Wanting tiller

[Fallon]

Thing about it... Reverse rotation is pulling against the tractor, forward rotation is pushing with the tractor tires. Under normal circumstances I don't think one would be any harder on the tractor, other than reverse taking more power fighting the tractor. The problem is obstructions & rocks. Fwd will want to pop up & just roll over things to a large degree. Reverse will catch & dig in.

 

[Orange blood]

Thanks

 

[Gary Fowler]

Would it be too much trouble or take to much time to use the backhoe bucket with teeth installed to rake over the area first to try to uncover the rocks? (roots in my area)

I bought a sub-soiler (like a box blade but without the box in the rear). I pulled that over my garden a dozen times, pulling out the rocks, used my back hoe and dug up the whole area down to about 2 feet removing all the rocks I could find then everytime I run the tiller, I hit more softball to larger rocks. I think the sub-soiler rig did the best at pulling out the clusters of packed together rocks but they are still hard to see in the soil. It just takes multiple times in crisscross pattern to get most of them.

 

[Gary Fowler]

As for tiller brands, I don't think it makes $.50 difference in brands. They all are pretty good with some a bit better (thicker) steel than others but you pay $$$ for that small difference. The biggest difference is some are chain drive while others are gear drive. I bought a gear drive but I don't know which type is better as far as longer life. You likely want a forward turning one if you have lots of rocks as they tend to hop over larger stuff. You can still get a hang up regardless of direction. MY King Kutter slip clutch does not have the external springs and thus is not supposed to be monkeyed with like folks do with the external spring type that needs yearly take down and readjustment. I don't know how this new type of slip clutch will work in the long run either. I wasn't aware of it when I bought mine.

 

[Orange blood]

Thinking about buying a box blade and cleaning up first where I will be tilling . I don't feel like my food plots are that bad after reading other tiller post on here . Like I said they have been tilled for prob 10 yrs and I'd say most are broken up already just didn't want to mess up a new tiller right off the get go . Thanks for the info .

 

[Orange blood]

What are some things to look for on a tiller I want slip clutch and what is good when it comes to tines? Length or how many or distance between . Gear drive or chain thanks

 

[countrybumpkin]

Watch some you tube videos of tilling food plots , you will be surprised how rough some of the grounds is people till.

 

[tcreeley]

I bought the 5' version of this last spring. Love it. Rugged. Undersold all the tillers I could find and delivered to the door on a drop tail gate. Looks identical except for color to the Tractor Supply tiller. Gear driven, slip clutch.
Here is a link. Rotary Tiller, Rototiller, Tillovator | Agri Supply, 77711, Gear Driven

 

[Gary Fowler]

What are some things to look for on a tiller I want slip clutch and what is good when it comes to tines? Length or how many or distance between . Gear drive or chain thanks

All the tillers I looked at had slip clutches (no shear bolts to be found). I don't think spacing is an option as they all use basically the same tine so the space between hubs is pretty universal. The number of tines per hub will be the only option with 5 being better than 4 which some brands have. As long as you don't by some Japanese grey market brand, the tines will be the same on all USA made with only difference being the 5 or 4 tines per hub. The more tines per hub, the smoother they run. The rest is personal preference as to chain drive, gear drive, forward rotation, backward rotation, thicker sheet metal etc. depending on how much you wish to pay. For the hobby gardener who may use his tiller 1 hour or so per year, paying more for thicker sheet metal might not be worth the cost whereas a user of 100+ hours per year may want to pay the extra money.

As for type of drive: I opted for the gear driven just so I don't have to contend with adjusting chains. I don't know if one type will outlast the other but they will all outlast me.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I did not read all the post here, but I'm going to disagree with a few things I did read.

First of all, I've been doing custom tilling since the 80's, I've tilled thousands of acres... I have three tillers that I use, from a 42" to an 80" and they ARE HD tillers, all Howard brand. (rotavators) I've used or seen used many others, but only owned these three Howards.

Most of the tillers, Bush hog, Woods, and the like, are NOT HD tillers in my eyes! They may not be junk but they sure aren't HD!

Rocks the size of softballs as the OP mentioned have NO affect on my tillers, and with MY tillers, it would take a steady diet of foot ball or even bigger sized rocks before I would be concerned at all! I hit rocks and much worse things on just about every job that I do. You may need to remove the stones first, for a light duty tiller, but you won't have to for a HD tiller.

I do NOT agree that a gear drive tiller is better than a chain. This keeps being repeated over and over on this site, but it's not true UNLESS you are up in the size tiller that drives on BOTH ends with gears. A side drive with a chain will take shock loads much better than gears, all of my tillers have chains, and even the first one that I bought in the 80's, has the original chain/sprockets and is still in good shape!

I have tilled ground for customers who have stripped the gears on a KK tiller, in fact one customer had two of them with broken gears. YES, a cheapo tiller will brake a chain, but that's NOT the case with a good quality tiller.

IF you buy a HD tiller and you size it right for your tractor, the OP's stones will not be a problem... AND you won't need to waste time/fuel and make more compaction with a plough/middle buster ect. before tilling...

BTW, you can NOT buy by brand, even good brands like Kuhn makes BOTH light duty and heavy duty tillers, so buyer beware!

SR