Was up in Grand Forks, ND about a week ago and had some time to kill, so I wondered over to the local CAT yard and snooped around. Lots of interesting machines to say the least (could never afford any of them ) , but I came across a 450 BRON that was in getting some repairs. I knew what it was, but down here in Colorado, we don't have over-watering problems, so there aren't any tile plows around for me to play with Was curious if any members had experience operating or working around these types of machines? Seemed like a pretty slick set-up and I'd love to see one out in the field; saw a couple more units sitting on a lot on the way down to Fargo, but I'll never see them down here in this dessert of a state.
A few around here, along with wolfe plows, interdrain's and a few other brands of dedicated plows and plenty of mounted plows on dozers, and of course the famous farmer plows pulled with ag tractors. Youtube any of the brands and there are plenty of video's showing them work, but most won't show much adverse or normal conditions, only ideal conditions when things are going good, when things get ugly, most are not in the "mood" to video anything, let alone clean enough to handle any filming equipment. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I think the plow portion is the old Link plow used on dozers and it was eventually evolved into the Bron. If you look in your first picture you can see a kitty cat rubber tracked with a reel on it for stringing tile, was there a plow on the back of that one too or was it just used to string tile for the Bron? What was it you were wanting to know about the Bron?? By the looks of it, while on high and dry ground it was getting some undercarriage work done on it, far better doing it there than buried in the mud where you can't see any of the tracks under the plow at all and cables and tow cats in front helping it through a wet spot. As far as what there is to know about tiling, its pretty simple actually, if you have the desire to work in cold, wet and flat out miserable weather, working in flowing water all day long, in the mud and muck where most wouldn't think about going, have a heated cab, the longest and widest tracks under your machine you can find, have a winch on whatever your tiling with, are smart enough to know water runs downhill, and have a desire to drive a machine into ponded and standing or even flowing water knowing your going to have be pulled out by probably more than one tracked machine after your winch stalls out, if you have a desire to work into winter long after most have quit for the season, and start back up a month or two before it fit to do anything in the spring, then consider tiling for a career.
Had one near me sell at auction recently, it was a very nice machine. http://sheridan.marknetlive.com/view-auctions/catalog/id/2830/lot/267841/?url=%2Fview-auctions%2Fcatalog%2Fid%2F2830%2F A friend had him tile a field, pretty tough job. The ground was so hard and the plow so deep they had to pull it with a 500 Quad track and a Steiger 485. Ed
That's about right. You forgot the part doing it on a volunteer basis.
Notice the highway pads on that unit. Weird. Every plow Ive ever seen has massive add on grousers installed. That unit wouldn't get far around me.
Watglen, there are quite a few of those machines that have excavator undercarriages under them with street pads, never made sense to me either, wolfe claims to use a cat 320 undercarriage, not sure what Bron is using but most likely its some form of excavator undercarriage though, then everyone welds four inch cleats to the pads in an attempt to do anything or get anywhere. The first thing I noticed was how clean it was, I almost forgot what color they were supposed to be from the factory. I laughed about the doing it on a volunteer basis, I always used the "character building speech" myself, and with enough experience and hours you progress to a heated cab instead of the ditch monkey, makes it sound like there is a goal to look forward to or at least hope anyhow.
That machine looks as tho the grouser extensions are wore off. The reason for the street pad acts as a mud relief, In hopes that the track may clear its self. You'll find a lot of different pad configurations in the drainage industry. I picked my new 550 in Sept with the same street / extended grouser pad set up as the unit shown, my extended grousers were 7" new.
not sure about wolf, but Bron totally builds there undercarriage frames from scratch. the front idlers, top and bottom rollers are equivalent to a d7. drive sprockets are specifically built for Bron.
Had to do a pic test first..... I like to think I can operate plow a lot better than computer. So here's a shot of my office new office on Sept 2 2014
I never had experience with such kind of machines but looking at yours I would like to.
Is it yours and did you build it?
I think that blue machine is a Tait plow. The Tait family from Grand Valley Ontario are drainage contractors that build plow's. you might find 20 or so running around North America. Neat that there are 3 plow manufactures in Ontario within 100km of each other.
I've seen them advertised but never been up close to a Tait before, any idea what components they put them in, like engines, hydraulics, drive train?
I'd venture a guess Wolfe is another maker, who's the third manufacturer of tile plows up there?? Or am I wrong and if so, who's the other two then?
