Labour Saving and General Guntering

emaherx · 17-06-2009 7:49pm #1

How about using this thread to show off our engineering skills (or lack of!)
A lot of us have home made or improvised labour saving tools / implements lying around. Similar to stuff in Farmers Journal labour saving compettions. (without the prize money:p).

Maybe we could use this thread to share interesting ideas and discuss improvements.

I don't have any pictures at the moment of my own but I will take some at the weekend if not before.

My own projects include:
Quick hitch for front loader (fairly rough but works), designed to fit Trima implements onto MF loader.
Adapter to fit bale lifter onto front loader.
Various other loader attachments spikes etc.

Current project is a wrapped bale transporter being built out of remains of an old Muck Spreader. (only just started, currently just an axle and draw bar).

Their maybe other stuff around too, I'll have to have a look.

So what are peoples opinions, is this a good idea for a thread?

vincenzolorenzo · 18-06-2009 11:48am

great idea! haven't really got anything to add i'm afraid but i'll look forward to hearing about other people's contraptions. Plus i love the word 'guntering'!!!:D

reilig · 18-06-2009 2:55pm

I've made a couple of creep feeders and creep gates in the past. Have a creep under manufacture at the monent too - actually its been on the go for the last 12 months and I just can't find the time/motivation to finish it. I also made my own bale spike, gates and try to do repairs along with that.

I'm a fairly neat welder - I can do consistand thick and straight welds, but I have to admit that I'm just not a precision kind of guy. I won't win any awards for my straight cutting and any welding repairs that I do are kinda done in a bit of a hurry

and it just seems that I try to throw a thick weld on it as fast as possible.

Have a PZ haybob that doesn't like me

and I had to weld it at least once a year for the last 5 years at the centre joint. Brought it to a professional welder this year and he cut it and rewelded it. I guess I'm not that good of a welder after all when I see the job that he did.

emaherx · 18-06-2009 3:48pm

reilig wrote: »

I've made a couple of creep feeders and creep gates in the past. Have a creep under manufacture at the monent too - actually its been on the go for the last 12 months and I just can't find the time/motivation to finish it. I also made my own bale spike, gates and try to do repairs along with that.

I'm a fairly neat welder - I can do consistand thick and straight welds, but I have to admit that I'm just not a precision kind of guy. I won't win any awards for my straight cutting and any welding repairs that I do are kinda done in a bit of a hurry and it just seems that I try to throw a thick weld on it as fast as possible.

Have a PZ haybob that doesn't like me and I had to weld it at least once a year for the last 5 years at the centre joint. Brought it to a professional welder this year and he cut it and rewelded it. I guess I'm not that good of a welder after all when I see the job that he did.

please provide some pics.
This is not about who is the neatest welder/fabricator more about the ideas behind peoples creations. So please show the good the bad and the ugly.

I have the same problem with two haybobs, got a welder friend of mine to fix them and he added some extra bracing, I'll show some pics of this too when I get the camera out.

@vincenzolorenzo, I think guntering is the only word to describe the creation/modifictation of some farm built implements.

leg wax · 18-06-2009 3:55pm

my little idea is when you are takeing off your manure spreader put it up on 2 lorry tyres which are on top of each other on their sides , makes it very easy to manoeuvre when putting back on.

dryan · 22-06-2009 4:51pm

My idea:

The 3-bay double slatted shed on the farm was built back in the early 1970's.
At the time, the width centre passage/feeding passage up the middle of the shed was 9ft - probably standard at the time cause the majority of tractors on farms were no bigger than a MF135 which left plenty of room either side for the cattles heads. In the mid nineties we purchased a MF390. This caused problems for a few years as i would have to keep the cattles heads back while putting in silage. Had a few close ones where i nearly took the heads of a few bullocks when i wasnt paying attention.

I then came up with the idea of these light weight gates that hinged along the top of the feeding barrier. Got the brother-in-law to give me a few welding tips, bought a few bits of steel and a week later, had the gates installed.
The gates are hinged along the top of the barrier. When i want to put in silage, i lower the gates, preventing the cattle from putting out their heads. When the silage is all in, i raise the gates and the cattle can feed away.

