Montana Deere

[lcrans]

Hi PJ.... Down in the Livingston fishing country, I presume?

 

[pajoube]

Actually its more west of BZN - half way between Belgrade and Manhattan. Your photos looked like the Bridgers?
PJ

 

[hwp]

Beautiful pictures. There is good reason to call it Big Sky country. Having grown up in the mountains of British Columbia I sure miss them in flat Southern Ontario.

 

[lcrans]

Actually, it's the Swans, by Flathead Lake. Straight ahead in the panorama picture is Jewel Basin, to the right is 'The Bob'.

 

[lcrans]

Hi Howard....last summer took a magnificent trip from Vancouver through Whistler, across to Rogers Pass, down through Fernie and back home. Your are right, those mountains are grand. I especially liked the area northeast of Whistler.....pretty wild up there.

 

[lcrans]

Glad all like the photos...here are a couple of sunrises over 'the Bob', the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area.
Sunrise 1......

 

[lcrans]

Sunrise 2....

 

[Anonymous Poster]

What part of Montana are you from. I was recently lucky enough to visit Glacier National Park. You have similar scenery

 

[lcrans]

We're about 40 miles south of the main west entrance to Glacier....the mountain range pictured runs into the south side of Glacier park. With the advantage of the Park Service Golden Age passport (free!) we go there all the time....good old senior citizen stuff!

 

[Pks]

Do you have a photo of your blower in full operation?

I have been researching snowblowers this season. Yours appears to have the largest fan I have seen (for the compact tractor market).

Do you like its design and construction quality?

Thanks,

Peter

 

[lcrans]

About the Lorenz snowblower....it's a model 530, 66" wide, weighs 520 pounds. I'm pleased with the construction---even has little holders for up to 8 shear pins....I haven't broken one yet, tho'. It takes 2 at a time on the blower end of the pto shaft. Their website is www.lorenzmfg.com, and they have one small picture in action....I don't have one throwing snow yet. I was concerned about the paddles rather than the screw augers, but they work great. very good for chopping into icy stuff---old plow ridges for example---and really spit out the cubes! As I said above, no shear pins used yet even tho' I watched a rock about the size of a softball go thru it.
I see you are a software engineer....on a different topic...have you ever used/contemplated Proclarity OLAP processor software with SQL Server? Just a shot in the dark....I need to help recommend/develop a data warehousing/analysis system to some local school districts here. Thanx.....

 

[hwp]

I am a bit of a snowblower nut so I am curious as to the diameter of the impeller in your snowblower and what speed you run it at.
Thanks

 

[Pks]

Hmmm, I have never heard of that data analysis application. I deal with a product called iMAN. It handles data storage, corporate organization and business processes for the Auto, Aero Space and other heavy industries.

Glad to hear you like the paddle augers for eating through iced up windrows. I looked at their web page and contacted them.

 

[lcrans]

Hi Howard.....I measured things for ya.... The fan/discharge area is a large cylinder behind the paddles, 26" in diameter and 8" deep. The fan itself has 3 large blades, each shaped like large flour scoops or jailai bats---mean looking things. I generally run in lo-reverse at 2000 - 2600 rpm, where 2600 rpm is pto rated 540 rpm. Our snow here is usually pretty powdery, at least on the top. Sometimes the bottom layers are pretty solid, particularly if I get lazy and don't snowblow until we're nearly snowbound, or if we have a thaw and refreeze. Let me know if you want more info.

 

[hwp]

Thanks for the info. That gives you a discharge speed of about 3675 feet/min which I would think is a bit on the low side. How far will it throw your nice dry snow? My unit is quite a bit smaller than yours. It has a 20 in. impeller that I run at 1000 rpm (engine speed = 2000 rpm). This gives me a discharge speed of about 5200 feet/min which will throw really dry snow about 100 feet. Of course, the other major factor that affects the peformance of a snowblower is the clearance between the impeller and the drum between BDC and the point of discharge. The smaller the gap the better the better the discharge. When I rebuilt my machine last summer I fit the blades to the drum and left a 0.020 in gap.