Home made grader

[Ironman]

One of my neighbours, Stan, who is in his 70's, wanted me to build a tractor pull type grader. He is a pensioner, and was worried about costs, and this sort of inventing from scrap can be time consuming. We took a walk out to his admirable junkpile and found alot of stuff, and ideas developed. He is pretty clear on what he wants done so no use asking the forum, he wants it done his way.

We settled on a scraper frame/ with a fixture filled with grease he wanted to have cut off.
That was fun, grease and oxygen make 4 ft high flames...and the fire ban is on.
We found an 8 ft blade with a decent cutting edge, and that will be the business end. Found some cultivator wheel thingys, that will be used to lift the blade and frame.

So here in Pic 1, the greasy box is cut off and the cultivator wheels are mounted in place.
Bear in mind I am building this critter UPSIDE DOWN, so you got to relate to it that way.
Pic 2 shows another view.
Pic 3 shows the blade as I am cutting off crap that was glued on over the years.

[Ironman]

I generally always grind off any ragged edges or cut offs, but to save Old Stan bucks, I did not do this, as he will do it himself. I also report to him a running tab so he can stop me when he can't afford any more.

So here is a pic1 of the blade mounts in place. This is 5" x 1" bar stock, with 1" pins. I think the 1" pins are common on farm stuff, as he wants all 1" pins.
I got the blade hung in place, fits well, and the rod on the backside to vary the blade tilt from scraping to cutting has to have a mount fabbed for it.
So last night I got the word that Stan is out of money, and the $575 bill he can handle and that is all. He rototilled my garden in last evening in trade for making the last weld-on mounts for the cylinder and the blade tilt, and he will finish it himself.
So this morning I went out to take some pictures and flip it right side up....aaarrgggg
I will post more when it melts.

[AJinNZ]

I like it.

At least the snow would have taken care of the fire ban....right?

[cutter]

I guess the "aaarrgggg" is yet another reason to quit.

[OLD MAN]

Maybe there is something in his junk pile he can trade for a finished product.

[midmosandblasting]

I see a straight blade ,no angle ability am I correct ?

[Ironman]

Originally Posted by midmosandblasting

I see a straight blade ,no angle ability am I correct ?

Yup, Midmo....I know. I wanted to make a angle adjuster, or at least a fixed angle, but this is what he wants. He also plans to put mouldboards on each end of the blade to carry material.
But at least this critter is heavy, probably 1500 lb, and more could be added

Aj...the ban is still on.
Cutter, you're right.

[camdigger]

Nice work IM.

There's some truly impressive "inventory" stowed away on farms around. A neighbor and friend had a crew come in to clean up his inventory pile that he had. Their family farm had been there 2 1/2 generations until the big clean-up, no-one had sold much off the farm at all. A week and 3 semi loads later, their yard looks merely cluttered. On my folks place, at last count, there were 6 cars, 5 combines, 3 balers, 3 - 2 ton trucks, assorted parts of 9 different swathers, 4 tractors, 2 cultivators, seed drill, antique threshing machine and that's just the stuff I recall off the cuff.... Dad spent 3 summers breaking down and sorting scrap material after he retired. That list is what's left

FWIW. It sounds like your neighbor is going for the "landleveler" concept which, with the end plates, can double as a poorboy carry scraper rather than a grader for finish work. http://www.degelman.com/index.php?p=Land Levelers

Regardless, it sounds like a neat build.

[Ironman]

Cam, I think your Degelman has given him the idea. But the degelman looks more like a tumblebug idea, it appears to be able to carry dirt and then dump it.
Here is the final pics of this project.
Pic1 is of the float mechanism he wants to use. Not sure what this came off of, but the centre arm pin hole was beat into an oval almost 1.25 long. So I put it in the mill and made the hole round and made a steel bushing to reduce it to 1 inch, and pressed it in. Old Stan will make up arms to connect this to the rear axle arms.
Pic 2 and 3 is after I flipped it right side up, and threw an old tire on for a mock-up to see how things looked.
Pic 4 shows the rear end and how the axles and arms are attached. The blade brace is hanging as Stan plans to weld on a hunk of box tubing and put the pin eye that I made onto it for adjusting cut angle.
He's the kind of welder who likes to use a long arc as he thinks this is how to get it smooth. I've told him it's how to get slag intrusions and little penetration as well. So I wonder how this is going to turn out in the long run

[moe1942]

I think he should wait til you can finish it...