$50 Carpet Applicator

$50 Carpet Applicator FARM HOME Furniture 5-3-8 "Works great and is a lot easier, simpler and cheaper to build than rope-type wick applicators," says Ross Yocum, Cable, Ohio, who rigged up a home-built carpet-wick applicator. Neighboring farmers who saw it operate built similar applicators in their farm shops ù most of them for a total cost of $50 or less for materials. Yocum bought 3-in. dia. plastic pipe (180 in. long to cover six 30-in. rows) and used his power saw to cut a groove the entire length of the pipe. He bought carpet from a local store, cutting it into strips 2 ft. long and 1 ft. wide. He stuffed 6 in. of each strip into the groove and left the remaining 6 in. hanging out, then sealed the groove with glue. The carpet strips are positioned so the threads point toward the ground so they wick better in moving liquid from inside the pipe and through the carpet. Yocum filled the pipe with a 3 to 1 mixture of water and Roundup and went over soybean fields once or twice ù twice in places where Johnson grass was thick. He went once in each direction to wipe weeds in problem spots from both sides and thus help insure a better kill. Rate of travel was right at 5 to 6 mph. Ned McGilb, Urbana, Ohio, teamed up with a neighbor to build a carpet-wick applicator similar to Yocum's. "I was building a rope wick applicator but stopped in the middle of the project when I heard about this simpler carpet wick idea. We paid $27 for the pipe and carpet remnants. All the rest was salvaged material," McGilb told FARM SHOW. He filled the pipe with a 3 to 1 mixture of water to Roundup, waited 20 minutes after filling for the liquid to move into the carpet, then went to the field. "We put the front-mounted applicator on a hydraulic cylinder so we could raise and lower it, depending on height of the crop. We went over 400 acres and had excellent results. We used rubber cement manufactured by 3M Company, which you can buy at most any auto supply store, to seal the carpet on both sides of the groove to the tube. You can travel about as fast as you want to ride on your tractor. There are no moving parts and nothing to wear out except for the carpet which shows hardly any wear after one season's use. Just be careful where you park in the yard when you stop for lunch. Liquid will drip to the ground and kill all of the grass underneath," he told FARM SHOW.

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