Whirlwind Plow Still Builds Terraces After 36 Years

Whirlwind Plow Still Builds Terraces After 36 Years TILLAGE EUIPMENT Miscellaneous John Moellering’s whirlwind terrace plow is still building terraces and fighting fires 36 years after being featured in FARM SHOW Vol 8 No 6 The plowshares slice the sod into the mouths of vertical augers that throw the dirt up to 30 ft The only touch-up needed during all this time was to the hard facing on the 14-in dia augers “I still rebuild terraces with it as the terraces wear down with farming and wind erosion ” says Moellering “We also still use it to fight fires especially when combining in the summer I run it 10 in deep when terracing but only 3 to 4 in deep when fighting fires ” Moellering fashioned his plow after an old 1-bottom terracer sold by IH in the 1950’s and 1960’s He started by removing the middle bottom on a 3-bottom IH plow and shifting the rear bottom to provide space for its auger “I used IH parts for the plow and used gearboxes for the 14-in vertical augers that I made ” says Moellering He modified the remaining 18-in plowshares by cutting off the rear half of each so they would slice the sod but not turn it over He also extended the moldboards from 16 to 18 in and hard-faced them with tungsten Together they still cut a 36-in wide swath in the sod A hydraulic cylinder adjusts depth To throw the dirt Moellering mounted 2 heavy-duty belt-drive gearboxes from an old IH W9 tractor above the augers Banded pairs of V-belts transfer power from the pto shaft to the gearboxes To vary the distance the dirt is thrown he can change pulleys in the gearboxes or simply vary throttle speed When making the augers Moellering hard-faced them using about 4 lbs of tungsten To touch them up he uses a stainless steel torch made in Germany He simply screws a container of tungsten powder onto the top of the torch and when he presses a button the tungsten feeds out with the oxygen and acetylene “You can lay it on a surface like smearing on hot butter ” says Moellering “It comes in 1 or 5-lb containers with 5 lbs costing about $500 ” Ironically when he built the plow the entire cost was only 3 times that 5-lb container Contact: FARM SHOW Followup John R Moellering Rt 1 Box 40 Grinnell Kan 67738 ph 785 824-3456

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