Grain Auger Digger Makes Holes 9 Ft. Deep

Grain Auger Digger Makes Holes 9 Ft. Deep AUGERS Augers (29B) 28-2-29 Marshall Litchfield used a Kinze grain auger to make a big "earth auger" that digs 18-in. dia. holes as deep as 9 ft. It mounts on his skid steer loader. Litchfield needed the big auger to dig holes for some street light poles he bought from a nearby town. He wanted to put a row of them along his driveway. He cut the 16-in. Kinze auger down to 5 ft. long and added another piece of flighting, 180 degrees from the original flighting. Then he welded a 1-in. strip of metal along the edges of the double flighting to make the diameter 18 in. He mounted the gearbox off a Danuser post hole digger on a bracket that attaches to the skid steer's frame. The gearbox is driven by a hydraulic motor that's hooked up to the same hydraulic hoses on the skid loader that normally are used to tilt the bucket. He removed the original Kinze auger shaft and replaced it with a 2-in. sq. shaft that's long enough for the auger to dig 9 ft. deep at the loader's highest lift point. The flighting is secured by a 1/2-in. bolt. "It wasn't the quickest way in the world to come up with an auger. But it worked flawlessly," says Litchfield. "There are farm post hole diggers available with an 18-in. dia. auger, but most of them dig only about 6 ft. deep. The only other alternative would have been to rent an auger, or find an old utility truck-mounted auger. "The street light poles were originally designed to set on a concrete pedestal and, with the lamp mounted on top, were 32 ft. high which would have been way too high for my needs. By dropping the poles 9 ft. deep in the ground the lamps are now only about 21 ft. high. "My skid loader is operated by foot controls, with one pedal used to raise and lower the boom and the other to move the machine forward or backward. Once I dig as deep as I can without stalling out I just lift the auger out of the hole, drive forward to shake the dirt out, then back up and let the auger down into the hole again." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Marshall Litchfield, 15495 N 70 Road, Macomb, Ill. 61455 (ph 309 254-3481).

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