Homemade Root Ripper For Backhoe

[snymat68]

Since nobody currently offers a ripper for my RK24, I decided to whip up my own.

:dance1::2cents:

Fabbed the ripper tooth Monday night. Fabbed the mount and welded everything up last night.
Have less than $150 in it.

Video: Homemade Root Ripper - YouTube

 

[sinisterbiker]

Nice !

 

[3Ts]

Where did you get the DOM tubing for the mounting pins?

 

[snymat68]

Where did you get the DOM tubing for the mounting pins?

I got the plate and the tubing from a "Metal Supermarkets" near me.
They have locations all over and are online as well. Metal Supermarkets | Steel, Aluminum, Stainless, Hot-Rolled, Cold-Rolled, Alloy, Carbon, Galvanized, Brass, Bronze, Copper
They will sell you any quantity you want, even if it's only an inch long. Pretty handy really.

The stuff I got was:

 

[Shaneard]

Looks great!

 

[downsizingnow48]

Nice!

 

[3Ts]

Thanks for the link. Turns out there's one near my daughter and I had no idea. Apparently I've been looking in all the wrong places for DOM tubing.

 

[ericm979]

Nice!

I have a dumb question based on my digging up my first stump with my new to me backhoe- do you use a regular bucket to remove the dirt above the roots so you can get to them, then switch to the root ripper? Or is this for plants with shallow roots?

 

[snymat68]

Nice!

I have a dumb question based on my digging up my first stump with my new to me backhoe- do you use a regular bucket to remove the dirt above the roots so you can get to them, then switch to the root ripper? Or is this for plants with shallow roots?

All of the above. A bucket is still usually needed to dig around the stump, but these smaller hoes just don't have the power to rip up the bigger stumps. The ripper acts to concentrate the force along a single edge to break bigger roots. Once the roots are broken, the stump and roots can be dug up with either the ripper or bucket, whatever works best. All depends on the situation.

 

[snymat68]

Gave it a quick test last night on a Ø2" root out back. Snapped it like a wee toothpick. I'm out of stumps to rip out on my own property, but I have friends lined up that want some removed, so I'll have to wait to really test the ripper until I can get to their places.