Most useful implements?

2manyrocks · May 19, 2022

They make bale accumulators. Maybe somebody makes a junk accumulator.

Larry Caldwell · May 19, 2022

2manyrocks said:
They make bale accumulators. Maybe somebody makes a junk accumulator.

A neighbor repurposed and old spud picker for picking river cobbles <4" out of his fields. It also picked up woody debris. Results were mixed. It worked great on little rocks, but got bent if he hit a big rock.

SmallChange · May 22, 2022

I've been thinking about a land plane for attaching to the loader. It'd look like Venetian blinds or Jalousie windows. There would be multiple blades pivoted together so they would stay mutually parallel. The dump/curl loader motion would change the angle so you could control how aggressive it was, and the raise/lower motion would control ground engagement generally. Perhaps there'd be a spring that tended to keep the whole thing approximately horizontal when raised, so it would be able to clear the ground completely and land in a controlled fashion rather than digging in at the front and binding.

Xfaxman · May 22, 2022

SmallChange said:
I've been thinking about a land plane for attaching to the loader.

Look at landplanes made for skid steers, that is what I have made by Blue Diamond:

SmallChange · May 22, 2022

Xfaxman said:
that is what I have made by Blue Diamond

Yeah, the ones I have seen look more or less like this one. You have to dump/curl to get the whole thing to contact the ground, and there's no adjusting angle of attack. I'd like to make one that pivots to follow the ground, and lets me use dump/curl to adjust the angle of attack simultaneously on all the cross pieces.

mwemaxxowner · May 24, 2022

The loader mounted plane, drag, whatever you wanna call it worked beautifully.

Roughing in. Wish I would have taken more photos before I started.

What I found was that if I set the loader in float, and back drag, I could control what it does with my tilt. Tilt back so the edge near the tractor cuts into the hump (s) and it would really do a lot of cutting. Tilt forward and it would cut more mildly, and/or allow some of the dirt building up in front of it to move under and be distributed and deposited to build up. If things were already close just tilt pretty far forward and back drag for a quick smoothing. It's very useful for pushing and smoothing where that is necessary too. That requires being careful and close attention to tilt adjustments for desired effect.

I worked top to bottom then left to right. Since it can only float in one plane on the loader, this would leave lines on the side of the plane left to right doesn't match up perfectly. So, after working it in on the loader, I unhooked, chained to the rear, and made a quick pass over everything dragging it. I don't have any pictures from after pulling but I go back this weekend to work some more. It worked really well and I was quite pleased for the $0 investment and ease of use.