Road Drag

[Mark Cowdrey]

In the latest issue of SFJ , p.33. there is a perspective plan of an 8″ road drag. I have often thought of building something similar. Anyone have any experience with something like this? How ambitious would it (it is 8′ wide) be for a team in good shape on gravel?
Thanks,
Mark

[Tim Harrigan]

I am not looking at that Mark so can’t comment exactly, but generally the draft would depend on how much gravel is being moved and if it is cutting or just pushing. 8 ft is a wide swath, on a firm surface just moving around some loose gravel at the surface it would not be too challenging. On a softer surface cutting in and pushing gravel it could be anywhere from challenging to infinite. Having some depth control would be important.

[Mark Cowdrey]

Thanks Tim.
I Googled “road drag” and found this interesting article by L.H.Bailey:
http://chestofbooks.com/gardening-horticulture/farming/Farm-And-Garden-Rule-Book/Road-drags.html
&
http://chestofbooks.com/gardening-horticulture/farming/Farm-And-Garden-Rule-Book/Road-drags-Continued.html

He talks about the King road drag which I would bet the one in SFJ is modeled after and was actually patented (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:King_Road_Drag_Patent_Diagram.jpg). The depth of cut is manipulated on the fly by the driver shifting position on the platform and also by the length of the hitch (further away, deeper cut; closer, shallower) and even by, he claims, the weight of the evener.

Oh goody, another project.
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

Even better:
http://books.google.com/books?id=2DRGAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[Does’ Leap]

Hey Mark, please keep us posted on your progress. I am very interested.

George

[Tim Harrigan]

Yes, Mark, nice little article. Lots of room for customizing and innovation there.

[Kevin Cunningham]

I remember that Tillers has a picture of an implement on their website of a “Martin Ditcher” that is being used for road maintenance. There is just one photo of the piece but it looks pretty simple of welded srcap metal. This could be a cheap way to maintain the roads. I have been needing to grade my driveway for a while I might have to make a simple road drag this winter.

http://www.tillersinternational.org/farming/tools.html

[efdgoon]

I’ve been using an old steel box frame for a full size bed. I can add weight as I need. It works very well and when I’m done with it I’ll scrap it. One belgian has no problem pulling it around.

[Mark Cowdrey]

I’ve been thinking about this some more, particularly about how it could be designed/set-up/operated to act as a snow plow as well as a drag, including the possibility of adding (removable?) plank on top of the front plank, possibly tipped forward a little and possibly adjustable horizontally so it could extended as a wing.
All that dreaming aside, looking at the various plans I notice that the State of Ohio & the very similar SFJ plans have both ends of the draw chain attached to the face of the drag at the same ht. The “simpler” King or split log drag have the leading (ditch) end of the chain at about center (top to bottom) but the trailing or crown end loops up over the front log or plank. It seems to me that that arrangement would tend to bear down more on the crown end which is counter intuitive to me, I would think the ditch end should bear down harder.
Thoughts?
Thanks,
Mark

[Does’ Leap]

@Mark Cowdrey 36739 wrote:

It seems to me that that arrangement would tend to bear down more on the crown end which is counter intuitive to me, I would think the ditch end should bear down harder.

Mark: I agree on both fronts. When I grade roads with a york rake I am trying to move material from the ditch to the center simultaneously making the crown and cleaning the ditch.

On a different but related note: What about a belly-mounted grader that could be attached on the underside of a forecart? I envision an angled steel grader on some heavy-duty, large diameter, coarse-threaded bolts that could be raised and lowered on both sides as need dictated. I am not sure a standard forecart would have the room for such a contraption but I know my logging arch has the clearance.

George

[Mark Cowdrey]

George,
I have often thought that a simple, 2-horse road grader would be cool (and useful!) if I could figure one out. Your arch (Forest) would have plenty of clearance but I would prefer a lower point of draft for what I would think would be hard, steady work. For simplicity sake, I’m thinking fixed blade angle (plan view), what should it be?
For a blade, maybe “rip” a (7′?) snow plow blade to 12″ or so high? Fixed vertical angle OK? Maybe tipped forward a little to ride over obstacles w/o needing to “trip”?
Mark

[Tim Harrigan]

A horse drawn grader has multiple adjustment and a very long front-to-rear wheelbase, just like the mechanical graders of today. The long wheelbase stabilizes the blade and minimizes the effect of pot holes etc on the axis of the blade. I think if you mount a blade under a forecart you will get a lot of unwanted up-down action on the blade so the more you work it the greater will be the washboard effect of the graded road. The more you go over it, the more up-down action you will get. It seems like if you are just going to drag something versus suspend a blade you will not want to over complicate it, or overshoot your expectations. I think a drag can move a little loose gravel around, fill in some pot holes etc, but with much gravel it will want to side-shift and dump from time to time to even the load. A drawn drag does not have much to offset the sidedraft. Think of the function of a landside on a plow.

[Does’ Leap]

Tim:

What you write makes a lot sense – thanks for the input. I had visions of Mark rolling out the belly-mount grader as a compliment to the piggy back arch, but it sounds like a no-go. I am still interested in the road drag and like the looks of the one made of lumber (as opposed to logs). They seem to recommend oak or another hardwood. What do you think about hemlock?

George

[Mark Cowdrey]

Yeah George I was already making retirement plans on the money I was going to make from that one!
Tim you make good points, there is a reason all those old graders are so much alike.

I am thinking hemlock as well. The articles mention cedar(?!) and red maple and caution against ash. A full length steel plate on the front should slow down wear on that one, I wonder about some kind of sacrificial shoe on the rear one? I don’t think it wants to cut like the front, more of a smoothing and material distributing action. I’m probably over thinking it.
Mark

[Kevin Cunningham]

It looks like all the designs only have a steel plate along the first third of so of the leading edge. This makes sense as you want that part to dig into the ditch and then move material up to smooth the crown. One of the links even said to drop the plate below the wood edge to get more digging action. What I like about the design is that it is something that can be knocked together “quick and dirty” and when the thing falls apart make a new one. I’ll probably make mine out of fir or redwood because that is what I got on hand. I also like the ability of the chain attachment because that is how you change the angle of attack. I can’t resist I’m going to go bang one out and see what happens.

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