How do you store your attachments? Stacking options?

[Will_C]

I have mine on dollies on the floor of my barn. With the concrete
floor, I can cram them into corners and tight against the walls.

Will

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[chrisclark]

Thank's for the ideas!

So what you want is a 'driving shed'. Closed in on three sides with a door of sorts on the access side. Farmers build them all the time. Can use them for firewood storage, too.

So that's what it's called. I've had a design in mind for something like this for several months. Just haven't had time (or cash) to actually build it.

Here's a somewhat smaller version I built several years ago. It has bays for four implements plus a small closed room with a toilet that's tightly closed and heated above freezing, so works great for storing seeds, garden chemicals, etc.

That looks great, Terry. The design I'm currently mulling over would be even smaller than that: just enough room on 3 ground level bays for the 3-point-hitch attachments we plan to get (might have to build a fourth, just in case) and two bays on top for the loader bucket and pallet forks. I'm haven't worked out all of the design details yet.

If you go back to that stack of cement blocks concept, think about lateral stability as well. My implements get "bumped" when attaching them.

I thought of that. I'd definitely have to stick the blocks together with mortar. If I go that route, I'd probably have to build them with wider bases to improve lateral stability.

I have mine hanging from sections of heavy chain under a heavy duty bench so that they are at "attachment" level. Makes it easy to hook up if I don't get the tractor exactly in the right spot, inside a two stall drive in on the side of my barn. I hang my mower deck on the wall so water does not accumulate on it. The tiller is too heavy to hang so it sits on some scrap 4x4 treated timbers. In Alabama the humidity is so high, any steel in unheated areas will "condensate" and rust - I use "Slide, No Rust" - tool and die protector for a lot of things I want to protect in the barn.

That sounds interesting. Don't the chains chip the paint or damage the metal? Here in Wyoming, humidity isn't as much of an issue as it is in the south.

The paint job on most attachments is designed to get it out the door. A can of appliance epoxy when they are new goes a long way to keeping attachments looking new. Touch up the skins and scrapes before storing them in the fall.

I just assumed most would be painted something durable, like powder coating. Is it relatively easy to color match the appliance epoxy to your implements? Or do implement manufacturers sell the epoxy color matched to their implements?

Thanks!
Chris

 

[chrisclark]

What you will find is that it can be a pain to hookup 3-pt implements unless both the tractor and implement are on level ground relative to each other.

So, then I guess a 3-point-hitch can't lift very high to connect to an implement stored on a shelf? (I've never owned or operated a tractor beyond a couple of test drives, let alone hooked anything up to a 3-point-hitch.) I sort of assumed that. From the videos I've watched, I take it that the 3PH can lift some, but not much.

Get a wide carport, say 20' wide by 25-30' long with covered sides. Orient it so you don't get a lot of wind-driven rain inside the structure. That way you would have room for at least 4 implements. Or buy two 10'W x 20' L carports with sides. You'll probably have to anchor those structures to a concrete foundation to handle the wind loads in WY.

I've looked at carports to protect the tractor. Yes, wind loads here are a bit of a concern. A 65mph gust overextended the door on our minivan when my wife was picking up the boys from the school bus. We now make sure to park pointing into the wind. I'm just having a little trouble working something out that both protects the implements from the weather and makes them accessible to the tractor. A 10'x25' carport that's accessible from the side would be very similar to a small driving shed, as described by Looking4new.

Basically a gallon or so of paint is much cheaper than a storage shed and even without any touchup, all of the 3 PH equipment will outlast me.

I realize that all the equipment is designed to be used outside, but I assumed that, with use, the paint would chip and scratch, and that I'd constantly be touching up the paint. Not to mention the sun (we get a lot of sun here) beating down and fading the paint. How long does the paint tend to last, and how often should I expect to have to touch up the paint? The touch-up paint for our car wants to be applied when the temperature is above 70ｺF; if farm implement paint (appliance epoxy?) is similar, then it seems like we'd only be able to touch up a few months of the year.

I built this a few years ago. ... The idea I liked with this new building is that it has total access from the front and although there is still always stuff in the way it seems, it is a much better solution then doors from one side or another.

Nice looking building! It sounds like your design is your own spin on the driving shed mentioned earlier in this thread. That seems to be a very popular approach.

Thanks!
Chris

 

[chrisclark]

Following the "driving shed" rabbit hole (thanks, Looking4new!), I found some interesting smaller options (thanks, Terry!). I'm starting to think that something like this might be a good starting point: Woodshed Plans | Free Outdoor Plans - DIY Shed, Wooden Playhouse, Bbq, Woodworking Projects with the following modifications:

• Make it deep enough for a 6' or 7' rotary cutter
• Make it wide enough for a 6' or 7' rotary cutter, 7' land plane, or 7' rear blade
• Make the bottom low enough for a 3-point-hitch to reach, possibly all the way down to the dirt, and have the implement sit on 4x4's or 6x6's.
• Add a shelf for front end loader implements

This design could yield a modular unit that could expand with our collection of implements until we can build a nice pole barn driving shed (and then it can shelter the ones that don't fit inside ). There are a couple of places we could shelter such a structure from the wind.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[Looking4new]

Count me in this arena also. I have the enclosed storage for only the chipper and grapple. The remainder - rear blade, land plane, disc harrow, etc etc are on pallets outside. Of course, the problem for me, is not available land to locate a building - such as Looking4new has - but $$$.
It becomes immediately apparent when storing implements that placing one in front of another in a shed is great until you need the one stored in the back. And without a concrete floor a rolling pallet is not possible.

