CULTI-PACKER (help and pics)

[tmiller]

my uncle has this and he says if i can get it out of the woods i can have it.

However I have some questions...
1. what is it used for? Do i use it after plowing to rid of the clumps?
2. Anyone have one or one like it? How you like it?
3. Is it worth digging it out? what is the worth in money now?
4. anyone heard of DUNHAM?
Any other info i would love!
some teeth are missing, Needs alot of work!!

Thanks Taylor

PICS

 

[foggy1111]

Your pictures dont show the important parts very well...if at all. Too many leaves. I think the cast iron "wheels" and the bearings on the shaft ends are the important parts to look at....along with any broken castings....and its hard to tell much from those pics...BUT.....FREE is GOOD. I think Dunham is a good old time brand...and that is an oldie but a goodie from what I can see.

Culipackers are all the rage right now with those that put in small seeds like clover and chicory for deer food plots. My guess is what you are showing here is an 8 footer and if it is ready to go I'd say its worth $500. (+ -) to the right party. Should be easy to sell again on Craigs list if you dont need it.

I put a wtb ad on Craigs List for a cultipacker a few weeks ago....finally had a call from a guy that has three of 'em (2 4's and an 8er). I'm off to look at them on Sat. He tells me he wants $250 for the lot of 'em. I think I feel a small profit coming on.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Dunham became Dunham Lehr.....Dunham and Brillion are the most common brands of cultipackers. Good brand. They're used AFTER discing (secondary tillage) either/or before/after seeding to firm seedbed and eliminate air pockets/clods.

They sell for big bucks these days. A MINIMUM of $250. I've seen 7'ers sell in excess of $750 of late.

 

[spruce Deere]

Worth diggn out, worth keepn, Like farmwithjunk says, sell for good $$. Even if shaft and end bearings are busted or wore, fixn them is worth it. My nieghbor, retired farmer, give me 3 four footers, crossbar stile wheels. Not sure what brand, JD green only marking I can find on them is "produced in carolina". Dont matter, honored to have'em, good as gold to me

 

[Dargo]

I have one that is almost exactly like that one. I have a thread on here somewhere where I rebuilt it a couple of years ago and put in new axles and bearings with grease zerks along with sandblasting it and painting it. Interestingly enough, it had wood blocks inside the end caps serving as bearings in an oil bath. Needless to say, 70 years of use and having sat outside at least 50 of those years took a bit of a toll on it. Surprisingly enough, the steel Dunham used, their own proprietary steel, held up incredibly well after all the years. Unless prices have plummeted lately, the lowest I was seeing for good condition Dunham double row cultipackers was between $1000 and $2500. I can't see if yours is a single row or double row because of the leaves. From what I see, it looks like a single row, but they are still useful and bring good money. The double row ones bring a lot more money when restored to working condition. After I finished rebuilding mine (first rebuild in about 70 years), I was offered $2500 cash for it. Obviously I opted to keep it.

Here a few pictures of mine after I rebuilt it. I do see that these pictures were before I installed a regular trailer hitch that goes on a 2" ball on the front of it. I can easily pull it with my ATV or RTV and I have 2 sections of railroad track in the 'box' on top for additional weight. It works wonders in finishing a lawn!

 

[foggy1111]

After I finished rebuilding mine (first rebuild in about 70 years), I was offered $2500 cash for it. Obviously I opted to keep it.


Thats a nice packer Dargo, and no doubt you did allot of work to fix it up. No offense.......But.......YIKES If I were offered $2500 cash for that piece I would be stuffing the cash in my wallet and waving bye bye. There's always more iron around the groves....at least in these parts.

Hmmmmm....maybe its just the old 'chinery jockey blood in me.

 

[tmiller]

thanks for the help. Can i change out the wheels on mine for the ones you have on that one? taylor

 

[Dargo]

I'm sure a tandem axle setup could be fabricated if it doesn't have a setup for such, but it wouldn't be particularly easy. I have no idea where you'd find extra packing wheels unless you had a spare for donor parts. Being the high prices good condition ones are bringing now, I'm not sure I'd cut one up for parts. I don't see any on eBay now, but back when I was restoring mine there were several identical to mine (but not restored) and the opening bids were at $1500 and they always seemed to sell.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

I've seen things sell on EBAY for double what you could buy the same EXACT thing for NEW. That doesn't establish a "worth" in my book, just what a "fool and his money" will spend. There's a couple well known used equipment dealer websites that list cultipackers @ $ridiculous$ prices too. Still, you can go to farm auctions and buy decent (to really good) cultipackers for $250 to $750, single, double, w/"pups" (sort of a "batwing" extention), ect..... I can't help but laugh when I hear of someone paying double or triple price for something so common and available.

It's another thing entirely when a person buys a "decent" piece, then spends way more than is common to build/rebuild something into a virtual work of art. (Oh how well I know.....BTDT, got the "art" to prove it) Spending $xxxx.xx on something that's really only worth $xx.xx is easy to do. Unfortunately for those of us who do that all too frequently, that process doesn't make it worth $xxxx.xx except to ANOTHER tractor nut with deep pockets.......

 

[Dargo]

It's another thing entirely when a person buys a "decent" piece, then spends way more than is common to build/rebuild something into a virtual work of art. (Oh how well I know.....BTDT, got the "art" to prove it) Spending $xxxx.xx on something that's really only worth $xx.xx is easy to do. Unfortunately for those of us who do that all too frequently, that process doesn't make it worth $xxxx.xx except to ANOTHER tractor nut with deep pockets.......

