Engineering advice needed

[638]

I have picked up a scrap LP gas tank (500 gal) to build a lawn roller. It is 3 1\2 ft in dia and will be about 6 1\2 ft wide. What size axle shaft would you recommend putting in this thing. My sod looks like a plowed field due to the moles.

Ron

 

[Egon]

Has the tank been well purged?

Rolling may only inconvienience the moles.

Egon

 

[RonMar]

3" large gauge(.25 wall). And Egon is right, that roller isn't going to do much to the gophers. The overall compaction that it will create is not going to really effect them digging. It will lower the mounds a bit, but I don't think it will press them back completely. As you know all the dirt in a mound came from several feet of tunnel that is not all under the mound so there is no place for the dirt from the mound to be pressed back into. It will also kill any grass that is currently under the mound.

For gophers I use road flares and a garden hose. I use a little bit of water from the hose to wash open the hole and access the tunnel. I cut a chunk of roadflare with a hacksaw or sawsall(about 2 1/2" or 5 minutes worth), light it and drop it down the hole. I then backfill the hole to keep the dense heavy sulphur smoke in the hole/tunnel. I come back later with the hose and wash as much of the dirt from the mound back into the hole as I can untill the dirt is all back in the ground or the hole won't take anymore. Any leftover, I spread around in the grass. The grass that was around the hole and covered in dirt quickly springs back to life and covers over the small hole. I have also used propane gas injected into the tunnels which works pretty well. Both methods cost about the same, about 50 cents per application. My property is basically all woodlands so it will be a never ending struggle.

Good Luck in yours.

 

[ccsial]

3" large gauge(.25 wall).
For gophers I use road flares and a garden hose.

WMD's for Gophers, Chemical warfare. I love it. Gonna try it soon.

 

[638]

Ran a vacuum pump on it for about 8 hours and then filled it with CO2. Should be safe to cut on!!! Had planed on a solid shaft with pillow block bearings, but the 3" pipe through the middle and stub shafts on each end would be cheaper. Welding around a solid shaft to make it watertight would cause a lot of stress at the weld area and I was afraid that too small of a shaft might not hold up as well as it should.

Ron

 

[RonMar]

Your gonna fill this thing with water? A spherical ended 500Gal Propane tank alone weighs around 1000#. 500 Gal of water is going to add another 4000# to that. I am guessing that this LP tank skin is probably not more than 5/16" thick. No matter what you weld it to, that skin thickness is always going to be the weakest link. You are correct that larger end connections would spread the stresses over a larger portion of the tank skin. The specs on a 500 gallon tank I have seen show it at just under 10' long and 37" in diameter. That leaves about 7' of sidewall and with only a portion of this in contact with the ground, at 5000# that is well in excess of 1000# PSF on the ground. That is a lot! That is also a lot of stress for cast pillow block bearings, particularly when turning, unless you are using really massive ones. If you are not going to be using it every day, you might consider makeing up a bushing affair on either end. This would allow for a good strong connection and save a considerable ammount of money.

If I was building it here is how I would do it:
Put a piece of pipe all the way thru the tank end to end. After looking at the weights more, I would up my initial reccomendation from 3" to 4" heavy wall pipe. This pipe would stick out the end of the tank about a foot on each side. This would be the Axle. Over this pipe I would slip a plate with a hole in the middle and weld it to the pipe/tank to act as an inner thrust bearing. Over the pipe axel I would slip a slightly larger pipe with a fairly close tollerance fit that is just shorter than the length of pipe comming out of the tank. Into this piece of pipe I would drill and tap 1 or 2 zerk fittings near the middle of it's length to fill the small gap between the two pipes with grease. To this pipe I would weld the structure that will connect the tank axel to the tractor towbar. Into the end of the axle I would weld a plate that is drilled/tapped. To this axle endplate I would bolt an outer end plate about the same size as the inner plate. This is not strictly necessary as the towbar structure would hold the bushings in place. Please see the attached .BMP which is a top view of one end.

This is of course steel on steel, but with occasional grease applications, should work fine for a low-speed application such as this. I certainly wouldn't want to get a 5000# roller up to any real speed What are you going to tow this thing with anyway?

 

[Neophyte]

I have always heard that dumping a container of black pepper down a ground hog hole will force it to abandon the tunnel. Is this true? Would it work for gophers?

 

[RonMar]

I have always heard that dumping a container of black pepper down a ground hog hole will force it to abandon the tunnel. Is this true? Would it work for gophers?

I have heard that one also, along with chewing gum and human hair. Supposedly they eat it and their digestive system won't pass it so they eventually die. Don't know if this works, havn't tried any of them.

 

[Soundguy]

I've hear of peanut butter mixed with mortar mix... I hear it gives the offender bad case of constipation.. ( can't verify.. )

Soyundguy

 

[turnkey4099]

I saw a blurp on TV about a "rodentvator" that the bleeding heart liberals are protesting. It pumps a gas mixture down the hole then ignites it. The demonstration was I believe in a ground squirrel patch in Texas. Fascinating picture of blasts coming out of holes all around the operator. The Animal rights figure it is cruel. Oh? An just how is that crueler than the poison that is currently being used which also affects animals that are not targeted?

Then there is the ammonia pipe that was popular here not too long ago. Don't know if it is still in use. You stuck a hose down the hole and let the gas fill the burrows.

Harry K