So I sit here and fantasize and drool at pics of "driving sheds" like Looking4new just posted.

I've only got 5 acres, my problem is also $$$'s. Didn't you see the drool all over the driving shed? Must have missed it. I've also got a two bottom trip plow, disk harrows and cultivators that need a home in a covered shed. Right now they are outside, where they have probably spent all their lifetime before I got them.

 

[RalphVa]

When I had my convertible, I kept all the implements not on the tractor in the basement of the 2 car garage that we call the "carriage house". My neighbor has a bigger tractor. He keeps the tractor and all his implements in a half depth version of my carriage house basement but 3 bays wide instead of my 2. He could only go half depth because they hit a huge boulder back there.

I keep all implements either on castors underneath them or dollies underneath them. The soil ripper was on a pallet that had castors underneath it. A pallet isn't very strong for this. The pallet was becoming bowed before I gave it away.

Ralph

 

[s219]

So, then I guess a 3-point-hitch can't lift very high to connect to an implement stored on a shelf? (I've never owned or operated a tractor beyond a couple of test drives, let alone hooked anything up to a 3-point-hitch.) I sort of assumed that. From the videos I've watched, I take it that the 3PH can lift some, but not much.

The amount (length) of lift depends on the size of the tractor (so a bigger tractor will have more lift than a sub-compact). But the amount of "usable" lift when hooking up an implement is less than the total lift, since the implement pins will already be some distance up above the ground. For example, I use up 12-16" of lift just to get the 3-pt arms up to the pin level of my box blade. From there, I may have another 12-16" of lift, tops.

So I don't think you should plan on being able to get high enough to attach implements from a shelf. Generally there is enough lift to hook up something at ground level, and that's about it. Figure on needing +/- 4" of slop to jiggle things into place too.

 

[TerryR]

I like your design on the dollies, I have built dollies for mine, but I may steal your design, if I build some more.

Feel free.

Some learning from my designs:

Here's another view of the one for the rear blade:

The upright to hold the blade up is much easier than using the supplied jack. But the blade doesn't lift high enough to clear it when driving off, so I have to scoot it off to the side after I attach the blade. Some way to fold down the upright would be great.

You can see the tiller behind the blade. Since it only gets used once a year, the dollies allow me to "stack" them one behind the other to save space - great. However the dolly for the tiller was under-engineered. The flat 2x4s are very old and very hard, and I figured as close as the casters are to the ends the would be adequate. Wrong. The quickly developed a noticeable upward bow so I've since added another 2x4 on edge to give them more support.

The one for the chipper works well as long as I center the chipper side-to-side when I put it away. If it's off to the side the rails on the bottom of the chipper bind the casters when they swivel. Some sort of guides to get it centered would probably help.

Here's the one I build for my carry-all:

It works well. The wide-set casters keep it from tipping when I step on it, which it always did when I put it directly on the floor. And the dolly is light enough that I can set it up against a wall when it's empty.

Terry

 

[TerryR]

Following the "driving shed" rabbit hole (thanks, Looking4new!), I found some interesting smaller options (thanks, Terry!). I'm starting to think that something like this might be a good starting point: Woodshed Plans | Free Outdoor Plans - DIY Shed, Wooden Playhouse, Bbq, Woodworking Projects with the following modifications:

• Make it deep enough for a 6' or 7' rotary cutter
• Make it wide enough for a 6' or 7' rotary cutter, 7' land plane, or 7' rear blade
• Make the bottom low enough for a 3-point-hitch to reach, possibly all the way down to the dirt, and have the implement sit on 4x4's or 6x6's.
• Add a shelf for front end loader implements

You're welcome, Chris.

Some thoughts on sizing a small shed.

- Make each bay wide enough to accommodate easily the rear wheels of the tractor. In my case that's important because I have them set as wide as possible for stability on our hilly property. I made them 8 ft. on centers, which works well for me.

- When figuring the depth, remember that the PTO shaft will hang over the front of the implement unless you take it off each time (some do, but I never do).

- Make it tall enough for room for your ROPS when you back in to attach an implement, and for your tallest implement. In my case that's the chute on the chipper, which just fits after I cut 6" out of it.

- Shelves are very handy for getting small stuff off the floor. We have two over the rotary cutter bay which are full of garden stuff, and some racks in other bays to keep long poles. I'd wonder about access to them if you intend to keep loader implements there - won't you have to first move whatever is in front of them?

A concrete or other solid floor is essential in my view because it's really necessary to use dollies, which I think are important for good utilization of the space as well as easing the process of attaching implements.

Terry

 

[jmc]

This is the image that comes to mind when I consider storing all my implements on dollies in the barn:


https://www.pinterest.com/pin/125960120803760448/