

you might find 2" shower drains "metal" at local hardware stores on the cheap. and be able to adapt some sort of end cap / screw plug.
--to note it electrical fittings "are not water tight / gas / air tight"

6" or larger fill port = shoving your hand inside with garden hose, and be able to spray the inside of the roller out.

================

wider is not always better.... just like scalping with mower decks. to wide of a finishing mower deck. and coming out of say a ditch along the road. to uneven areas in yard, and the blades will cut down into the ground. a wide roller might compact the very high spot. but more than likely. it will angle itself to one side of the high spot. and not really compress the high spot down that much. and leave one side (oppsite side roller rolled across) left un -compacted. and waiting for a wet mowing to put a rut in the yard.

having say a 4 foot long roller. may roll things out better overall.

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if you need extra weight. you DO NOT need to add weight directly inside the roller itself. simply having a heaver frame work. or the frame work allowing spots to stack a few concrete blocks or like might work. there are plenty of "box blades, discs, etc..." were there is more of a platform, were folks can stack some extra weight on top of them. so the 3pt hitch equipment works better in the dirt / gravel.

sand / water is always thought of for a roller because well... it is an enclosed container or can be. but... is that really a good thing or not?

=================
i never seen a roller attached directly to a 3pt hitch or other were it can be raised / lowered. i have always seen lawn rollers have like a bumper pull tongue on them. this lets the roller adjust to all angles.

my issues with lawn rollers.... there big / heavy / awkward to store and deal with, even when hauling them. if you can make your frame work / tongue so it is "removable" and "folds up" or "comes undone" with some extra bolts. all the better. your not pulling a lawn roller 100MPH down the lawn or down the road. instead of welding entire frame work together. add a few brackets, drill some extra holes. and bolt and/or pin it together.

 

[aeblank]

My brother bought a roller made out of a propane tank. He is quite happy with it.
It has structure about the same or a bit smaller than what you're talking about.
When it's full of water, he can only pull it up small hills with his B7100.
You can feel the slosh/push of the water, but you won't be going fast.

I think you have a good start to a good roller. Being *thick* steel is required (which you have), otherwise it just conforms to the bumps.

 

[Garycw]

For the amount of time you usually need a lawn roller,( early spring) makes more sense to me to rent one for $15 one day.

 

[WWhunter]

Thanks guys, I will try to answer a few of the questions.

Last response first...I live 30 miles from town so really don't want to rent one, besides, I live in forrested country and haven't seen a roller for rent other than the small yard type. I already have one that I built for that purpose.

I stated in my OP that this 'pipe' is 8 feet long by 31" in diameter. I can easily cut the length to a shorter size if needed. Actually was thinking of making it around 6 feet for the only reason of it will be wide enough to smooth out the tractor tracks. I will be pulling it, via drawbar, with either my Ford 3000 or Bobcat CT445.

I previously made a roller out of a high pressure boiler tank about 4 feet long a foot in diameter. I filled it with sand instead of water since my previous roller busted because I forgot to drain the water out before winter. This small roller is pulled behind my 4-wheeler.

For filling and draining, I will weld in fill/caps the same size as are used fuel barrels (get at the local farm supply). I can easily weld in some perforated baffles inside to slow any sloshing.

I plan on building the frame to enable me to add/remove weight if I do not fill it with water. Probably just a shelf that will hold rocks (I have plenty) or concrete blocks. This idea is still an option.

The land I am rolling is fairly flat with maybe has a 10' diviance at most in climb/decent. Not much to worry about. I had borrowed a roller many years ago. It is actually a landing strip I extended. The roller I borrowed was 5-6 feet in diameter and 6 feet wide, filled with concrete and VERY heavy!! My 3000 Ford was at its limit pulling it up the slight incline. The landing strip is now about 100 feet wide and 1800 feet long. Nearly double the original 1,000 feet I was using. Some guys just won't land on such a short strip in the woods!

The soil was mostly clay/sand mix and I had a bunch of topsiol hauled in. This was tilled, dragged, and bladed with a grader so it is fairly smooth and flat already. I am wanting the roller to get it as smooth and bump free as possible. Living here in north central Mn the hard freezes in the winter can cause 'frost boils' and other humps/ripples in the ground. I want to be able to roll these out in the spring and after heavy rains.

Thanks again for everyone's help so far.

 

[ishiboo]

not nocking your roller idea... but have you consider ripping up the entire area, with say "box blade, rear blade, disc, etc... etc.." take your pick of 3pt hitch stuff. and smooth things out? it might come down to ripping things down a few inches. and compacting the dirt as you build the area back up.

example. i have put in a few good ruts in the yard "running tractors / vehicles through it" there is no way a roller would flatten things back out to get rid of bumps. even though it is only 1/2" to 1" little baby bumps. i have had to rip the area up. and then re smooth it all back out. then sprinkle a little grass seed and wait 1 year for majorty to fill in. then about 2 to 3 years for entire area to look normal again with full grass coverage.

Kind of the lazy route out, if you're good waiting 2-3 years as you said and don't want to get off the seat of your tractor

I live on clay so I am familiar with both the ruts and general unlevelness. For ruts, the cleanest thing to do is to carefully add a bit of topsoil at a time. The grass continues to grow through it and you don't end up with a huge bare patch waiting on the grass.

Being on clay, especially clay that freezes/thaws, means that the ground is going to be uneven even if you box bladed it and leveled everything out... once anything weather-related hit it would move again. So having a roller is necessary to maintain a smooth lawn.

 

[boggen]

ugly math...
31" diameter by 8 feet long
= approx 313 gallons of water. at about 2600 lbs (just water)
= http://www.upstatesteel.com/products/CarbonSteelPlate.pdf = approx 2000 lbs just the pipe itself

so approx 4600 lbs not counting frame work.

 

[DuckSlayer1017]

I think a 1.5" solid axle will be able to take the weight as long as the axles are short.