Idle hands.........

[wroughtn_harv]

It's interesting on a couple of different levels. When I have an idle moment the mind still works over the tire--tilt--dump trailer. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

First of course is what makes it dump. Looking at the demonstration I gather it's on the same principle as the tumble bug round hay trailer. I'm sure you've seen those. You back up to a round bale. The trailer tilts as you back against the bale. You lower an arm over the trailer and then pull forward. The arm and the mechanical action of the trailer loads the bale. When you want to unload you activate the brakes and lift the arm and then back up. The brakes are activated a couple of different ways that I've seen. One is the wire to the electric brakes is placed to an accessory (cigarette lighter) plug.

You plug it in and the brakes are locked. I imagine you have to exchange the backing plates, left on right, right on left etc to make them work in reverse.

Another system I've seen is where the brakes are hooked to the running light circuit. To unload the trailer you just throw the light switch and the brakes are on.

I'm still thinking about the tilt trailer idea. But lately my mind has been dancing real hard with making my skid steer into a road grader, picked up a six foot Little Rhino three point blade set up today. I've already got the wheels and tires and I'm thinking I'd like to have it work without additional hydraulics. Just because I think I can.

I mean heck, anyone can make their skid loader into a road grader with a checkbook. I found out Bobcat makes one similar to the idea I have. And just about anyone can make one using hydraulic cylinders etc. But now if I can make one work well and not abuse the checkbook and without hydraulic assist, now that's a bird of another color. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Taylortractornut]

Harv I just used one of those skid steer graders the other day and im no grader man but i did well with it. I mountred my laser read out on it and did a small sub grade with it. I think the grader cost 6000 and a good used 12 Cat cost 4000 here. The grader i used had the swivel wheels and the swivel mount on the moldboards drawbar was a 2inch trailer ball and hitch. It was hard to use on the Bobcat and Case loader with 2 hand drive, with the blade having a lever for each side. The Cat loader we used with the one hand drive freed up the other for the lade controlls. My friend had these few machines on his Rental lot getting contractors to pick which machines they wanted. One thing i saw the neck needed to be a bit longer about a foot or two to make blading smoother.

 

[ns_in_tex]

Harv,
This is probably not as good as you might want, but I took my Little Rhino blade & mounted it to my front loader. I do not have a picture of it mounted. Here it is in storage. I have a tool bar to put on in place of the bucket. It slips into the C-channels & I drop 4, 1/2" bolts through the C-channels, behind the inserted tool bar.

I do not have wheels on it. If the blade is angled, when you change the tilt, you change the cut. the way I have it mounted it sits between where the bucket would be if it were on, and the front wheels.

I have used it for a few little jobs & like it.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

wroughtn_harv, not a skid steer, but is this something like what you had in mind? It's a Dearborn Road Maintainer on a Ford 8N.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Don,

Thanks, that maintainer is finer than a frog hair split three ways as a bud of mine would say.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Morning Neal,

The blade that was given to me is exactly like the unit you have pictured. I think they must have been siblings. The rust pattern is so close that it has to be genetic.

Here's my logic. For just moving dirt the skid steer does it easier and much faster than a conventional tractor. And for grading it smooth the skid steer is fantastic. The only problem is with the small undulations. With the skid steer being so short a wheelbase the only way to eliminate them is with repeated passes and quite a bit of experience.

The elongated wheelbase of the maintainer--grader concept was designed to eliminate those undulations. This site, http://www.bobcat.com/products/att/Photos.jhtmlattname=grader&mp=6&photo=5 is a picture of what I have in mind.

The difference is the Bobcat is dependent upon auxillary hydraulics to manipulate the blade. I can do that too. I could even buy a Bobcat maintainer attachment. It would be real hard for me to justify the investment though. I'm not into making roads and or parking lots. So it would be just a toy.

I do want to make one for myself. I'm sure you can relate to that motivation /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif if anyone here can.

So here's my thinking now. Using the quick attach feature I hook up to the grader. The skid steer and the frame with the crazy wheels become one rigid unit. (I haven't figured this out completely yet.) Then I use linkage to attach the blade frame to the curl function of the skid steer. To lower the blade I curl down, to lift curl up. Angle of the blade I think can be set manually with pins, just like the original Rhino set up.

This is a once a year or two attachment that is handy as heck to have when needed but not such an investment that it has to be used twice a month to pay for it. And to be honest probably more about because I can than anything else.

Because I can gets me into more trouble..... /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Well shoot Harv, if you didn't insist on using a skid steer for a power unit, you could just build one like this, and tow it with a tractor.
Or, you could reverse the blade, and make the wheels steerable and push it with a skid steer.

 

[ns_in_tex]

Harv, I certainly know about the ideas getting ME in trouble...

I looked at the bobcat grader & see at least some of your end goal.

The swivel wheels up front throw a new twist into what I did without wheels.

If I wake up in the night with an idea (and can remember it till morning /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif) I will pass it along.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Thanks for the picture Franz. Images of rigs like that keep coming to mind when I'm trying to smooth out an area and make it level too.

I'm stuck on using the skid steer. We've almost become so close I'm starting to feel we're joined at the hip. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

So much to do.....so little time. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif It could be worse, I could be one of these folks with nothing to do or even worse, no tools to do it with......... /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[ScottAR]

I was thinking just now of using the bucket tilt to angle the blade. "dumping" would angle the blade to the right for example. I hit a stumbling block in that the mount at the bucket pin would have to pivot as well which loses rigidity and kills the downpressure.

One could mount the grader frame to the tractor frame and just have the blade mount move with the loader arms but that takes away the quick attach properties.

Just some ideas... time for bed.