"new" idea on trenching device

[Taylortractornut]

Tatra down south of here in the MS delta the farm land sits on top of Gumbo mud. its super sticky. They \use the rotary ditchers i nthe hevey soil to drain the rice fields in the fall and in spring to plant. This stuff is super sticky you walk around on it and your shoes get thicker and thicker. I made one years ago to clean out a ditch with a little Yanmar a friend had. I used hub and set of tines off a rotovator about 10 inches in diameter and mountd it on a 1 1/4 inch sft like the tiller it came on. I then mouned it on a ste of bearings and put a pulley on the back. It was mounted on a 3x3 tube so that it offset the tractor and we built a 3 point hitch for it. I then adapted a pto shaft to fit another set of bearings with a 12 inch pulley on the back of it and fitted a guard to it. They used to to clean out ditches in gumbo down a 1000 yard road. It wouldnt gum up as it ran fast enough to sling everything out. the guard did have to be removed because it built up on the inside. Later we used a plastic dumptruck liner to coat the shield and it worked great. Look up Alamo ditchers and a few others you ll see some i nsome tough clay. IThe county road deptments here use them for our rural road ditches and can cut iron pipes in half.

 

[Mike120]

The type of trenchers they use in the rice field south of me run off the PTO and you can offset them to trench behind the rear tire. You can't go very deep but very little sticks to them as it's spun off while digging. I bid on one at an auction but it went for more than what I wanted to pay.

Here's one that's similar:

TriCorp USA - Ditchers - Specialists in agricultural equipment.

 

[dynasim]

If you hook a chain up like you have shown in your drawing, you will bend the 3 point arms. They are not meant to take much side load, and your drawing will result in a side load almost equal to the pulling load.

Chris

 

[powerstroke444e]

Hire a small contractor with good walkbehind trencher. We do these kind of jobs all the time usually in rock/debri free dirt for $1.25-2.00 per foot depending on the completity and number of lines we have to cross. And if we need carbide chain on it can be up to $5 per foot. Most small contractor have a $250 min price. And this time of year these guys may be getting very hungery.

 

[jimmysisson]

If your goal is to drain the area, does it really matter if the pipe is buried right next to the fence? Won't the water on the fence side of the tiles make its way into the pipe just as easily as the water on the horse side?
Maybe if you weren't focused on the offset you could have more leeway in your design. Also, if you manage to make something you drew work, won't the second, third, etc. passes have you riding up on the spoil from the first pass? That'll be tough going to regulate the depth. You'd have to scrape spoils away between passes. I'm with the hire-a-guy idea - shop around?
Are you planning gravel + pipe in this ditch? You've got a big project.
Jim

 

[rambler]

I too would be currious about the need to be right next to the fence. Drainige is typically a deeper trench with tile in it, and pulls water from 40-80 feet on each side of it.

Are you trying to just make a little swale, or little trench, to get surface water to flow in this little foot deep bump you are creating?

Or, what is the point? Why is the need to be so close to the fence?

Almost any off-set implement as you are preposing will hve a serious problem no one mentioned: It will pull your tractor front end into the fence. The side draft will varry a lot as you go deeper or shallower, and it will shove your tractor around quite a bit.


If it were me, I'd be out there with a shovel - well in your clay soil a garden fork - for such a short distance in those conditions. You'd be done before you had anything welded together....

A spinning trencher as some talk about would work for you - these things spin _fast_ and throw the dirt a far ways - clay would not have a chance to stick to it.....


I farm clay land, that holds water, it is a challenge. A lot of that land has tile 2 - 4 feet deep to drain it, and a few miles of that was dug in by hand by my dad's family. I still have one of the special shovels, which cuts through the clay a little easier than a solid one.....

--->Paul

 

[jimgerken]

Or, explosives.

 

[tatra805]

The reason of making the trench along the fence is that an agreement with the neigbour to split costs on this project as he wants to drain his garden also and needs to go over our part to get rid of his water.

We are located on a slope which connects to the abrupt start of the mountains so all water flows across the gardens downhil.
he does not want / cannot really have the drain away from the fenceline as he has a driveway there.

The more he drains before it reaches our paddock the less water i have to drain . Not a real complex thing just that it benefits both to have it close to the fence.

We had almost 2 feet of snow in the weekend and forecast is talking positive temps this week.... Remembering the raging floods a couple of years ago we are quite tensly watching the weathernews. (and I am strategically snow plowing to get everything pushed to the stream areas for fast evacuation of the meltwater.) Happy i have the tractor!

 

[jimmysisson]

Maybe you could borrow a single bottom plow and run a 6" deep furrow uphill of the problem area, even temporary might help? Floods are lousy!
Jim

 

[bobodu]

This is far from a new idea.Guys have tried this since men have teamed up horses and oxen,yet you don't see this thing for sale at TSC. First problem is really...you don't have enough tractor!! My WC will spin out pulling pipe at more the six inches in our clay. Here is a Google search for some tile plows.Notice what they pull these things with.
tile plow - Google Image Search

I too, bet you will lose the fence if you try to offset from the rear.