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Tire Packer Fights Wind Erosion
Where other farmers worry about compaction on their land, Ken Soda and his sons Kevin and Steve, Princeton, Wis., worry about their rich, black soils blowing away. To hold it in place as they prepare fields for planting, they have to roll and pack it.
"We weren't satisfied with the packers on the market so we d
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Tire Packer Fights Wind Erosion TILLAGE EUIPMENT New Tools 24-3-32 Where other farmers worry about compaction on their land, Ken Soda and his sons Kevin and Steve, Princeton, Wis., worry about their rich, black soils blowing away. To hold it in place as they prepare fields for planting, they have to roll and pack it.
"We weren't satisfied with the packers on the market so we decided to build our own, " says Soda.
They started with a load of throw-away track tires. The price was right, and Soda felt they would make better packers than steel rollers. He built a jig to hold and compress five 42-in. dia. tires together to make four 7 1/2-ft. sections.
The next step was to cut a steel culvert in half lengthwise. They then inserted the two halves of the corrugated steel pipe into the tires and used hydraulic jacks to force them outward. After tacking the pipes at either end, the jacks were removed. Steve Soda then crawled inside the culvert and wire welded the seams.
"We had to place a fan at the end of the pipe to draw noxious fumes out of the pipe as he crawled backward through the pipe," recalls Ken.
Once the culvert was welded tight, a 22-in. dia., 1/2-in. thick steel plate was welded into each end of the pipe. A 2 1/2-in. shaft was then stub welded to the center of each plate, and a second plate was inserted over the stub and also welded in place. The stub was then welded to this plate as well for extra support.
After repeating the process four times, the Sodas constructed a framework to tie the four sections together. Two center sections form the main fixed roller, with a wing section at each end.
Two long stroke hydraulic cylinders extend from the center of the main frame to uprights on the wings to pull them upright for transport.
With all the parts and materials, Soda estimates the roller/packer cost them about $1,500. "We couldn't replace it for $10,000," he says. "We use it for packing mint fields after they've been plowed in the fall and again in the spring, and when we sow clover with soybeans for a crop of seed clover on our upland fields. It leaves nice ridges every 18 inches across the field to break the wind and travels down the road without a problem on those big rubber tires."
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Ken Soda, 10928 County Road J, Princeton, Wis. 54968 (ph 920 295-3171).
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