I'm pretty sure you could say Tait takes a minimalist approach to building plows. They start out with old cat 235 excavator undercarriage. Change the gearing, drives, and motors. I think they find any mechanical engine over 400hp have it rebuild and install. basically build everything else in house. They like things simple. RWF Bron - Woodstock, ON Wolfe - Strathroy, ON Tait - Grand Valley, ON
Link mfg add on plows Springford, ON
Thanks 450 Bron for the information, how long have Tait been building plows, the one's I've seen advertised were older if I recall.
That's a nice plow 450 Bron, love the color and what not! Would love to spend some time on those machines. I'm in the Grand Forks, ND area and see a good share of tile plow equipment and what not, but have never been around it coming from Colorado. There's a very large drainage contractor just north of Frago, ND and they've got to have four or five bigger BRON plows and then probably half a dozen older D7's I believe; very large operation. Question for you operators: in a good day of plowing, how much tile would you guys be able to lay using such a machine?
Yair . . . these machines and the entire concept of broad acre drainage being cost effective fascinate me. Does the situation where paddocks benefit from drainage arise because they are subject to snow melt? What sort of rim pull numbers would such machines develop . . . it seems hard to imagine they utilize an excavator final drive. Cheers.
not sure how long Tait has been building plows for... I think its safe to say they haven't built a brand new one for 10 years?? just a guess though.
In our area its rare that we work in a field larger than 100 acres, my best day ever is 58000' in one day. That's 14.5 rolls of pipe, an average day around here 25000'.... would love to get out in some large fields in your area, open'r up!
in our neighbourhood snow melt is a huge factor in the need for farm drainage, dries the field earlier to create a longer growing season for the farmer. these machines do not use excavator final drives, they use much larger Rexroth finals.
Scrub, there are a lot of factors as to why farmers install drain tile, soil types, terrain, subsoil types, water table levels, field locations, yearly rainfall amounts, crops being grown, but the bottom line is, tile pays big dividends over time to farmers, especially at the cost per acre to grow any crop, the investment is so high on a per acre basis verse the profit per acre that tile lessens to risk to achieve a profit year in and year out is the nuts and bolts of the issue. With combines today almost all equipped with both mapping and yield data, it makes it very easy for farmers to talk themselves into tiling land, they have all the data they need at a glance when harvesting crops, whereas decades ago, farmers went with averages after harvest to determine what needed tiling, today, they can narrow it down to even the spacing they want, what will profit them the most on a per field basis. The narrower the margins are for profit, the higher the input costs, the more vital role tile plays in profitability, and that's how its viewed by most, farmers and bankers both want consistency and predictability, tile provides that to the equation on a lot of farm fields, history has shown this over and over again. 450 Bron, thanks for the information on Tait.
Nicely put Randy
Yair . . . Randy88 . I really do appreciate the time it took for you to put up that reply. . . it is very difficult for me to get my head around the concept of broad acre drainage, snow melt and all the other issues you folks have to contend with. Our issues here are waiting for the rain to plant. Moisture reserves in the profile are money in the bank . . . or at least grain into the bin . . . that's if you've dodged the locusts and hordes of kangaroos. 450 Bron . Thanks for the heads up on the Rexroth finals. I have asked before and may have missed any reply . . . does any one install tile with a winch or is it all brute force and rimpull? I note a few outfits here are winching six and eight inch pipe six feet deep into hard black soil which would be impossible with traction. I have not seen the process but I am told one outfit is shop built based on a couple of D8H's one equipped with a purpose built spud and winch arrangement. Cheers.
Scrub, I've seen the cable pulled versions you have there, its completely different here, were we tile, the ground is wet or so water logged, we use winches to help us through the wet spots and area's, some pull tile in with plows, others still trench in tile, just depends on the style of tiling you do, what the soil types your working with and a host of other issues. Most of the plows use dozers in front to help pull them, multiple dozers even to keep the plow moving forward depending on conditions being run in, whether its mud, frost, frozen ground or flat out a bottomless swamp, dictates how things are done, or how much traction or hp it takes to get the job done. A lot of area's don't tile at all, they have the very same conditions you have there and require irrigation to grow crops, other areas still are using subsurface irrigation systems, basically they flood drain tile lines with a flow restrictor on the end to water fields, it just depends on where your at, what your needs are, what growing conditions your area has.