Turf Roller

[jimgerken]

I finished my turf roller. I actually built most of it last year, but modifiied it this weekend with a new hitch and a scraper. The drum is a truck fuel tank of 60 gallon capacity. I figure the frame and drum at about 150 pounds, 60 gals of water weigh 499, and those 1" square tube stubs are for adding six rock crusher hammers, of 90 pounds each. Thats almost 1200 pounds. the drum is 32 inches wide, so it has a very concentrated effect. The hitch has a couple big electric fence tensioning springs in it so the tractor is not subjected to shock load. There is no weight on the drawbar when it is fully loaded. It does a good job, especially after rain. the scraper is not really visible in the picture, but it is simply a pc of truck mudflap, plastic, bolted on with bending tension so it rides against the drum to scrape off any mud that tries to collect. I havent tried that feature yet, but last year I ran without it and had to stop every few minutes and scrape MANUALLY! How disgusting. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[jimgerken]

Here's a hitch closeup view.

 

[pajoube]

Well thought out - great job.
PJ

 

[Inspector507]

Looks Great!!!

 

[Soundguy]

Nice!

Soundguy

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Good job! Your turf roller looks heavy-duty and well built. The spring shock absorbers are a good idea.

 

[markct]

why the shock absorber hitch setup, i cant imagine what shock a roller would create, it just rolls over stuff, its not like a ground engaging implement such as a plow and even most of those type implements are usualy rigid mounted

 

[jimgerken]

A friend had a rental unit at his house one day last year. I took a quick look at it and it had a shock absorbing hitch. I improved on the idea and implimented it. There is a lot of movement going on back there when underway. The springs are being alternately compressed, suggesting it is hitting resistance, rolling over/through it, and then catching up. If you watch it, its doing a couple inches of travel back and forth when operating. I used to pull this roller with a garden tractor. With that smaller hydro tractor I really felt a lot of pushing and shoving. The shock absorbing hitch was helping a great deal to keep the stress lower for the transmission. On a CUT like the jd4100 I pull it with now, it would be less important to have this feature. My Dad used the roller behind his Honda ATV and he was very happy at how smooth it worked with the hitch feature