New Toy! Herd Sand Spreader

[narcnh]

Well, after several ‘partly cloudy’ days, each leaving an inch or two of new snow packing on my driveway, I decided that I didn’t want to shovel sand and salt by hand all winter. So, I broke down and bought the Herd 550 sand spreader. My dealer delivered it yesterday. Man, I love living up here. A man's word counts for something. I never signed any papers or put down any money; just called and said I wanted one. I came home from work yesterday and it was sitting in front of my garage (the unused bay). They don’t negotiate much on price, but it did include the sand kit (hopper agitator, wings for controlling the width of the throw, etc.). They also mounted it on a 7800 at the dealership and fitted it, including cutting the PTO shaft to size, so all I have to do is back up and load her. Too cold to do much but walk around it today, but will play with it on Saturday. This spreader holds 750 pounds of sand. If I can find the reader for my computer for my digital camera, I will post some pics, if anyone is interested.

Also, if anyone has any tips on using this spreader, I’d appreciate hearing them.

narcnh

 

[hwp]

Good luck with your sand spreader. One thing I have found with my Buyers unit is that the sand has to be very dry to flow down to and through the outlet to the disk.

 

[Deerlope]

Anything beats hand shoveling, I am sure it was a welcome sight. good luck.

 

[sandyc]

Unit sounds great......if you ever get over this way please feel free to sand my drive!

 

[pcmem]

hwp,

Herd does advertise that the 5.5, 750S, and 1200S will spread wet sand /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

I can't speak from experience though /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
Michael

 

[pcmem]

narcnh,

I haven't found my dealers to be able to move on the Herd products either. However it does sound like you got some great value added (delivery, setup, fitting, etc.) from your dealer. I was looking at the unit but I'm afraid it may be too big for my BX. In any case if you find the reader I would like to see some pictures of the unit (the web site is lacking). If it is a smaller version of the 750 it may work for me. In any case I think you made a good choice and hope it works great for you.

Enjoy,
Michael

 

[hwp]

Michael:
What I meant isn't a function of the spreader but rather that wet sand has a high angle of repose - ie. at the right moisture content it can have almost a vertical wall as in sand castles at the beach. As a result the sand may not flow down to the outlet of the spreader - even with an agitator. On the other hand, dry sand has a low angle of repose and flows quite freely. If it is cold enough, the water in the moist sand freezes and allows otherwise wet sand to flow freely. The salt/sand mixture in my salt box still has a farily high moisture content even though it has been there for over a year. It has been very cold here for the last week or so - too cold for straight salt to work effectively so I tried using some of the salt/sand mixture on my driveway. It was cold enough that the mixture flowed freely thorugh my spreader.

 

[narcnh]

hwp, the sand agitator in this unit rotates around inside the hopper all the way to the wall; I doubt anything would hang up inside. In fact, once the unit is almost empty, you have to back off on the PTO, or else it will beat the you-know-what out of the hopper. I can’t say for sure, since I used dry sand for the first couple of loads, but I’ll report back, once I try something wetter.

 

[narcnh]

First impressions: Unit appears to be well built and rugged. Went on easily, once I managed to get it off the ground and into a small wooden platform (FEL and ratcheting tire-downs did the trick). It is relatively light (when empty) so it’s easy to shift into position. The PTO shaft is in two parts with one sliding into the other, so it went on very easily. The grate on top of the hopper is a nice touch; you don’t have to worry if the chunks are small enough for the impeller.

This thing throws sand FAST! It threw 200 pounds of sand in less than a minute. I used dry play sand, which is what I had on hand, and it was a mistake, because it flows too easily. You need to keep the gate open, when engaging the impellor, or else you can bust the shear bolts. The sand was flowing out the bottom before I even started. You are supposed to run the unit at 2/3 of 540rpm speed, but I was down to ½ speed on the second run and still threw 100 pounds in under a minute. Both times got about 100 foot of drive covered, so I’m getting better. Manufactured sand is what my dealer recommended, and I will get a load delivered this week. Will report if it works any differently.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the sand agitator goes up into the hopper and rotates around, so it would be hard to have anything stick to the sides of the hopper. When the load gets low, you have to slow the PTO, because the agitator will beat up on the sides of the hopper. The spread is perfect for my drive, covering it in one pass with the spreader wings at about halfway. It is highly adjustable with the wings, and I believe will throw a 14-foot swath without them (or in full up position).

As a first impression, I am pleased. The unit is solid, it works as advertised, and it is very fast. The latter feature will take some getting used to. You don’t run this thing slow; you load it, get in position, flip the gate, engage the PTO and GO! I’m sure there is an optimal PTO speed for my specific use; I just have to find it. Also, though my dealer said it was only really good for spreading sand and salt, the instructions are very detailed about spreading seed and fertilizer and include a nice chart with seed, speed and pounds per acre of application. You need to adjust the plate to do this, and there is an additional plate with teeth for really small seeds that you can buy as an add-on. So, it is not a single-use attachment. I might try this out in the spring.

I took some pics, but so far have only found half of my digital reader. If I ever find the other half, I’ll post some pics.

 

[narcnh]

Today I had 10 tons of treated (4% salt) sand delivered. Cost about $120. Sounds like a lot, but it will get used. This kind of wet, heavy sand it perfect. It took less than 2 minutes to fill the hopper with a shovel (30 shovel fulls). Used about half of that on the first pass (I went kind of fast). Added 15 more shovel fulls and did a second pass. That was just right. So, two passes, using one or one and a half hoppers of sand gives me excellent coverage. Around here we get an inch or two of 'scattered snow showers' every few days, so doing a run once a week should work out fine between snow storms. It took less than 10 minutes to do the job from scratch on about 400 foot of drive - less time than it took to warm up the tractor.

I like this a lot. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif