The main rowed up, then abandoned for 5 years or so, field we recently picked up from a developer was a self propagated meadow, which was fine with us, but being rowed up and having a swale near the middle that eroded into a less than preferable ditch was making it quite difficult to bush hog, walk through, or drive through.
Had been planning to borrow my brother’s almost new 7’ double gang disc harrow to flatten it, but he’s a couple hours away and with appointments at Mayo in FL and life in general, a day trip to pick up a disc harrow was getting to be harder than it probably should be.
Since there wasn’t a lot going on today, spent a half hour with the forks digging this thing out of the back of the shed where it had a variety of stuff piled on it. When I was a kid, we used this thing in the garden and a couple of small fields. Other than driving with a carryall, it was the first implement I recall running. I could be wrong, but I don’t think it has been out of the back of the shed in at least 30 years. I haven’t used it in almost 40 years.
Covered in spider webs and unidentifiable gunk, but the axles still spin free and there’s something left of the discs. Hit it with the pressure washer a little bit and wire brushed the rust off the lift pins. The board on top is U bolted on to provide a tray for weight. The scrap metal, I don’t recall using but it adds weight as well and it was there so I left it. Put a total of 70’ of 3/8” chain and 16’ of 1/2” chain in a steel box and strapped it on the weight tray.
This was the before. Hard to see exactly how ridged up it is with the way it’s grown up. It is actually pretty rough. I bush hogged it once earlier this year. Had 10” to 12” stuff left in the furrows and 2” to scalping the ridges.
Took me a couple passes to get it working right even though it’s about the simplest implement there is. First, it’s way undersized for the tractor. Started out running around 5 mph. Even with the extra weight, it was bouncing around violently and not cutting worth a crap.
First thought was, this ain’t working; going to need a road trip for a better harrow. Second thought was, 40 years ago this thing would have gotten it done and it hasn’t changed so far as I can tell so maybe I’m doing something wrong. That and all that bouncing around wasn’t agreeable with the weight arrangement.
So back to the shop for a redo. Moved the chain box further forward where there’s some blocking to assist the straps. Deleted the scrap metal.
Back to the field to experiment with speed. Did a decent job going really slow and doing some half lapping. If I heard the chains in the box rattling, that sound meant I needed to slow down. Far from ideal but I reminded myself the other option was a pair of four hour round trips so even if it was slow it was probably overall the fastest method.
About 3/4 done a little shower popped up. Didn’t feel like it was going to last long so backed into the entrance to a short trail and spent about 15 minutes under the trees watching it rain.
This is the after. No, it’s not done. Didn’t expect it to be after one cutting regardless which disc was used. The ridges are gone. The eroded places are leveled. The top couple inches of the red clay field are disturbed and, while moist, aren’t overly lumpy. Pretty pleased with it for a first cutting.
Allegedly no rain rest of this week. After the dirt and vegetation dries some, plan to cut it again with full angle on discs, probably at a 45 angle to today’s cut. Then a third cut at 90 degrees to today’s lines with discs at less of an angle and a drag chained behind the disc. For now that’s the plan.
Been a long time since I’ve done anything like this. It started to kind of come back to me as I got into it a bit. There was quite a bit of switchgrass in it already and it’s a native grass so likely that’s what will go back there.
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