Spreading sand

[wildwillie]

I picked up a 3pt spreader to put sand on the ice but the first time I used it the pattern was way to wide. I only want it about 10' not 40'. So I tried adding a shield with some improvement. Now I'm thinking about removing the vertical flingers form the rotating disc. Has anyone done this?

 

[sdkubota]

Is there any way you can slow the rotation speed? That would be the best way to reduce the spread diameter.

 

[wildwillie]

Yes but with a hydrostatic that means you slow to a crawl.

 

[sdkubota]

Yes but with a hydrostatic that means you slow to a crawl.

I was hoping maybe it had a chain drive setup to easily change the rotational speed. So it is a direct hydraulic motor that runs the spreader? Might be able to get a different hydraulic motor that runs at a different rpm setting?

 

[wildwillie]

No I'm sorry I didn't make myself clear, the tractor is a L3400 hydrostatic the spreader is driven off the PTO.

 

[leonz]

I picked up a 3pt spreader to put sand on the ice but the first time I used it the pattern was way to wide. I only want it about 10' not 40'. So I tried adding a shield with some improvement. Now I'm thinking about removing the vertical flingers form the rotating disc. Has anyone done this?

If your spreader does not have a flow regulator which limits the amount of volume exiting the spreader and dropping on the spinner removing a paddle will give not give you a huge improvement as far as coverage goes.
If you remove all the vanes on the spinner disc the spreader will not work or will work very poorly requiring more passes.

Have you added any windshield washer fluid to the sand to make it flow more effectively?

I would rather see you operate at a half throttle speed as once you remove the paddles/vanes you are worse off.

 

[5picker]

Put a flow restrictor in one of the hydraulic lines. It will slow the rotational speed. A restrictor can be as simple as welding one of the fittings shut and drilling a small hole or you could get an adjustable one like this from Prince.

 

[Tomtint]

My fathers BX has a 3 point PTO spreader he uses for salt. Sand/salt does not always work so well. If it is wet it really does not work so well. Straight salt, improvised deflectors and low rpm and drive slow. That's the best solution. It sounds like you are looking to spread the width of your drive way and that is what he does and how he does it.

 

[aczlan]

What problem are you trying to eliminate? If you want to put less down, I would keep the deflectors and reduce the amount dropping onto the disc if needed.
You could convert it to hydraulic drive and control the speed that way, but that would probably run $500ish.


Aaron Z

 

[wildwillie]

First off thanks for the response.
My road is gravel and over a mile with some steep spots. when it needs sand I can easily put down 1/2 a pickup truck load so I want to do it as quickly as possible.I keep sand on site[no salt on gravel road] the spreader I have is the standard cone shaped type with the inner agitator.I think it holds around 300lb. It has a manually operated shoot so I can regulate how fast to dump sand. It really works well but as I said even at slow speed it throughs sand to wide so I wast to much sand. I think if a shield of some type was added it would only through to the rear and not to the sides. Thanks all

 

[aczlan]

Take a look at how Deere does it: http://www.deere.com/en_US/docs/non_current/DSFE42676_spreaders.pdf

Aaron Z

 

[wildwillie]

Now that gives me some ideas.:scratchchin:
Thanks Aaron Z

 

[big e]

Does running at low rpm while in high gear help?

 

[geko]

I've recently bought a snow ex mini pro 575 which has a direct auger in to the material, directly attached to the spinner. That's all run by 12v electrics, attached to my vans battery. It also has a vibrator for wet salt, to prevent clogging.
Snow ex do the next model up -1575 I think, that has a horizontal auger, then the spinner, so you adjust the spinner speed individually of the auger, so you can throw a small amount a long way or vic versa.

I didn't think I need that model, but, after using my model, I can see where the second auger would come in to its own now. K
P g k

 

[Hammy]

I had this same issue with my cone spreader. A few things I did is try to keep the spreader as low as possible and reduced the RPM as much as possible. That is the only way other then like you mentioned, adding some shields. I have a gear tractor so I put it in a higher gear and adjust the RPM with the pedal.

For some of the others, reducing the flow isn't the issue its throwing the sand wider then his road.

 

[geko]

Could you tilt the whole spreader backwards, so the spinner is unlevel? This might waste more sand, as it might be deflected off the plate more quickly, this throwing it less far?
Or, baffle plates to each side seem the easiest solution, to deflect spread?

 

[EverythingAttachments]

Take a look at how Deere does it: http://www.deere.com/en_US/docs/non_current/DSFE42676_spreaders.pdf

Aaron Z

The salt and sand spreading kit for our Agrex fertilizer spreaders is similar.