Pasture Plane

sequoyah101 · Feb 24, 2013

I saved this beam for nearly 18 years and finally found something to build with it. I've rescued it from my brother who tried to make it a feed trough at least twice.

Gophers are thick as fleas and we have waged war on them but still have to knock down the mounds. The other project is easing the old terraces thrown up years ago. They don't have much roll to them and are a bear to mow over and bale. I angle the dozer blade one way and make a pass, turn around and throw the dirt the other way if necessary. I then hook up this to the tractor and make a few passes to smooth everything out and ease the grade. It both cuts and spreads well.

The double operation is much faster than the dozer alone and saves a whole bunch of noodling around. It is also easier on this old man to rip around on the tractor than the dozer. I can do about a 1/4 mile start to finish in less than two hours and it looks pretty darn good.

It is 14' wide and does just what it is supposed to do which is grade and mix the roots into the dirt. I may put cutting edges on it but no drama for now. The cutting edges are made from 4-1/2" pipe split in half and the top link of the three point pivots fully so the thing floats completely. Yes, the chain would do just about the same but I wanted it to be completely free to move. I was making the thing up as I went and had some idea of making a sliding back stay on the post for the top link of the three point hitch but then came up with the chain. Besides, it was fun to build it this way!

BHD · Feb 25, 2013

Your unit looks good,
the only thing I may change would be to put the second angled cutter at the opposit angle so to slide some materal back the the other direction,

How does it work?
Are you satified with it performace?
If rebuilding what would your change or do diffrnetly?

I had a major problem after a prairie dog infestation, and took two old I beams, and welded some skids on the bottom of them to keep them up right and some loops and used a cable to make a tow hitch on them and leveled back down about 120 acers simple to reclaim and the cable was reusable when done, the two beams made up about 40 foot wide leveling unit,

sequoyah101 · Feb 25, 2013

Built like the most successful designs of driveway maintainers. Angling opposite tends to drag too much dirt and junk around between the blades and so less mixing. That is the theory anyway. This lets stuff flow a little better. Not much directional accumulation really.

Less elaborate top link post and just a chain back stay. Just weld it in place with the chain attach points.

Heavy angle iron would be nicer and may work better than split pipe but the pipe is what I had.

You may not be able to see that there is a vertical pipe from the fore to aft 2-7/8" pipe down to the split 4-1/2" pipe. Without that I'm pretty sure you would have nothing but a bent up mess.