JD Van Blunt Grain Drill Depth Questions

[Zleviticus]

I did a search and cannot find anything about this so here it goes.

I have an old, really old JD van blunt grain drill. It has seen better days and the fert box is toast. The seed box and the grass box are ok and everything with those seem to work and it has the grain tubes in tact, the grass tubes are gone but i can fix that with some tubing. I can find seed charts online and plan to calibrate it before i use it anyways then measure the openings and keep a log book for future reference. It is a double disc style if that matters.

Ok now that i am done rambling my question. The grain drill is not hydraulic and uses ropes to out the drill in position and such. That is not a big deal, i bought it knowing that as the tractor i had at the time did not have rear remotes. Well there i go again rambling.. My question (finally right?) is that the depth setting is done by turning the cranks at the front of the drill. However how in the heck do you know how deep it is currently and how do you tell how deep it is for each turn of the crank? I cannot find a gauge to show the depth, unless i am not looking in the right spots.

Thanks for any help you can give for this first time farmer using implements older than him. LOL

 

[boomer1025]

Same way us old timers do it. Put some seed ( oats or Wheat) in the box then pull it about 10 to 15 feet in the field. Go back and carefully uncover about a foot or 2 of what was planted and measure how deep the seed is in the ground. Adjust the planter till you get the depth right then write it down and save it for the next time.

 

[Zleviticus]

So basically that would be a no to any type of depth gauge. Lol

 

[flusher]

That's right. You also use that method to calibrate the grain drill feed rate (lbs/acre). Or you can jack up the drill so the wheels turn freely, put a weighed amount of grain in the seed box and count the number of turns of the wheel needed to empty the box. The width of the drill and the diameter of the wheel are what you need to calibrate the acres covered by that weight of seed. Here's how I calibrated my restored Minneapolis-Moline P3-6 grain drill (10 ft wide, 20 drops, seed boxes and grass boxes).




Good luck

 

[Shaneard]

If you search "John Deere Van Brunt" instead of "Blunt" you get many hits and pictures
john deere van brunt drill settings chart - Bing images

 

[BHD]

sounds like a FB drill with power lift,

three are two settings on the power lift changed, with a pin or bolt,,

and there are springs on the down pressure of each disk, and there cotter pins on the top of the spring shanks, to limit. the depth,


the power lift works the down pressure bar, and that is adjustable by the crank and the two Bolts on the flats that go to the down pressure bars,

then you have the down pressure springs, at the top one can limit the total depth of travel, and there there are a sliding tab that one can adjust the amount of down pressure,

,

and like said drill some and see where the seed is in the ground and adjust, presion depth is a feature of the system, drill slow under 5 mph preferably under 4, if single disks, as the loose dirt that is thrown may end up coving the seed in the nest furrow, (the picture is of a double disk), one of the better drills John deere ever made, IMO, I have drilled thousands of acres with the vanbrunt drills, really not hard to adjust or use,

one works the soil to given depth and many times the depth is such that it limits the depth of the drill,