I must admit to enjoying looking at others workshop projects on the forum, This year I'm rebuilding my drill and thought it would probably be an interesting enough project to share. The drill in question is a Vaderstad 30s which is a mounted Rapid drill that has always been very rare but is also now very old, bearing the serial number 331 hence the title of the thread!
I have owned this drill for almost 10 years and to be fair it had done a lot of work when I bought it and although it still looks tidy in the photo (which was taken 5 years ago) it is now completely worn out. On top of this the chassis has cracked in a place you cant get too with the welder.
The sensible thing would probably to replace the drill for something newer but I happen to really like it for many reasons including, seed placement and its ability to cope with many varied conditions including wet and sticky conditions compared with heavier trailed drills. I also like the fact that being mounted it follows the tractor more accurately on sidling ground, also because its different and quirky I seem to pick up lots of contracting work with it.
The plan is to strip the drill down completely, repair any broken components and have everything shot blasted and powder coated before reassembly with new parts as necessary. Part of the rebuild will be to convert the mechanical wheel driven metering to motor driven controlled through isobus this will hopefully allow me to use variable rate seeding as well as section control for the headlands.
I am slightly cheating as I have already started this project in the late spring and am just starting to put it back together, this meant I had to borrow a drill for the autumn drilling which wasn't ideal but hopefully it will be ready for the spring barley.
View attachment Rapid-30s.pdf
I have owned this drill for almost 10 years and to be fair it had done a lot of work when I bought it and although it still looks tidy in the photo (which was taken 5 years ago) it is now completely worn out. On top of this the chassis has cracked in a place you cant get too with the welder.
The sensible thing would probably to replace the drill for something newer but I happen to really like it for many reasons including, seed placement and its ability to cope with many varied conditions including wet and sticky conditions compared with heavier trailed drills. I also like the fact that being mounted it follows the tractor more accurately on sidling ground, also because its different and quirky I seem to pick up lots of contracting work with it.
The plan is to strip the drill down completely, repair any broken components and have everything shot blasted and powder coated before reassembly with new parts as necessary. Part of the rebuild will be to convert the mechanical wheel driven metering to motor driven controlled through isobus this will hopefully allow me to use variable rate seeding as well as section control for the headlands.
I am slightly cheating as I have already started this project in the late spring and am just starting to put it back together, this meant I had to borrow a drill for the autumn drilling which wasn't ideal but hopefully it will be ready for the spring barley.
View attachment Rapid-30s.pdf