Screening soil?

[Harlie]

Has anyone take on a project to make some sort of powered soil screener or sifter? I am thinking about some thing that would take a tractor bucket or half-bucket (1/2 yard maybe) of dirt at a time and sift it out the bottom. Would be nice to have around to do some topsoil on an as-needed basis.

 

[ronjhall]

Here is a thread that has lots of links to other threads.
Screening Loam or Gravel

 

[LBrown59]

Has anyone tried using a cement mixer?

 

[AndyM]

Welcome to TBN!

Here is a thread from Larry Van Horn last summer...

Pictures of TopSoil Screener

 

[Luremaker]

I built this one yesterday. I was going to plow a little pasture but my wife decided to move her garden. So until she decides where it is going I had extra time and lots of soil to screen. It is an 8' x 8' wood frame built with 2x6's and 1-1/2" heavy duty chain link fence secured to the frame. The frame is leaning on 2 secured fence posts. Works really well.

 

[Luremaker]

Here is a picture of my soil before being screened.

 

[Luremaker]

Here is a picture of the soil after being screened.

 

[Luremaker]

Here is the screen in action. I am left with a few small stones about 1/2" in size and smaller. This is fine with me as I am sick and tired of picking up buckets of golfball size stones when ever I spread this soil around. I may just build a smaller version on wheels that can be moved to each new flower garden my wife decides to make and screen the soil on the spot.

 

[skivt]

Nice project. Simple, yet effective. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[tawilson]

I have got to come up with something like that too. I have a concrete vibrator, I might try attaching that too whatever I build to see if it helps any.