Worked a treat!

emaherx · 23-06-2009 8:03am

leg wax wrote: »

my little idea is when you are takeing off your manure spreader put it up on 2 lorry tyres which are on top of each other on their sides , makes it very easy to manoeuvre when putting back on.

yea tyres can be useful for small implements to rest on we use them under things like transport boxes also.

dryan wrote: »

My idea:

The 3-bay double slatted shed on the farm was built back in the early 1970's.
At the time, the width centre passage/feeding passage up the middle of the shed was 9ft - probably standard at the time cause the majority of tractors on farms were no bigger than a MF135 which left plenty of room either side for the cattles heads. In the mid nineties we purchased a MF390. This caused problems for a few years as i would have to keep the cattles heads back while putting in silage. Had a few close ones where i nearly took the heads of a few bullocks when i wasnt paying attention.

I then came up with the idea of these light weight gates that hinged along the top of the feeding barrier. Got the brother-in-law to give me a few welding tips, bought a few bits of steel and a week later, had the gates installed.
The gates are hinged along the top of the barrier. When i want to put in silage, i lower the gates, preventing the cattle from putting out their heads. When the silage is all in, i raise the gates and the cattle can feed away.

Worked a treat!

Sounds interesting, a few pic's would be good if you can get a chance.

emaherx · 25-06-2009 5:24pm

We have two tractors with loaders, a 390T with trima loader and a 365 with MF loader. So we made a hitch to fit MF Loader to Trima implements.

I will take some pics of our loader bale lifter attachment tomorrow when I'm fitting to tractor.

roosterman71 · 26-06-2009 9:56am

We've plenty of things around home that were made by myself and my father. From what I can remember, there is

a 14ft x 8ft trailer and a 12ft x 6ft trailer (both standard trailers for sand/gravel/stones/etc)
a square bale carrier. Carries about 40 bales and fits onto the front of a JCB 3C
a bale spike that slides onto a JCB bucket
a bale spike for the back of the tractor
a dung fork for a loader
a bale trailer

They aren't really things that were made to make life easier cos we could of just bought these things. My father also made cattle trailers about 20 years ago which he sold on.

emaherx · 26-06-2009 5:54pm

roosterman71 wrote: »

They aren't really things that were made to make life easier cos we could of just bought these things. My father also made cattle trailers about 20 years ago which he sold on.

Surely anything you made was to make life easier. Sure you could have bought most of those things. But coming up with the cash for such things is not always easy. And farms always seem to build up large amounts of scrap steel.

But I get your point most of those things are sort of generic and built on many farms around the country I don't know of one farm that doesn't have at least one DIY trailer . Still I think it could be interesting to see the sort of things built on farms from the "Generic" to original concepts.

My hitch above is hardly a masterpiece of engineering and its not something that you can buy from your local dealer. Yet it is one of the most important pieces of equipment we have, as we have no MF loader implements but we have and a decent selection of Trima ones. We need it to fit our grab to clean out all of our FYM as the 390T won't fit into some of the older sheds and the 365 won't pull the side slinger.

emaherx · 27-06-2009 6:30pm

Ginja Ninja · 28-06-2009 4:16pm

^^^ NOW THAT I LIKE!!!!
That looks a mighty handy set up,well done thinking of it.
What I will say is,would you ever think of making a bale handler?
We have one here a neighbour put together with a hydraulic ram in the arms,so it can open around the bale.it's proven handier in so many ways than just bales.

oh,and my bit of gunthering:Using the front loader for any and all sorts of stupidcreative reasons you can imagine.Who needs a post driver when you can prop your tractor up on top of the stake:pac:

emaherx · 05-07-2009 10:38am

Ginja Ninja wrote: »

^^^ NOW THAT I LIKE!!!!
That looks a mighty handy set up,well done thinking of it.
What I will say is,would you ever think of making a bale handler?
We have one here a neighbour put together with a hydraulic ram in the arms,so it can open around the bale.it's proven handier in so many ways than just bales.

Yea I might consider one of those if I get my hands on a hydraulic ram.

