They Built A 25-Ft. Wide Folding No-Till Drill

They Built A 25-Ft Wide Folding No-Till Drill DRILLS Virginia grain and hay farmer Rusty Inskeep is always looking for ways to work more efficiently Last winter he and his nephew Paul rebuilt two 15-ft Deere 1590 no-till grain drills into a single machine equipped with 6-ft wings     Inskeep says they decided to build their own drill after finding that other machines wouldn’t work in their operation “Deere makes a 20-ft wide 1590 but the transport width is too wide for the roads we travel ” says Rusty “We also looked at another brand that had folding wings but the depth control and covering wheels were too far in the back We wanted a machine that we knew would perform with the crops and conditions we have ”     With new machines out of the picture Rusty and Paul turned their attention to building their own They started by purchasing two Deere 1590 drills that had planted less than 1 000 acres each Rusty had the rough idea on how to merge them together and turned his sketches over to Paul who built the plans on 3D CAD     “Without those CAD skills I don’t think we’d have been able to do this project ” says Rusty “Paul’s able to design parts to exact specifications and then we transfer those plans to a local machine shop where they’re made ” Rusty says their main concern was strengthening the hitch to carry the extra weight and figuring out how to attach each of the wing sections to the main frame     “We finalized all the plans before we took anything apart or had any parts made ” says Rusty     To pull the machine they designed a tongue truss out of 8 in by 8-in tube steel and extended it in an arc back through the grain box to the wheel frame Two additional wheels were added on the back to support the extra weight of the wings The center section was reinforced with tube steel channel and angle iron to provide support for the wing pivots on each side They made the wings by cutting apart one of the drills and removing the rear frame and wheels Parts from the hitch were used to build a new frame that supports the wings and pivots them 180 degrees forward for road travel The wings pivot on an 8 in long pin that connects parts with a tolerance of 0 002 Rusty says when they welded the pivots in place they allowed for heat expansion by using shims with a thickness of 0 001 then removed the shims and reinstalled the pivot pin Each wing has a crazy wheel that turns 360 degrees a feature that allows them to back the machine into field corners     The drill has 4-in cylinders with a 2-in ram shaft and a 40-in stroke to fold the wings In its folded position the machine is just over 16 ft wide Fully raised for road travel there’s 24 in of clearance under the machine “Having it lift that high sure makes it easy to work on the openers ” says Rusty     Inskeep pulls the drill with a Deere 7430 tractor He says weight on the 2 pt hitch is close to 5 000 lbs so his tractor has a full set of suitcase weights on the front The drill holds 115 bu of seed in 3 sections which gives them capacity to plant 100 acres or more in one fill In the spring of 2014 they used the drill to seed soybeans and will use it in the fall to seed barley and wheat They’ll also use it for orchard grass and timothy In addition Rusty plans to seed tillage radishes for cover crops that will help break up hardpan areas     “Building this machine took us most of the winter ” says Inskeep “but now we’ve got something that we know will work a machine that gives us a much more efficient planting operation This summer we’re going to install four section shut offs and a very precise seed monitor to make it even more efficient ”      Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Rusty Inskeep 22502 Mt Pony Farms Drive Culpeper Va 22701 ph 540 937-0958

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