Building a subsoiler

alancamby · Mar 18, 2015

After looking at buying a subsoiler for some time, I finally decided I was going to build my own.

Just started making the lower cat1 3ph mount tonight.

high stress areas received 3 passes

You can see my jig, pipe and bolt, for holding the spacing at 3". It also helps keep the mounts somewhat parallel during the heat of welding.

woodchipper · Mar 18, 2015

Any reason for not wraping your welds?
You'r off to a good start. what will you use for the soiler blade?
Any provision for countering any immouvable obstacle that might be in the way of the blade?

alancamby · Mar 18, 2015

Do you mean weaving over the entire weld, like a cover pass? I don't have a reason really. I am not a trained welder. just a guy in a barn with a pile of steel and a welder

Yes it will have a shear bolt. It won't be a typical setup though. I will have a travel setting on the blade so that it will not be near the ground while not in use.

The blade is 3/4"x6" flat bar. Just like the Fred Cain, ETA, and a bunch of others that share that design that uses 3/4x6. Mine is 1018 in cold rolled instead of A36 though. I was looking at buying the ETA but was surprised that the blade was A36.

My subsoiler will be very unique. It will be a unproven design so it might work great or fail miserably. Of course I feel confident or I would not proceed with the design.

Baby Grand · Mar 19, 2015

My subsoiler will be very unique. It will be a unproven design so it might work great or fail miserably. Of course I feel confident or I would not proceed with the design.

I like your approach. Curious to see what you come up with. Looking great, so far.
I have a County Line that I'd like to rework to be shear bolt protected, and maybe I can steal an idea from your build.
Keep up the good work!

FTG-05 · Mar 19, 2015

Tagscribed for when, not if, I decide to build one of my own.

I'm especially interested in the "great or fail miserably" results.

Good luck!

alancamby · Mar 19, 2015

couple of new pictures to show this afternoons progress.

Here you can get a better idea of my lower ripper shank holder. The idea is for the shank to float in this pocket. the upper mount will have a "in use" position and a "travel" position.
The shear feature is in this bottom pocket, though not installed in the picture. It will be a shear gate instead of the typical single shear bolt. I have seen damage done to implements as a single sheared bolt is pulled through a tight clearance. My plow, for example, has a lot of wear in the shear area due to this.

The shear gate will shear one of the bolts and the other will act as a hinge for the gate to slide out of the way. If for some reason both bolts shear at the exact same time, I will just have to look around for the gate. The gate is very simple and can be replaced if lost or damaged.

Here is the bottom view. You can see how I tied one side of the c-channel to the other side.

Here is the weld, in the center, that ties the plate in the last picture to the front (tractor side) of the c-channel.

alancamby · Mar 19, 2015

couple of new pictures to show this afternoons progress.

Here you can get a better idea of my lower shank holder. The idea is for the shank to float in this pocket. the upper mount will have a "in use" position and a "travel" position.
The shear feature is in this bottom pocket, though not installed in the picture. It will be a shear gate instead of the typical single shear bolt. I have seen damage done to implements as a single sheared bolt is pulled through a tight clearance. My plow, for example, has a lot of wear in the shear area due to this.

The shear gate will shear one of the bolts and the other will act as a hinge for the gate to slide out of the way. If for some reason both bolts shear at the exact same time, I will just have to look around for the gate. The gate is very simple and can be replaced if lost or damaged.

Here is the bottom view. You can see how I tied one side of the c-channel to the other side.

Here is the weld in the center that ties that plate in last picture to the front (tractor side) of the c-channel.

The hole just off center was a existing hole from this repurposed metal. It serves no purpose for this project.

bullbreaker · Mar 19, 2015

Yours looks like its comeing along just fine . Here a diagram and parts breakdown of one :Worksaver

Click on R-130.PDF go to page 9 and 10 ..............................

parvodog · Mar 20, 2015

That looks great!

And for a guy in a barn, with steel and a welder, you do nice work.

I'll be borrowing your ideas, unless it's the miserably failing part. I do enough of those on my own!
Tim

alancamby · Mar 21, 2015

Here is what I ended up with for the top mount. Please excuse the mess in the background, today I will start cleaning the mess. This photo was taken before the top mount went in the blast cabinet for the last time. Once this top is welded to my base there is no fitting it in my blast cabinet.

Here is the close to complete frame. I still have a few gussets I want to add. As can be seen, the ripper is not done.
I ordered the ETA ripper point that fits their subsoiler along with almost every other manufactures. That set me back $28

Picture of how the blade connects to the top of the frame. I will be adding a second hole in the blade for a travel setting.

Here is what the shear gate will look like if it shears one of the bolts. Think I will try 3/8-16 grade 2 to start out with. If that breaks to easily I will move up to 7/16-14.

If the ripper hits something that is solid and overloads the shear setup, the blade will swing back and get stuck on this ladder :confused2:. It will swing much further if need be.