Here's my current project, it still requires some welding and bracing. Its a wrapped bale carrier for 4 bales

pjbrady1 · 06-07-2009 9:47pm

If you take the pump out of an old fridge and attached a plugged lead at one end and a hose with a tyre pump valve at the other. Hey presto you have a quick and very robust electric tyre pump. It will pump a rear tractor tyre in a few minutes. You have to seal tight the hosed end. Be careful you have not left anything live and exposed. Make sure your plug is properly fused with the correct ampage fuse.
That device was made by a man who never went to secondary school even. Very handy man he was. N I witnessed it going for years n years.

Not really a device but one I came up with. To tighten old sheep wire that needs to square up a bit n take the slack out. I found if you grab a strand with a pliers n keep twisting, when you have the wire sufficiently tightened, open your pliers to make room in the curled wire and you slip the pliers jaws back out. Repeat along each strand of the sheep wire to the top. Don't over do it. Just enough to take the slack out.

bk1991 · 07-07-2009 1:05am

back of bucket.jpg

botthmof bucket.jpg

side of bucket.jpgthat is very handy the bale lifter on the loader i myself have just bough a welder and am getting neighbour to show me a few bits and peicies with it have been messing around with it for last week getting good welds and the slag is comeing of it self heard thats a good weld aslo penatrateing the steel good too .i have decided to make a bucket to load turf at the bog out of 2inch angle iron and 2inch flat along with 4inch flat to mount loader brackets and fill in areas with strong mesh this would be loaded from spread by hand and then tiped into trailer on road save bringing trailer into bog and save trowing turf into grain trailer and being light on road it wont ate the tires of the tractor i am attaching a few drawings i have done and will post finished product at some stage also on the list is bal extenstion to 12x7trailer to allow 3bales

if u have any sugetsion on my design please feel free to tel me
i know the drawing not too great but u get the idea
all in red is angle iron
green is 4inch to hold brackets
grey is mesh
please give me sugestions
bk1991

emaherx · 07-07-2009 7:14am

pjbrady1 wrote: »

If you take the pump out of an old fridge and attached a plugged lead at one end and a hose with a tyre pump valve at the other. Hey presto you have a quick and very robust electric tyre pump. It will pump a rear tractor tyre in a few minutes. You have to seal tight the hosed end. Be careful you have not left anything live and exposed. Make sure your plug is properly fused with the correct ampage fuse.

Another use for the rest of the fridge is to connect up a 150W bulb inside and you have an incubator for eggs. Works well, I've seen neighbors use some quite successfully.

emaherx · 07-07-2009 7:21am

bk1991 wrote: »

back of bucket.jpg

botthmof bucket.jpg

side of bucket.jpgthat is very handy the bale lifter on the loader i myself have just bough a welder and am getting neighbour to show me a few bits and peicies with it have been messing around with it for last week getting good welds and the slag is comeing of it self heard thats a good weld aslo penatrateing the steel good too .i have decided to make a bucket to load turf at the bog out of 2inch angle iron and 2inch flat along with 4inch flat to mount loader brackets and fill in areas with strong mesh this would be loaded from spread by hand and then tiped into trailer on road save bringing trailer into bog and save trowing turf into grain trailer and being light on road it wont ate the tires of the tractor i am attaching a few drawings i have done and will post finished product at some stage also on the list is bal extenstion to 12x7trailer to allow 3bales

if u have any sugetsion on my design please feel free to tel me
i know the drawing not too great but u get the idea
all in red is angle iron
green is 4inch to hold brackets
grey is mesh
please give me sugestions
bk1991

I look forward to seeing the finished product. I'm not the greatest welder myself so I enlist the help from a good friend who is a welder/fabricator by trade for some of the more structurely important welds and general advise.

bk1991 · 07-07-2009 11:25am

have any of ye done a welding course or ye all self trained what did you think of my drawings and what i steel i am useing any advice:pac:love hear what ye think.how does that bale lifter work out oposed to the one with the ram ?

bk1991

bk1991 · 07-07-2009 12:02pm

heres two more things i just seen around the yard
we attached a 2inch tap to front of slurry tank and have 2inch layflat hose with a 2inch round pipe bet flat makes fairly good pressure washer or for spraying water a distance irrigation ..if someone can hold the pipe:D

the other pictures is of two work lights i fitted to the back of the tank as the tractor work lights shine of the tank barrle and also creats shadows
there powered by the blue wire in the tanks wireing its the foglight wire and i have the blue wire of the socket on tractor switched so i can use beacons on trailers worklights ,extra lights on harvesters etc .

how do i insert pictures into this
i cant attach the pics now will put em up when u tel me how i put em here
????????????

one majoir invention in future will be hedge cutter !!!! better set me standards high :pac:
bk1991

emaherx · 07-07-2009 12:36pm

bk1991 wrote: »

how do i insert pictures into this
i cant attach the pics now will put em up when u tel me how i put em here
????????????

