3R Home and Barn Project

[ronj]

Rob,
I'm interested in the blade that you got from Harbor Freight, but can't find it on their site. Do you have any more info on it?
RonJ

[3RRL]

Jul 12, 2009 2:53:55 GMT -5 ronj said:

Rob,
I'm interested in the blade that you got from Harbor Freight, but can't find it on their site. Do you have any more info on it?
RonJ

A guy on TBN told me it was called a "Lancelot" blade for the angle grinder.
Here is a link to it.

LANCELOT 22 TOOTH CARVING DISC

I called my local store and he looked it up on line. He had one in stock and saved it for me. I'll take a photo of it next week when I start working the outside of the table.
Rob-

[studor]

There are about three different types of carving/shaping blades for the 4.5 angle grinders -- the Lancelot is about the most economical and has been around for a long time- Up here (Canada) Lee valley carries a couple of different makes that get pretty expensive
www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=33255&cat=1,42524,42527
I have tried most of them and it just depends on how fine a job you want to do and whether you a carving shaping or cutting.The only thing you have to watch with the Lancelot is it will walk if you do not have a good grip and press too hard -- just requires a little technique development ;D

[bracabric]

Rob, You really are "the man" , no question about it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dick

[3RRL]

Before my Kama engine rebuild, Loretta and I started clearing for a 1/2 acre pond.
We walked around an area on the South side of our home. It slopes away from the home and lawn down a gulley with gentle side slopes to it. Our home is North and uphill of it and the sides East and West are natural ground. Those will be 3 sides of the pond.
In this first photo below, you can see down the gulley and how the side slopes are. The second photo shows a view from down below looking back up (North) to our home.



These other photos show a little more of the area.
We will have to clear some of the trees away (I think), and build a dam at the bottom (South End). But first I need to spend a month re-reading to get all the ideas and how to prepare everything. In the mean time, I'm sure I'll be getting on with putting the pvc underground lawn system in first.

[3RRL]

We dragged the trees to one side of the pond where we started another burn pile.
We also limbed and bucked some of the trunks there. You can see Coco was there helping us out. Loretta used her dump trailer where we loaded it up with cut firewood to split later.



Some of the larger Oak logs were dragged over to where the log splitter is.
While I was sawing, Loretta chained them up and dragged them with her Jinma.
Rob-

[roy697]

OK I'm on the right page now. Looks like quite a project. I have been learning a lot of stuff. Kind of cool seeing & hearing how others do building, repair, invent stuff for getting the job done. Now that I see where your located I have fond memories of Yosemite, didn't quite make it south to your area. I love the mountain. You have a view that a lot of people will never get to see.
In your post when you were doing your road down the side of the mountain or hill did you state that you put your box grader on so you could push it backwards?

[3RRL]

Jan 23, 2010 17:06:46 GMT -5 roy697 said:

In your post when you were doing your road down the side of the mountain or hill did you state that you put your box grader on so you could push it backwards?

Yes, in fact I did another road on the other side the same way.
I you go back far enough in the thread, there should be a video of puching dirt while backing up ... sort of like a bulldozer only in reverse.
Here are a couple of the videos from building that other road/trail.
Rob-

[roy697]

That is kind of a good idea. This is all new so I am in school, did you made any modification to the box or just push with it? ( My tractor is in the garage waiting for a radiator, once I have it functional I will mount the box that I got with it to check things out, also got a brushog. Cann't wait to get on it & try it out. This is my first tractor ever.) How to adjust all that linkage should be fun also. Will be looking for suggestions or places to find more help on do's & don'ts. Have you been in any accidents with the tractor? The farm we bought is hilly, not real steep but I believe can be dangerous if not approached correctly, I also have some eroded areas.

Keep the posts coming.
Roy

[3RRL]

Jan 28, 2010 19:49:38 GMT -5 roy697 said:

That is kind of a good idea. This is all new so I am in school, did you made any modification to the box or just push with it? ( My tractor is in the garage waiting for a radiator, once I have it functional I will mount the box that I got with it to check things out, also got a brushog. Cann't wait to get on it & try it out. This is my first tractor ever.) How to adjust all that linkage should be fun also. Will be looking for suggestions or places to find more help on do's & don'ts. Have you been in any accidents with the tractor? The farm we bought is hilly, not real steep but I believe can be dangerous if not approached correctly, I also have some eroded areas.

