3 Row Riding Cultivator

I’ll give more background information on this machine in the next couple days. I thought it would be fun to share some photos of the process.

Last winter, Jonathan at Crossroad Cultivator and I teamed up to build the frame. I’m currently fabricating the tool bars, lift mechanism, and the side to side gang adjustment levers. There are a slew of features that make the McD cultivators the dreamboat of cultivators primarily all the adjustments you can make without leaving the seat. This comes in very handy on a diverse vegetable farm. I wanted to keep all the “bells and whistles” with the Goranson Farm 3 Row Riding Cultivator. It has definitely taken some tinkering but I think I’ve got the majority of the design figured out.

FYI: The sweeps/shovels are not in their correct positions yet. I was playing around with them trying to trouble shoot things last night… Its amazing how much time I’ve spent just standing, beer in hand, looking at this freaking machine!

Here are the “million dollar” questions…
How do I build the lift mechanism to adjust each side independently while not impeding the ability to adjust my cultivation width with the lever.

How can I redesign the cultivator so each gang floats independently via a parallelogram (like the I and J cultivators) and gauge wheels? This is for future units. I’ve got some ideas but always love to hear different opinions.

Hope the photos come through!

After I finish I hope to post the design plans to the forum so others can fabricate this unit for themselves. I would be happy to fabricate machines for those not interested in doing it themselves. I’m pretty excited about the potential of this machine for our farm and other farms interested in pursing hybrid models.

Carl