Seed drill build thread

[FarmerAlex]

Here are some pics of the machine and the 10 acres sown down.

Used the quad bike to get the paddock done quicker, walk behind tractor was used to do a few smaller areas

 

[freedomlives]

Very cool! The tines are just made from regular steel, or do any of the parts need to be hardened?

 

[FarmerAlex]

Very cool! The tines are just made from regular steel, or do any of the parts need to be hardened?

The tyne points will have hardfacing welded on the tips and will be ground to a chisel point, other than that everything else is plain black mild steel. If i was to build it again I would use low hydrogen rods so I didn't have to have such large weld beads.


I will post up some of the new mods I am doing to it!

 

[Redneck in training]

There was a thread about a seeder on TBN few years back. I forgot the details but the guy used outboard engine water pump impellers for seed metering. I could imagine that they would require much smaller torque to turn due to small diameter.

 

[FarmerAlex]

There was a thread about a seeder on TBN few years back. I forgot the details but the guy used outboard engine water pump impellers for seed metering. I could imagine that they would require much smaller torque to turn due to small diameter.

Your dead right, the only reason that i didn't go for a similar design was that I could not get the impellers cheap enough in Australia, so I just turned them out of some hard box timber. Milled the slots in the vice with a router, and machined the centre hole with a metal lathe and boring bar. To finish off any rough spots I then used car body filler, then sanded back to speck with 500 grit sandpaper in the wood lathe. Now that it has sort of run in, they do run quite well.

 

[NibbanaFarm]

This is a great project FarmerAlex. It seems like there isn't any provision for covering the seed with soil though. The depth wheel looks like it's pressing it into the dirt. Is that all it needs to have enough soil contact?

 

[clytle374]

Wow, I don't check in for a while(well a year maybe) and I miss something. Nice work.