I finally bought a bullet tooth rock auger - see attached photo of the business end of this beast. I ground points on the Pengo teeth of one of my dirt augers and had some success with it but after spending 6 hours to drill through 1 foot of rock I decided I had better try something else if I ever wanted to finish this fence.
Digging post holes
- Thread starter centex
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To apply down pressure to the rock auger I welded up the attachment for my PHD shown here. It is a 6' length of 1/2" x 3" bar stock with a 2' section of bar stock welded on the end on which I will hang my suitcase weights. This setup should apply double the weight of the suitcase weights to the auger or about 600#. The auger weighs 100# and the PDH gear box weighs 84# so with the weight of the boom and attachment the boring head will have up to 800# on it. I hope that will be enough.
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wroughtn_harv
Super Member
Doggone it Don I wish I had the time to come over just to see how it all works.
I really like the idea of the suitcase weights.
Take pictures and tell us how the bullet points work.
I really like the idea of the suitcase weights.
Take pictures and tell us how the bullet points work.
I finished three holes in solid rock today - 9"x4'. The weight attachment worked well although I need to make a couple of improvements to it. The first is something I expected to have to do but I did not want to waste more metal until I knew it worked. I will weld a flat bar to the top of the main bar to give it lateral stability and second I think I will add a structural brace to the top so it can carry more weight. Two of the holes I dug today were in a hard limestone formation and more weight was really needed although the machine did manage to bore through 3 feet of the the rock in 2.5 hours for one hole and 2 for the other. The third hole was in a softer limestone formation and the machine bored through this in about 30 minutes. I broke one shear pin as I broke through the bottom of the softer rock. The attached picture shows the machine in use on the first of the holes in hard limestone.
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This final picture shows the rig on the second hole. I must confess to sitting on the weights when they got down to this level to add another 350# of pressure to the auger. These rock augers are VERY noisy. Enough so as to be damaging to your hearing so hearing protection is really necessary. I did not have ear plugs so I put my fingers over my ears until I found a paper towel to stuff in my ears. Since it worked so slow I walked far enough away that the noise was not bad unles I had to be near the tractor for something. I was told that rock augers are slow and that is definitely true but they do work. A lot more down pressure would help but since I not doing this for hire I can afford the time. I did not have to do any work with a digging bar today so the time I spent was not nearly as tiring as before. The three points I ground on the Pengo bits worked too the just are not as durable as the carbide bullet points.
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phantom309
Silver Member
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2002
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- 208
Very nice setup, Don-
I put a long pole on my auger, but didn't rig it for suitcase weights. I'll always have a helper back there pulling down and keeping the auger vertical at the same time.
Do you dig holes all by yourself? My (old) 3ph has enough slop in it that it's best to have somebody back there keeping it vertical. I haven't dug any holes with my new tractor to see how it works yet.
Anyway, looks great. I like the looks of your place. Especially the old (Ford?) truck in one of the pictures!
I put a long pole on my auger, but didn't rig it for suitcase weights. I'll always have a helper back there pulling down and keeping the auger vertical at the same time.
Do you dig holes all by yourself? My (old) 3ph has enough slop in it that it's best to have somebody back there keeping it vertical. I haven't dug any holes with my new tractor to see how it works yet.
Anyway, looks great. I like the looks of your place. Especially the old (Ford?) truck in one of the pictures!
wroughtn_harv
Super Member
Don you did good. I can't thank you enough for the pictures.
I hesitated telling you to put that counterweight out as far as possible to increase the leverage. I'm not an engineer or one of them thinking types. But it seemed to me that farther out you put the weight the more leverage you'd have which in itself means more weight.
Seriously I'm prouder'n if I'd done it myself.
I noticed your post hole diggers. Let me pass on a clue I picked up on some years back. It's almost like that leverage thing on the counterweight. When you're looking to buy a set of diggers check out where the pivot bolt is. Most of them today have the pivot bolt just above the bucket plates. It's a long bolt that goes through right above where the bucket plates are riveted to the handle assembly.
I pass on those unless I don't have a choice. What I look for are those where the pivot bolt is a little shorter and it's higher up closer to the handles. The logic is the farther up the pivot point the wider you can open the bucket plates on the digger. The wider the bite the more you can attempt to pick up. Another advantage is they will wear in faster.
What I mean by wear in faster is there's this point of wear where you can tweak them just a bit as you close them before you bring them up. That tweaking allows the rounded ends of the bucket plates to get closer and so you can lose less on your way up.
All this isn't important to most folks. But when you're on the power end of hand diggers any edge you can get means a bunch by the end of the day. And when you've got powder to pull out or it's sloppy wet the closer those bucket plates get together mean fewer bad words to trip over.
Again, I can't thank you enough for sharing your adventure. Some folks think it's work. It's an adventure. Work is where the only compensation they can or will offer is money.
I hesitated telling you to put that counterweight out as far as possible to increase the leverage. I'm not an engineer or one of them thinking types. But it seemed to me that farther out you put the weight the more leverage you'd have which in itself means more weight.
Seriously I'm prouder'n if I'd done it myself.
I noticed your post hole diggers. Let me pass on a clue I picked up on some years back. It's almost like that leverage thing on the counterweight. When you're looking to buy a set of diggers check out where the pivot bolt is. Most of them today have the pivot bolt just above the bucket plates. It's a long bolt that goes through right above where the bucket plates are riveted to the handle assembly.
I pass on those unless I don't have a choice. What I look for are those where the pivot bolt is a little shorter and it's higher up closer to the handles. The logic is the farther up the pivot point the wider you can open the bucket plates on the digger. The wider the bite the more you can attempt to pick up. Another advantage is they will wear in faster.
What I mean by wear in faster is there's this point of wear where you can tweak them just a bit as you close them before you bring them up. That tweaking allows the rounded ends of the bucket plates to get closer and so you can lose less on your way up.
All this isn't important to most folks. But when you're on the power end of hand diggers any edge you can get means a bunch by the end of the day. And when you've got powder to pull out or it's sloppy wet the closer those bucket plates get together mean fewer bad words to trip over.
Again, I can't thank you enough for sharing your adventure. Some folks think it's work. It's an adventure. Work is where the only compensation they can or will offer is money.
