Homemade 80-Ft Long Spray Boom

Homemade 80-Ft Long Spray Boom SPRAYING Miscellaneous 24-5-36 I used the cylinder out of an old threshing machine to make my own low-cost, 3-pt. mounted lawn aerator which I use with my small Ford tractor. The 2-ft. dia. cylinder was originally equipped with a series of 3-in. long steel spikes which I sharpened to a pointed end. I ran a steel shaft through the cylinder that rides on bearings mounted on a steel frame. To add weight I mounted a 10-in. dia. steel pipe on the frame in back of the cylinder. I made my own 80-ft. long spray boom using parts from a wide variety of sources. The wings are off a Crustbuster grain drill and the main frame is off an old Deere row crop cultivator. The axle and tires are off a Cockshutt self-propelled combine and the booms are off an old sprayer that I already had. The 500-gal. tank and the sprayer pump and pto are new. There's no fancy computerized controls on it û to operate it I simply reach through the tractor's back window. The boom folds up like a cultivator to a narrow 16-ft. transport width. There are two wheels on each side of the boom, and at each end there's a small wheel to keep the boom ends from gouging into the ground. My total cost to build the sprayer was only about $1,200. I also made a side-delivery rake using an old combine pickup and a 5-hp Wisconsin gas engine. I mounted a big pulley on the pickup and a small one on the engine to belt-drive the pickup. I set the pickup at an angle and mounted wheels at each end of it. The total width covered by the pickup is about 5 ft. I had to modify the pickup fingers so that they drop the hay off instead of bringing it around to the top of the pickup. I use the rake to windrow long grass around our farmyard. It eliminates the need to rake the grass by hand. After I've made the windrows I come back with a homemade bucket that mounts on back of my Deere 110 garden tractor. The bucket is equipped with a series of 4-ft. long wooden tines attached to a steel plate. To pick up the windrow I simply lower the forks to the ground and then back up until the forks are full of grass. (Del Bergeron, Box 156, Assiniboia, Sask., Canada S0H 0B0 ph 306 642-3291)

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