He Has Fun Building "Farm Show" Projects

He Has Fun Building Farm Show Projects HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Forage Harvesters “When I’m not repairing things for other people I’m building useful stuff of my own from ideas I’ve seen in FARM SHOW ” says Richard Hayward a self-employed welder and repairman from Salem N Y “My father-in-law gave me a subscription 10 years ago and I’ve still got every issue right here Those magazines and my recliner are the two most important things in my shop ” Hayward says his first “copy cat” project was modifying a push lawn mower to cut brush between rows of Christmas trees The family calls it “The Beast” and they still use it Over the years he’s also built a tree shear stump grinder wood wagon skid steer “thumb” wood splitter snow plow wood chipper and learned several short cuts that are helpful in his work “The home-built projects have really saved me time and money ” says Hayward His self-unloading wood hauler is made from an old manure spreader an idea that he first read about nearly 10 years ago in the magazine “Building the buggy was easy because I removed the spreader beater replaced it with a door and just came up with a sprocket that would spool the chain on the back as it unloaded the wood ” says Hayward For his homemade stump grinder Hayward used ideas from 2 different stories in FARM SHOW “I called a guy in Texas who made a hydraulic-powered grinder and asked him some questions Another guy I visited with had carbides called green teeth that were 1 1/8 in wide so I used those on my machine I started with an old bush hog used the gearbox and put in a 5/8-in plate for a blade on a 30-in drum I used the green teeth for the outside edge and it works real well The whole deal probably cost less than $500 ” Hayward made what he calls a chipper/chopper from a 50-year-old New Holland 717 forage chopper “The original machine had 9 blades - I removed 3 ” says Hayward “I shortened up the spout and moved the control lever for the spout from the end of the hitch to the side of the machine That way I can reach the controls as I’m feeding in brush I run the machine with a 1958 Ford 861 Powermaster diesel and it barely makes the engine work I can cut up branches and brush up to 3 in dia and the chips are very uniform I’ve got probably $500 into the rig total A new one would’ve cost close to $2 000 ” Hayward has also used ideas from FARM SHOW stories to build a tree shear and a wood splitter for his skid steer The shear uses a hydraulic cylinder to operate 18-in farm disks The splitter is tough enough to break apart chunks of wood up to 4 ft in dia “I use it on elm and maple and never have a problem ” says Hayward Contact: FARM SHOW Followup R W Hayward 180 Blind Buck Rd Salem N Y 12865 ph 518 854-7564

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