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New Implements
Yes, I was focusing on the "inexpensive" part of the original thread-starting message.
I know that the implements I mentioned are commercially available, just to pricey for me to buy. The ROI of a PTO mixer would have to be such that it would be cheaper to build or buy than to have concrete delivered.
Murf, the chipper would be next on my list. I would have no idea on how to build one, yet they are WAY too expensive for me to buy for occasional home use. Same goes for a FEL...it would be great, I just can't justify buying one.
Thanks to all for the mixer info.
Bill
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Murf: Yep, finding a pump that has enough flow and also produces high enough pressure to pump up hills and still fight fires is the problem. For brush fires there has to be enough pressure so the spray can really tear up the ground. Our forestry pumps use four-stage impeller designs. I did find some fire pump manufacturers of fairly small pumps that say they'll do custom building. I imagine gearing from 540 rpm to the pump's input requirement would be the main problem. Well, maybe it's a project.
There may be some room for inventiveness around this and similar ideas. Our forestry pumps may be run unattended and they have over-speed protection that cuts off the engines if pumps loose their primes. I don't think these high-pressure pumps take kindly to running dry for very long. The protection on our pumps depends that the pump load will lug down the engine rpm, but that wouldn't work on a tractor. There may be room for interfaces between this sort of implement and tractor engines (maybe a fuel shut-off solenoid or something smarter) that would improve unattended operation. Load sensing circuitry for generators would be a similar idea.
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Murf, Seems to me many people with gravel roads to maintain could use an inexpensive grader..... something along the lines of a rear blade with gauge wheels only modeled along the lines of the old horse drawn units.
I have a half baked design I can send you pictures of....
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I did come up with such a device a number of years ago, it was to mainain the long driveway and trails at our hunt camp. It would be easily adaptable to a CUT but was originally designed to go behind a pickup.
It was basically just a very long trailer tongue if you will, arched way up in the middle and at the very back was the front axle out of an old 3 ton (2WD) truck which was mounted rotated backwards on an angle of 45 degrees. This allowed the steering to also swivel the wheel off vertical to increase the 'bite' of the tires when making an agressive bite along the shoulder, like when you want to pull the gravel back up onto the road. Halfway between the axle and the hitch was the blade which rotated only on the horizontal plane. The vertical adjustment of the blade, as well as the pivot functions were accomplished by hydraulically pivoting a pair of hinged joints on which the axle was mounted which increased or decreased the amount of the arch. All of this was controlled by the operator who stood on a small platform at the very rear looking forward and down over everything. The hydraulics were powered by a gas engine driving a two stage hydraulic pump like that used on a wood-splitter.
I only used it one year myself, when the local road contractor saw it work he bought it on the spot, I understand he is still using it to this day to maintain private drives and roads.
The biggest advatage was it could be pulled by any pickup, however a heavy 4x4 worked best, both for traction and the ability to roll along slowly in low range. Even though this meant it required a two man crew, it also meant it go between jobs at highway speeds, something the little 'Pony' graders can't do and the savings in travel time and expense more than made up for the 2 men's time.
Send me any and all ideas or designs.
Best of luck.
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Sound pretty clever Murf! I started out with the idea of something like an inch worm where the tongue had a hydraulically controlled pivot point but now I think that a solid tongue is raised or lowered from the axle. Without a blade tilt, I guess it would maintain but not build crowns, but then it is a maintenance tool as you said.
I'm also guessing that the steering on the axle could be locked for highway driving. Last summer a guy down the highway sold an old sickle mower that had been converted from horses to tractors. Seems like he couldn't live without a sickle mower because he bought another one about 30 miles away. I saw him towing it back behind his truck. He was driving slowly along the shoulder. I later found out he drove the whole distance that way because every time he'd go any faster the mower wheel would start swiveling around and throwing the mower every which way on his truck ball hitch. I don't know how he hooked the mower to the truck hitch.
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Tom, you're right on the money about the rigid tongue, however the blade does pivot side to side, I put two independantly adjustable cylinders on it to raise and lower the blade, one on each side, by adjusting one more than the other you could achieve some pretty extreme blade angles. It also changed the blade-to-earth contact angle by keeping the front rigid, thus as the blade went down further the 'cut' angle got slightly more aggressive also.
As for the steering, it was also hydraulically controlled, and was therefore locked (by the hyd. fluid) in whatever position you left it in.
When I was roading the device, the hitch to wheels distance was 18' so even if there was a little play in the steering gear it did little to the stability, besdies by tipping the axle back 45 degrees the motion in the steering gear was effectively cut way down also.
It was a 3 hour drive to the camp and it sat behind the truck at 65mph like any other trailer, it sure raised a few eyebrows from the other drivers though, especially the truckers and a police cruiser that nearly took off somebodys mailbox from paying more attention to it than the road.
Best of luck.
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Heres something that would be complicated and rather expensive but would open up more of a market for CUTs. A scissor type of a lifting platform or manlift that would mount something like a 3PH backhoe, have its own self contained hydraulics, operated by the rear PTO and its own levelers/stabilizers.
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There are many types of driveway maintainers that are capable of doing miles of roadways effortlessly. Those I've found to work the best do have ripper teeth and two blades one small inverted v in the front to knockout the center ridge and a rear v for gathering and distributing.
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Murf, how about a 6' and 5' maybe 4' multi spindle dual tailwheel brush hog with offset. That way it will sit tighter to the tractor needing less front ballast and with offset making trimming a breeze. I contacted Bush-hog as they already have a 84T model which I love but they talked about not having enough room to stand the crop up under the deck to cut it. I do believe there are plenty of people that would mow more if the extra width cut the time and reduce the total height.
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Just to throw a couple of hydraulics wrinkles into the man-lift idea: The idea is a typical application for lockout valves that have been mentioned recently. It also may be an application for indexing cylinders, which are used to keep equal cylinder heights in applications where the shafts are not connected by a strong mechanical link (like the pipe between loader arms). There are some serious safety issues, and cherry pickers have some specialized.
If somebody knows exactly how indexing cylinders work I'd be happy to hear. My impression is that they have interconnecting ports that are uncovered near to end of travel to equalize cylinder pressures.
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09-29-2003, 19:13 
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