Tractor Pick Ax - for a guy with a weak back

[Gobysky]

One of my first projects with my Millermatic 252. This was made with 3" wide 1/4" thick angle.

Since I need a lot of practice with my new equipment, I used my Spectrum 625 X-treme plasma cutter which worked superbly.

I like to think outside the box when coming up with these crazy guizmo's for my tractor. But it works good enough to save on my back. The wife can do the digging....... LOL. Glad she doesn't visit here.

Here's a video of it's performace in very hard ground. Sorry for the long boring segments. Haven't figures out how to crop videos on YouTube yet. (If you can)

http://youtu.be/zGMfy1kKaEI

Tractor pick ax2.jpg

[willy]

Geez - are you sure that isnt concrete?
Our ground is going to be like that pretty soon if we don't get some rain!

Looks good - great idea!

[killdozerd11]

Your going to break the bottom of your bucket doing that

You did notice the amount of bending and flexing it was doing in the video

A single ripper shank type design would create less resistance in the ground ang putting on a heavier duty cutting edge would be a start

but the bucket floor is flexing a lot also

maybe another piece of cutting edge behind the cutting edge or some re-enforcement like that to stiffen the bucket floor...and yes i will make the bucket heavier but something must be done or it will fail like it is

I have a B7800 with fel that i am hard on too

[willy]

Your going to break the bottom of your bucket doing that

You did notice the amount of bending and flexing it was doing in the video

A single ripper shank type design would create less resistance in the ground ang putting on a heavier duty cutting edge would be a start

but the bucket floor is flexing a lot also

maybe another piece of cutting edge behind the cutting edge or some re-enforcement like that to stiffen the bucket floor...and yes i will make the bucket heavier but something must be done or it will fail like it is

I have a B7800 with fel that i am hard on too

I was thinking that as well - I think a bolt in plate to stiffen everything up would help. Sorry for the crude drawing but this is what I was thinking...tractor.JPG

[Gobysky]

Yea, I noticed that flexing in the video too. Agreed, will have to do some work on that.
Or go easier on the downward rocking motion. I was hitting it pretty hard for the video.

[Gobysky]

I'm glad Killdozerd11 brought that issue up. Went back and watched the video a couple more times, and I bet the floor of that bucket flexed at least an inch. Back to work, thanks for the observations and suggestions.

[mild steel sheet]

yeah its flexing.

[Meltedmetal]

Some good ideas there. I haven't seen the video since I'm still on dial-up and that effectively makes youtube a no play zone. From what people are saying though I would weld a couple of 1/2 or 5/8 plates maybe 6 inches wide and long enough to lap the cylinder attachment brackets (by an inch or so each way)to the inside of the bucket opposite the cylinder mounting positions. Weld a bracket to these new plates to attach braces (bolted) that run to as close to the front of your pick axe mount as you can reasonably. Since the down pressure is ultimately provide by the bucket cylinders this should, I think, take most of the bucket out of the stress zone. If I have missed something by not seeing the video to see how you are using it and this is completely out in left field feel free to ignore it.
Again not having seen the video to see how you are using this tool I'm guessing that you are ripping up soil? If so you might want to consider for your next project to take the bucket out of the equation and build a direct mount ripper or maybe better still a rear mounted ripper. Just thought. Good luck.
Meltedmetal

[killdozerd11]

I think the idea behind this is for planting trees and such
I think that he wants to rip a very small area not a whole planter

Truth be said this is really a job for a single shank on a backhoe but he probably doesn't have one so he wants to just do a mod to his fel and they do make a small shovel type attachment that goes on the cutting edge of a loader bucket

But i don't know how well it would work in his situation

You can look them up here and maybe get some suggestion from some others about what your trying to do

http://www.tractorbynet.com

Worth a look anyway

[Gobysky]

All I really need is something to easily break the hard ground for digging a hole the size of a five gallon bucket for the purpose of planting trees, or other plants. Beats the heck out of a manual pick ax.

After reading all the suggestions, I've got an idea for reinforcing the bucket which will eliminate the flex. I'll post it when I get it finished in a few days.

In the mean time, I think I'll go real easy on the bucket if I need to use the device.
Between the steel and high grade 8 bolts & nuts (which are no longer high grade since I welded on them) my cost is up to a small $55 bucks. Not too bad a cost for an experiment. (Unless of course I trash my bucket)