Tractor-Mounted String Trimmer

Tractor-Mounted String Trimmer CROPS Weed Control 30-2-25 Larry Spitzley's home-built weed whacker on front of his riding mower moves four directions independently. That makes it perfect for working in the 12-acre cemetery near Mulliken, Mich., that he maintains. Before building it, he used a hand-held string trimmer around the several hundred headstones. Spitzley uses a Deere 4110 tractor but says the trimmer would work on any compact tractor equipped with a loader valve and "power beyond" hydraulics. The tractor should also have a hydraulic capacity of at least 6 gal. per minute, he points out. "The ground in rural cemeteries is not very level, so I wanted this weed whacker to let me raise and lower it as well as move it in and out," he explains. "From the seat of the tractor, the head can be adjusted 1 ft. in any direction. It used to take two people roughly eight hours each, just to trim the whole cemetery. Now I can mow and trim at the same time, saving a minimum of 25 percent of the total man-hours it took before." When Spitzley extends the weed whacker out to his left, it's like having a mower out there, he says. Its eight strings (.155-in. dia. heavy-duty nylon cable) trim roughly a 24-in. dia. circle. He got the idea for the design of his rig when he saw an old ski exercise machine on a trash heap. He retrieved the item and used parts of it in his design. The frame design consists of eight rollers (for moving the head in two directions û in and out). They run on two pieces of square tubing. He purchased two 1-in. hydraulic cylinders (with 12-in. travel) û one to propel the head on the rollers, and the other for lifting it up and down. "I put the rollers at the end of the cylinders," he explains. "There's an L-shaped piece of steel on the rollers that allows it to move in and out." A hydraulic motor controls the weed whacker's power head, running it at around 2,500 rpm's. The device bolts to the front of the tractor and there are six hydraulic lines running to it. "It takes only 2 to 3 min. to put it on or take it off," Spitzley says. "I have about 65 hours invested in it and about $1,050 in parts. It works very well." This is actually the third weed whacker that Spitzley has built û he just kept improving on his design each time until he was happy with it. "I've finally gotten it to where it's really strong, and I can't believe how good it works because of the speed and how much I can do with it," he says. "It's very light-weight and quite unique." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Larry Spitzley, 12716 Boyer Rd., Mulliken, Mich. 48861 (ph 517 649-8942; spitsp@aol.com).

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