quick fixes, bodges and creations

pycoed

Member
Baler knife sharpening jig

Not happy using a hand held grinder and flap disc, the ground surface gets beveled too easily.

View attachment 681700

Vertical post slides up to set the angle, held by a grub bolt. Grinder leg pivots on a spare strap hinge that was lying about.

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Blade is held in place on the top plate with a mole clamp and positioned by a couple of welded on bits of cut off set screw that were beside the vice.

View attachment 681704

Since the grinder pivots around the arc of the blade, and it's held flat at the set angle, you get a flat ground very sharp edge (look closely at the grind blade picture and you'll see the remnants of the bevel I'd ground out. This blade took a couple more grinder sweeps until it was sharpened).

The metal isn't overheated using the battery powered grinder and a 60 grit flap disc.

Away to bale the first of a neighbours silage of the season in the morning :D

This must be a perfect example of a bodge: looks like shite, made from scrap & works beautifully, Highly Commended(y)(y)(y)
 

Hesstondriver

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Huntingdon
Right I’ve put this in here, my justification being novel use of carrot harvester web bars , (free) and use of out of date heavily discounted post mix
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pycoed

Member
I have a lot of trouble with water weeds impeding the progress of the coracle I use to access the feed islands on my flight pond, so I did a bit of Googling & found the Weed Gator. It looked good , but $150 + postage?? I don't think so.
Two old Irwin handsaws rescued from my son's bin (sadly he takes after his mother in the scrap/useful stock conflict), couple of pieces of heavy tinplate hacked from my old Trianco boiler casing, welded in 6 old bolts (I admit to using 3 new nuts, but one of the bolts didn't have a head as a counter - Please?). Cut a good long hazel rod & peeled it, some old blue polyrope fixed with two re-used cable ties & the mandatory baler cord & voila:-
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This works really well, chuck it out, let it sink & retrieve via the rope in jerks to cut through the weed stalks. The cut stuff shakes off fairly readily on the bank (Close to the water so that any trapped insects can struggle back in). Only downside is that it gives you blisters where you didn't know you had fingers - I think it must be silt getting trapped in the weave of the rope, but red waterproof gloves have done the trick. Now on to the next pond!!
 

TheTallGuy

Member
Location
Cambridgeshire
Made something similar many moons ago for clearing fishing swims - from memory it was two bits of heavy gauge angle in a T shape with slasher hook blades bolted on. Two problems - firstly the water rusted the blades so they had to be seriously re-sharpened every time it was used and secondly it was so heavy that throwing it any distance without taking chunks out of the throwers legs was beyond most folks.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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