Home-made Sheep's Foot Roller Ideas?

[jcctexas]

Re: Home-made Sheep\'s Foot Roller Ideas?

Go to Tractor Suply or a trailer supply shop and buy a couple of stub spindles and hubs with bearings
Weld the spindles to the end of some 1/4 in plate cut tofit into the end of the beral. Than wou can
use the hubs to have a place for your toungh to hook that has bearings that can be replaced if needed.
You could use bearing buddies to grease them easaly.
The key to making a sheeps foot work well for compaction when it dosent have a vibrater is the speed
you pull it you will have to experiment and see what speed is best and safest.

Good luck
Jim Coe

 

[RanchMan]

Re: Home-made Sheep\'s Foot Roller Ideas?

Another interesting idea!

BTW, here are a few more pics (this is the section of road I'm having the most issue with...)

 

[RanchMan]

Re: Home-made Sheep\'s Foot Roller Ideas?

pic 2 of 3...

 

[RanchMan]

Re: Home-made Sheep\'s Foot Roller Ideas?

And pic #3...

 

[Darren]

Re: Home-made Sheep\'s Foot Roller Ideas?

Have you thought of just buying a sheepsfoot? I'd think you ought to be able to buy a single roller model for $500 or less. Check some of the smaller construction and development outfits in your area. I've seen the large two roller models in excellent shape in Auto Trader for about $2K.

In this area I've seen them sitting in the weeds for years.

 

[wasabi]

Re: Home-made Sheep\'s Foot Roller Ideas?

What about threading pipes through say four rows of tire rims attached to a welded frame with a platform for weight (rocks, barrels of water or whatever). Seems like the tire rims would help chop up and compact the dirt at the same time.

 

[Kodiak]

Re: Home-made Sheep\'s Foot Roller Ideas?

Rankin equipment company (constructin division ) makes a great little 2 or 3 wheel sheep foot compactor that is supposed to replace the bucet on a backhoe. I don't see why you cuuldn't rig one up to clamp on your front bucket. That way you would have down pressure or be able to float it.
www.rankineqco.com. Good luck.

 

[Kodiak]

Re: Home-made Sheep\'s Foot Roller Ideas?

Once you get it leveled, you'll probably need a full layer of 4"to 6" shot rock as a base. Cover that with 6 to 8 inches of 3/4 minus or recycled asphalt, sometimes you can find asphalt reject matierial pretty cheap. make sure it contains enough fine matierial to lock the aggregate together. Then rent a small pull behind vibatory roller. Add enough water to it that you actually see the water start to pump out of it from the compaction, this really brings the fines up between the crushed aggregate. Stay off of it till it drys, and it should hold for a long time.
An alternative to the shot rock would be a geo-textile fabric but that gets rather expensive.

 

[EddieWalker]

Re: Home-made Sheep\'s Foot Roller Ideas?

Just read all the advice on building the Sheepsfoot Roller and was wondering if you ever built it?

Has anybody built one?

 

[B7510]

Re: Home-made Sheep\'s Foot Roller Ideas?

After years of putting up with the same sort of rutting on my drive (15% grade)I stopped grading it and started to fill the ruts with potato stone. Eventually, the mess stabilized, but it took a lot of stone. If you have much to deal with it could take a lot of material.

As for building your roller... Couldn't tell from the photo what type of soil you have but compacting clay takes a sheeps foot roller. Those are the ones with the knobs that stick out all the way around the drum. Weight helps with clay, but vibration doesn't.

If you have clean sand, then vibration helps and you want to use a smooth faced roller. The comments about using shot (or crushed) rock and recycled asphalt are good suggestions, but the amount of material may be prohibitive.