Yair... I saw this picture on Instagram and figured I'd repost it here, seems hard to believe that machine would have enough power to muscle that whole blade through the ground.
Woof, that's a chunk of iron!
Yair . . . Gotcha fellers. I have seen that picture before. To my eyes it's an unusual set up with the trailer, the dolly is way back from the drive . . . it may even be in South America It is a typical Australian style truck and stick-rake though with unusually long teeth that have suffered some damage. They are used for broad acre land clearing and do not penetrate the ground . . . in operation the idea is to "float" it so the tractor is only pushing sticks. A good operator will have very little dirt in the heaps. That looks like an early design (from my era) and I see the latest ones lay back more so as to theoretically "carry" the sticks on the rake to some extent rather than just push them. They have been made up to fifty feet wide but are more common and manageable at around thirty to thirty five feet which is suitable for about a three hundred HP tractor. Various patterns/techniques are used in operation but a simple system of going around and around or back and forth like plowing will beat the fancy methods every time. Cheers.
From the looks of the fields there I would say they aren't pushing it through anything harder than topsoil... raking up rocks maybe? Mine reclamation?
Then why not make a lighter weight without all that blade?
Something that wide you still have to have a lot of structure with that much muscle behind it....
I seem to remember that photo as being on Cubbie Station, at some 97000 acres, the largest cotton irrigation project in the Southern Hemisphere. Virtually the whole area is billiard table flat and originally covered with only light timber. I was at a local engineering works the other day and they were building a 50ft rake to go on a D10 for another large grain grower.
I don't suppose you thought to take photos...?
No I didn't, but they did say that when they were done building that one they had to build him another, so I should have plenty of time to grab some.
97,000 acres Thats a big farm!
We have a winner at the game of "Pick Up Sticks"!
Some more photos of a similar,if not the same, rake.
I'd have thought it would need more than just a single-shank ripper to balance out the weight of that rake .......
They only hire fat operators Nige, and provide a box lunch as well
No excuse for not seeing the corners of the blade.
Perhaps a good pair of binoculars?
Sorry- fast beat me to the binocular note.
Yair, I'd like to see about 3 of those side by side make a pass.
And the ballet move at the end where they all make the turn.....
It seems that I've ballsed up my acres and hectares. The total aggregation of the company is around 97000 hectares, about 240000 acres. 33000ha has been developed for irrigated agriculture. It is only possible to water the entire area in large flood years,usually about one in ten Government is continually under pressure from green groups and other stakeholders to buy the property and return the water back to the Murray Darling river system.
WOW! That's incredible........
Thats half the area of the county I live in Thats crazy big!!
Incomprehensibly big!
Yeah I live not far from this farm , could tell you a lot about it from over the years. That stick rake on the D10 was 60 ft wide, ok on level ground but on virgin floodplain country it tended to drop timber when tractor dropped in depressions. On a big tractor no more than 40 ft is better, best is a 500hp wheel dozer with about 30ft of rake going about twice the speed of a tracked machine.
Only pics I could manage of the locally built rake.