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Narrow and shallow ditch digging advice please
- Thread starter etpm
- Start date
- Views: 8248
I used a single bottom plow to run a wire from my house to the barn . It made a furrow . We laid on the wire and tipped the sod back over. Done. It was a horse drawn walking plow. If you can find a single bottom 3point plow with a coulter it would work even better.Hi All,
I am putting in a phone line from my shop to covered picnic area. The distance is about 80 feet. I don't want a deep or wide ditch because I want to disturb the ground as little as possible as it is all landscaped. So I want a ditch just wide enough to drop conduit into and only about a foot deep. I am thinking about welding up some sort of "tooth" and attaching this tooth to the front bucket on my YM2310. Then I can follow a line painted on the ground while going backwards. I want to use the front bucket because it has down pressure and I can force the tooth into the fairly hard ground. My other thought is to just lower one ripper from my box blade but that would probably take a few passes because the 3PH doesn't have down pressure. I will probably need to make a custom ripper that is long enough but I already have the steel and a nice plasma cutter. My ideas are probably not as good as the suggestions and ideas you all with more experience will have so please don't hesitate to let me know any better ways.
Thanks,
Eric
Agree with this recommendation. If there’s no chance you’ll want to cross this line in the future, you’ll likely not need to encase the phone line in conduit. But if there’s a chance, put it in conduit and leave some slack on each end just in case you cross it and force a break.With the box blade and one tooth down, you will have the weight of the box blade. Don't forget that. I used to bury phone lines too, all day, six days a week. We didn't work Sunday because it inconvenienced people at their homes. But, if we had a mile long run across a farm, we'd be there doing it. I think the box blade apparatus will do the job, with a long tooth. They make a phone line, five pair that is shielded, has a metal wrap around the outside for direct burial. My brother is a phone man. If you catch a phone man you can ask him for a piece. They keep leftover pieces off large spools, rolled up at the phone office. They know how long they are. 5 pair shielded in conduit would be bullet proof, I dare say
Cdash
Silver Member
I might be a bit late to this party, but my wife and I pulled about 3 acres with of hidden fence through lawn, trails and general over growth. I made a cable plow for it that slipped on my back blade. It wasn't pretty (I didn't think it would work, but it did).
I used a 1" diameter piece of rebar that I had in the pile and welded two pieces of 6" long angle iron to it. One slid over the top edge of the back blade and the other under the bottom edge to hold it on the blade. I hacked a triangle piece out of some flat steel (like 3" x 3") and welded that to the bottom edge to act as a cutting edge on the front side. Last part was a piece of half inch conduit welded to the backside with a 90 degree bend at the bottom (I don't have a bender, so this was really ugly). I fed the wire down through the conduit, dropped the blade and drove. It worked awesome!! Cut through a lot of roots and left minimal disturbance. Essentially just walked behind stepping on the slightly heaved area and it practically disappeared.
What I thought was a single use tool got used again when I learned the thin yellow line doesn't last very long and we did the whole thing over again with better line. Worked even better that time since it wasn't as wet as the first time. In fact, it's probably still sitting in the scrap pile out back, waiting to be reused it repurposed.
I used a 1" diameter piece of rebar that I had in the pile and welded two pieces of 6" long angle iron to it. One slid over the top edge of the back blade and the other under the bottom edge to hold it on the blade. I hacked a triangle piece out of some flat steel (like 3" x 3") and welded that to the bottom edge to act as a cutting edge on the front side. Last part was a piece of half inch conduit welded to the backside with a 90 degree bend at the bottom (I don't have a bender, so this was really ugly). I fed the wire down through the conduit, dropped the blade and drove. It worked awesome!! Cut through a lot of roots and left minimal disturbance. Essentially just walked behind stepping on the slightly heaved area and it practically disappeared.
