Home-Built Auger Makes Bin Site Clean-Up Easy

Home-Built Auger Makes Bin Site Clean-Up Easy AUGERS Augers (29B) 22-1-43 Last fall, Milton Ruppert built an auger system that automatically dumps grain screenings from his screen-type grain cleaner into an enlarged tractor bucket, making it easy to keep his bin sites clean. "I'd been thinking about building some-thing like this for years," says the Hillsboro, Ill., farmer. "In the past we had to do a lot of shoveling to get rid of all the screenings. We had one field of weedy beans where we got a bucket full of screenings and trash per truck load. We normally run the clean-up auger only every load or two but, in this case, we ran it all the time. It really saved us a lot of work." The special-built auger consists of a two-stage 6-in. dia. auger and hopper that slides underneath Ruppert's grain screener. Ruppert built a 7-ft. long, V-shaped trough out of 1/2-in. thick plywood to catch the screenings. A 6 in. dia. auger runs at the bottom of the "V". A 30-in. wide deflector shield built out of roofing tin mounts on one side to deflect screenings into the auger. A 3-ft. length of 6 in. dia. auger carries screenings from the V-shaped trough into the tractor bucket. The two auger sections are joined by a U-joint that joins the augers' 1 in. dia. shafts. The system is driven at about 100 rpm's by a 1 hp orbit motor from an old International H tractor. The motor mounts at the end of the auger trough. To increase holding capacity of his tractor bucket, Ruppert increased its depth to 16 in. by bolting 1/2-in. plywood to the front and sides. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Milton Ruppert, 14329 Ill. Rt. 185, Hillsboro, Ill. 62049 (ph 217 534-2502).

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