Keep the posts coming.
Roy

Although I did make several modifications to my boxblade, you can push with a stock one.
One thing to keep in mind is that the lower drag links are really designed to pull (drag) your implement forward. They have a bend in them to get from the tractor mount (under or behind the rear axle) to the width of your implement lift pins. So pushing in reverse could collapse or bend those links. I reinforced mine into a "T" shape to take the extra stress when pushing in reverse. That was after I bent them. ;D I used some old bent and broken scarifiers (which I previously snapped off) as the bottom of the "T", instead of throwing them away. They are thick and strong and fit the angle of the rear drag links.
They have not failed since I did that mod about 3 or 4 years ago.
Rob-



The modification I did to my boxblade was to make the scarifiers (rippers) go up and down hydraulically. I used a stock Howse 7 foot boxblade and gears to make the change.
There is a thread ... click here: HYDRAULIC BOXBLADE MODIFICATION if you are interested in that.

Plus, here are a couple pretty good threads about using the boxblade on another forum TBN.

Click here: Various Boxblade Uses

And here: Beginner's Guide to Using a Boxblade

[roy697]

I like what you did to the links, now would be a good time to beef them up while I have the tractor here. (I don't have anything on the farm, just woods, dirt, & water. so best fix it here) The point of attachment to the tractor, how is yours attached? I think mine are attached with big bolts.



I will be taking a look at the box in the next few days. Thanks for the information.

Roy

[roy697]

Checked out your links. Man what a lot of good stuff. The older I get the less I know.

Just how big is your tractor?

[3RRL]

It has not affected the point of attachment to the tractor.
The lower drag links are attached there via a huge pin threaded at both ends. The pin sits in an area on the casting which is very stout. Additionally, my sway links are solid rods that go inside a tube, so they also take some of the stress when compressed. They are not sway chains like some tractors. Their attachment is under the rear axle shaft housing so that is a very sturdy arrangement.

If you plan on doing any serious dirt work in reverse as described, I would recommend you beefing up your lower links. Like you said, now is the time. It can't hurt to have those links beefed up like that regardless.
Rob-

[3RRL]

Jan 29, 2010 23:07:46 GMT -5 roy697 said:

Checked out your links. Man what a lot of good stuff. The older I get the less I know.

Just how big is your tractor?

Thanks,
My Kama is a 55hp 4wd model.
I figure with loaded tires, the FEL and grapples, and the backhoe on, it's pushing around 8,000lbs. It has been quite a workhorse for me. All those mods were to make it easier for me to operate and perform more work in a given period of time. the Kama is well modified now, with many features found in high dollar machines. After the recent engine rebuild, it should last quite a long time. But even if it didn't, the work I've accomplished with it more than paid (maybe 4 or 5 times over) for itself many times over. The cost of repairs have been surprisingly inexpensive doing the work myself. And like Chip from Artrac pointed out, a thousand engine hours is like 60,000 miles on a car from 1950's technology. So that's not too terrible.
Rob-

[3RRL]

Man, it's been quite a while since I updated this old thread.
Loretta and I have been very busy with rebuilding the engine on my 55hp Kama tractor. It was a 2-fold job. You may have seen what we went through? If not here is the thread on that: Engine Overhaul, Kama 554

Anyway, once we got the Kama running again, we started back on the pond project.



One of the first things we did was make a trail to the back side of the pond.
It would be to access the back of the dam and drain-off area so we could scrape off the top soil, plant more boulders, and compact the dam as we built it up. After I pushed in the first part of the trail with the Kama, access from our road, Loretta took over with her 284 Jinma. She did quite a good job avoiding the huge boulders, zig-zagging the trail as needed. She encountered a few large rocks which she removed using a combination of her boxblade to dislodge, and bucket grapple to move the rocks. We stored the rocks so we could later put them into the dam as a backstop...there were lots of them.