What I thought was a single use tool got used again when I learned the thin yellow line doesn't last very long and we did the whole thing over again with better line. Worked even better that time since it wasn't as wet as the first time. In fact, it's probably still sitting in the scrap pile out back, waiting to be reused it repurposed.
gckshea
Bronze Member
For all the fabbing and cobbling together of implements, I'd just go rent a chain trencher and be done. 80' will go fast, and if you run into rock or some impediment, you have an easier time with a trenches to redirect and circumvent. On the tractor it takes some space, clearance, and turning radii. Yes, $100 for 4 hours when it only takes 1 hour may seem expensive, but you are done. Good luckHi All,
I am putting in a phone line from my shop to covered picnic area. The distance is about 80 feet. I don't want a deep or wide ditch because I want to disturb the ground as little as possible as it is all landscaped. So I want a ditch just wide enough to drop conduit into and only about a foot deep. I am thinking about welding up some sort of "tooth" and attaching this tooth to the front bucket on my YM2310. Then I can follow a line painted on the ground while going backwards. I want to use the front bucket because it has down pressure and I can force the tooth into the fairly hard ground. My other thought is to just lower one ripper from my box blade but that would probably take a few passes because the 3PH doesn't have down pressure. I will probably need to make a custom ripper that is long enough but I already have the steel and a nice plasma cutter. My ideas are probably not as good as the suggestions and ideas you all with more experience will have so please don't hesitate to let me know any better ways.
Thanks,
Eric
Try borrowing a ditcher from a landscaping or sprinkler installer, they are narrow and shallow, second try renting a burrower, utility companies use them to burrow from hole to hole without disturbing the ground to much. Was electrical contractor for 40 yrs.
falconford61
New member
Yeats ago I used to install Dish Network cables direct bury using a 18" Puolan chainsaw with the chain turned backwards. Makes a small easy to drop in and easy to repair trench. That saw never cut any wood other than roots!!Hi All,
I am putting in a phone line from my shop to covered picnic area. The distance is about 80 feet. I don't want a deep or wide ditch because I want to disturb the ground as little as possible as it is all landscaped. So I want a ditch just wide enough to drop conduit into and only about a foot deep. I am thinking about welding up some sort of "tooth" and attaching this tooth to the front bucket on my YM2310. Then I can follow a line painted on the ground while going backwards. I want to use the front bucket because it has down pressure and I can force the tooth into the fairly hard ground. My other thought is to just lower one ripper from my box blade but that would probably take a few passes because the 3PH doesn't have down pressure. I will probably need to make a custom ripper that is long enough but I already have the steel and a nice plasma cutter. My ideas are probably not as good as the suggestions and ideas you all with more experience will have so please don't hesitate to let me know any better ways.
Thanks,
Eric
Running satellite dish wire, we would use shovel lift the grass up slide the wire just under the grass , as long as it's not in a garden spot , then water, can't tell the sod was ever distributed.Hi All,
I am putting in a phone line from my shop to covered picnic area. The distance is about 80 feet. I don't want a deep or wide ditch because I want to disturb the ground as little as possible as it is all landscaped. So I want a ditch just wide enough to drop conduit into and only about a foot deep. I am thinking about welding up some sort of "tooth" and attaching this tooth to the front bucket on my YM2310. Then I can follow a line painted on the ground while going backwards. I want to use the front bucket because it has down pressure and I can force the tooth into the fairly hard ground. My other thought is to just lower one ripper from my box blade but that would probably take a few passes because the 3PH doesn't have down pressure. I will probably need to make a custom ripper that is long enough but I already have the steel and a nice plasma cutter. My ideas are probably not as good as the suggestions and ideas you all with more experience will have so please don't hesitate to let me know any better ways.
Thanks,
Eric
LPowell1
New member
Where are you getting the cable?I knew you all would come through! Tomorrow I measure and order but it looks like I'm gonna buy 150 feet direct burial CAT 6 for 32 bucks delivered. I will be using the slice and bury method. My son and I will be using spades to slice. Way better than digging or ripping. Almost no disturbance of the grass and a trail and it will heal in about a week. Thanks again for the ideas.
Cheers,
Eric
I will likely be doing a similar project as I need to pull a line to my barn.