Yeah, and there are those of us with the tools and ability to rebuild equipment with almost no additional money. It's all in knowing how to use what you have.

I can't say that there is any better gauge of the value of something other than what the market will bear. I'm sure you know far better the value of something than nationwide auction prices and what they are bought and sold for all over the place. Me, I'll just have to keep on being handicapped by having to rely on what the market will bear at any given time.

 

[RollTideRam]

Here is what I found last year. It needs some work, but I got to use it today and I like it.

 

[rambler]

We were discussing this in a different forum, & it seems tmiller has a little different deal - his is not a culti packer, but a culti-weeder (or what does it say on the endcap picture again?). Works more like a rotory hoe. Too bad he didn't clean those leaves out a little better, I'd like to see those wheels.

'Here' you can buy a single cultipacker for $120-500, typically $250.

Would love to relell them for 10x that. Mine was the main large section, with 2 wings that can be set as a double, or out to the end for a wider single deal. Was $120, pretty easy to make new wooden bearings & buy 4 big washers. Good to go.

Never saw this weeder type - bet they don't like wet clay soils?

--->Paul

 

[Egon]

We were discussing this in a different forum, & it seems tmiller has a little different deal - his is not a culti packer, but a culti-weeder (or what does it say on the endcap picture again?). Works more like a rotory hoe. Too bad he didn't clean those leaves out a little better, I'd like to see those wheels.

Taylor, you have what we called a cable weeder. There are cables between the wheels that dig into the ground when the wheels turn and bring the weeds/plants roots and all up to the surface and sorta lay them out so they dry out and die.

These are used on well cultivated ground to allow the cables to dig into the ground.

In the area where I grew up it was common practice to let a fields lie fallow for a summer for weed control. When doing this the field was kept black by regular cultivation. Cable weeders and rod weeders as we called them were some of the more common implements used as they didn't pull hard for the width of ground covered.

The last picture of the implement shows one of the wheels the cables were supported by very well. I can't remember the spacing of the wheels but somewhere around four to six feet may have about right?

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Taylor, you have what we called a cable weeder. There are cables between the wheels that dig into the ground when the wheels turn and bring the weeds/plants roots and all up to the surface and sorta lay them out so they dry out and die.

These are used on well cultivated ground to allow the cables to dig into the ground.

In the area where I grew up it was common practice to let a fields lie fallow for a summer for weed control. When doing this the field was kept black by regular cultivation. Cable weeders and rod weeders as we called them were some of the more common implements used as they didn't pull hard for the width of ground covered.

The last picture of the implement shows one of the wheels the cables were supported by very well. I can't remember the spacing of the wheels but somewhere around four to six feet may have about right?

Same/simular type generally known as a "ROD WEEDER" in many areas............

 

[Egon]

Same/simular type generally known as a "ROD WEEDER" in many areas............

There is quite a difference in the way they are made and operate.

 

[Dargo]

There is quite a difference in the way they are made and operate.

Careful now, you are about to receive your lesson...

 

[foggy1111]

Hmmm.....I wonder what I'm going to see on Saturday.....a cultipacker or a "rodder"?

I havnt seen it yet....but had a young guy call me from a WTB I had on Craig's List for a cultipacker.....said he had two four footers and an 8 footer to sell and he was told what he had was some kind of cultipacker....but wasnt too sure what it was.

From the descriptions above it could be that I'm going to see a "weed rodder" instead of a cultipacker. I guess the smooth wheels and a cable will be the tell tale signs. I always thought that cultipackers had wheels with some "cross-hatches" in the castings.

Also.......long ago, around my parts......we had what was called a "western land roller" (not sure if "western" was a brand?) that looked pretty similar to what were discussing. Is a land roller more of a cultipacker or a rodder?

[B]So....I got some questions. Can a weed rodder be made to operate as a cultipacker? [/B]

Or if I buy a weed rodder will I just be spinning my wheels? (pun intented )

Oh.....and for the record....I've always thought that some of the best and most knowledgeable information I have read on TBN has come from FWJ. I think his experience gives him a bit of license to add a little sarcasm to his posts where needed. As they say: if you cant stand the heat....stay out of the kitchen.

 

[spruce Deere]

Well foggy, around here a land roller is just that. A big smooth drum built to various widths, you fill with water for added wieght and "role over the land" befor or after, some do it differently, of seeding grass, alfalfa, canola or anything elts I spoze. A rod weeder or rodder you describe, would be a poor canidate for a cultipacker In my book. They work under the ground, not made to "pack" but to more or less "fluff" and weed at the same time. Some pull harrows behind a rod weeder to aid in its light till action. Depending on the wieght of a packer, one could pull a packer or packers behind a rod weeder in tandem though....in the right soil conditions.

 

[pitt_md]

I think the two of you (FWJ and Dargo) need to sit down and have beer. I bet if the two of you sat down talked about the price of equipemnt face to face there would be no hard feelings/need to defend everything you say.

 

[Egon]

Careful now, you are about to receive your lesson...

Oh heck, I've been through that sequence quite a few times and survived quite nicely. Happens I have worked with a cable weeder and Rod Weeder's were very common so I do know the difference! The Cable Weeders are from my "Outdated Knowledge" era!

There is a big difference been a "Rod Weeder" and a Culti Packer" . completely different use. Do a goggle check.