You need to have an account with a photo upload site such as pix.ie or similar then you insert the url of your pic, or the cut and paste option from the pix.ie site.
You can always just attach the pictures like you did before using the normal file attachment option.

bk1991 wrote: »

have any of ye done a welding course or ye all self trained what did you think of my drawings and what i steel i am useing any advicelove hear what ye think.how does that bale lifter work out oposed to the one with the ram ?

I haven't done any coarses, still trying to learn by myself and getting pointers from those who know.

The bale lifter works great but requires more precession when trying to stack than the one with the ram.

Your bucket looks fine for one thats going to be hand filled. I don't know much about collecting turf, but why don't you make it so that you can scoop up a lot of the turf rather than hand filling?

bk1991 · 07-07-2009 2:58pm

yea i was thinking that aswell id have use tiron as well as angle woulnt i like if is use angle for bottom the turf would get caught when tipping
i want it light but strong . what u use the balehandler for stacking bales or loading bales ,hard to pick up bales that have saged with it id say and more prisision when driveing into bale in field

bk1991 · 07-07-2009 3:12pm

i put these pics up by pix.ie but there not comeing up here dono why

emaherx · 07-07-2009 6:07pm

bk1991 wrote: »

yea i was thinking that aswell id have use tiron as well as angle woulnt i like if is use angle for bottom the turf would get caught when tipping
i want it light but strong . what u use the balehandler for stacking bales or loading bales ,hard to pick up bales that have saged with it id say and more prisision when driveing into bale in field

Stacking and transporting so far, I carry a bale on another bale lifter on the back as well. Although as you can see above I'm building a trailer for wrapped bales so will use it for loading that also.

No problem with saged bales as long as silage is well wilted and the bales are not left out in the field for weeks. Its actualy better with saged bales than when its mounted on the back as you can tip slightly more to get under them.

Its no worse pressision wise in the field than it would be on the rear 3 point linkage. I can at this stage pick up bales without stopping or tearing them.

bk1991 wrote: »

i put these pics up by pix.ie but there not comeing up here dono why

you are missing some of the url

on pix.ie click on the picture that you want,
then click sizes and choose the size that you want
then scroll to the bottom of the page
in the box marked forums cut and paste text into your post
there is no need to use insert image option as pix.ie already have it wrapped in img tags

here's an example from mine I added the *'s to stop it working
[URL*=http://pix.ie/emaherx/1087413][*IMG]http://photos3.pix.ie/CC/55/CC55AADA5A834938860E09DA6869F59F-500.jpg[/IMG*][/URL*]

bk1991 · 07-07-2009 11:51pm

this is the pics of the hose on the slurry tank and aslo the work lights on back

bk1991 · 08-07-2009 12:26am

out of curiosoty what welder are ye useing

emaherx · 08-07-2009 7:23am

I have an electric arc welder with 20 -330 amp range.
But got a friend with a mig welder to do most of the welding on the trailer project.

Thats a good idea using the fog light pin on trailer socket for extra lighting.

bk1991 · 08-07-2009 12:31pm

how would u rate ur welds ...has anything broke yet

i have jsut started and theres more to it than it looks i got an arc inverter welder max amps 200 . whats your next project after the bale trailer .. u could sell that q/a attachment and the bale handler adapter no one else is doing em can the bale lhandler attachment take any other 3point linkage implements ... would be far handy for moveing implements around all ud need to do is put pin in topllink hole far handy ...who does the drawing and planing for ur projects

have u entered in farmers journal or ther tullamore show inventions ?

bk1991

emaherx · 08-07-2009 2:16pm

bk1991 wrote: »

how would u rate ur welds ...has anything broke yet i have jsut started and theres more to it than it looks i got an arc inverter welder max amps 200 . whats your next project after the bale trailer .. u could sell that q/a attachment and the bale handler adapter no one else is doing em can the bale lhandler attachment take any other 3point linkage implements ... would be far handy for moveing implements around all ud need to do is put pin in topllink hole far handy ...who does the drawing and planing for ur projects

have u entered in farmers journal or ther tullamore show inventions ?

bk1991

See the welder beside the frame, That was from me repairing the frame rather than making it. although it only got damaged because I lost one of the pins so a lot more stress was exerted on the other two.

My welding is OK but not professional by any means. Not sure if I'd like to see an x-ray of one of my welds but most things tend to stay together. If I'm not sure how to weld something or if it will be strong enough then I get a friend who is a welder by trade (and also spends a lot of time here helping with silage making etc anyway) to do it, he has better tools and a mobile welder (electric arc/MIG) and is a lot more knowledgeable. I also try to learn from him when he dose some work for me so that I can do it my self the next time.

I do no drawing at all, usually just start making, the plan changes as I go along and changes again when I seek help from my welder friend (his input usually introduces new innovation/complication).

No other implements fit the bale lifter adapter correctly but I have used it for moving others by attaching top link pin as you suggested.

My next project is still part of my bale handling project (ie bale lifter adapter and wrapped bale trailer) is a set of wireless trailer lights so that I can hook and unhook from the trailer without getting down from the tractor. The whole outfit should significantly reduce the time to bring bales in from the field.

I was also planning on making pallets using short RSJ's that can be lifted using the bale lifter for moving things around the yard.

bk1991 · 08-07-2009 8:30pm

now i like the sound of wireless trailer lights how u gona make these apart from saveing time from getting down to plug them out better still u dont have to worry about pulling the plug out when its forgotten has happened many times by my father ... once the weld is strong enough i woulnt be too worried about the look of it

its better bad looking and strong than looking great and week
what do u find the hardset in welding any tips for beginenier

how many bales will u carry on the trailer ? how many bales will u carry are u brakeing the axel on that
as i said before i am going to put an extenstion on to my trailer its 12 ft long but it never manages to fit 3 bales long i am going to make a extendable rack at back that i can slid under the body an not take it off mabey it might fit 4 bales long of hay or straw and then 3 silage long could fit 6 on bottom and 4 on top
but id love to know ur plans for wireless lights .woulnt mind doing em for my trailers and tank and all fare handy

emaherx · 11-07-2009 11:07pm

bk1991 wrote: »

now i like the sound of wireless trailer lights how u gona make these apart from saveing time from getting down to plug them out better still u dont have to worry about pulling the plug out when its forgotten has happened many times by my father ... once the weld is strong enough i woulnt be too worried about the look of it

its better bad looking and strong than looking great and week
what do u find the hardset in welding any tips for beginenier

how many bales will u carry on the trailer ? how many bales will u carry are u brakeing the axel on that
as i said before i am going to put an extenstion on to my trailer its 12 ft long but it never manages to fit 3 bales long i am going to make a extendable rack at back that i can slid under the body an not take it off mabey it might fit 4 bales long of hay or straw and then 3 silage long could fit 6 on bottom and 4 on top
but id love to know ur plans for wireless lights .woulnt mind doing em for my trailers and tank and all fare handy

I don't think I'd be much good for the old tips, probubly tell you how to do it wrong:)

It will only cary four wrapped bales. I have a trailer which will carry 18 bales but it is no good for wrapped bales. I'm not going to bother with brakes for four bales.

Still working on plans for wireless lights but it will involve off the shelf RF modules and digital encode/decoder setup. Rechargeable battery and LED lights for the trailer unit

bk1991 · 12-07-2009 12:48am

emaherx wrote: »

I don't think I'd be much good for the old tips, probubly tell you how to do it wrong:)

It will only cary four wrapped bales. I have a trailer which will carry 18 bales but it is no good for wrapped bales. I'm not going to bother with brakes for four bales.

Still working on plans for wireless lights but it will involve off the shelf RF modules and digital encode/decoder setup. Rechargeable battery and LED lights for the trailer unit

how will the lights work how much of cost compared to standard lights
have you sofd drive on ether of yer loaders ?
i have fitted soft drive ie hydralic acumulator +valve and pipe dident use it much on rd yet so dont know how shell work

bk1991

Labour Saving and General Guntering

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