John Wolfram

Last time fly commercial was a family trip 2024. Last time flying private was 2004 or 2005 in a Piper Cherokee.

Phil Stevens wrote:Does your tractor do better reversing up slopes? I was moving a full IBC tote recently with a forklift and needed to go down an incline. It was just steep enough that I was worried about the tonne of water pulling the forks down and lifting the back end up, so I went down backwards instead.

That's a good idea for most tractors. With my tractor, reversing up a hill is about the same as just going forward as the backhoe adds something like 3,000 pounds in the back and the weight distribution fore and aft of the rear axle is relatively even.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:Wow. It looks soggy. Does stone or gravel exist in the area? Perhaps you could line the top of the current grade with stone, which would add traction...

Adding gravel is a good idea. My wife suggested doing that as well, and it wouldn't be too difficult to get a truckload delivered.

The bottom of the area is soggy. By adding the swales I was hoping to create strips that are drier and strips that are wet. That would be more useful to me that having everything just soggy.

This past weekend I was digging swales with my tractor mounted backhoe in a bowl shaped depression that's on a few acres of my property. To get into this area, I need to drive down a slope that is about six feet high with about a 35 feet of run (basically, a 5:1 slope). While the tractor had no issues going down, the tires spun out when I tried to go back up. Admittedly, the ground was a bit soft and eventually I was able to get out by driving up a 45 degree angle to the slope, but I would prefer not to do that again. While I was contemplating ways to winch the backhoe out of the depression I came to the profound realization that “I have a backhoe” and in a few hours could just dig a ramp with a shallower slope (I know, quite profound).

Anyways, does anyone have any tips or tricks for turning a steep slope into a shallower ramp? Currently, the slope rises about 6 feet in a 35 foot run, but I am thinking I could dig out a ramp that has the same rise spread out over 70+ feet for about a 10:1 slope. Tractor is a 40 hp 1967 Massey Ferguson with a backhoe having a 24” wide bucket and a front end loader. My current plans are to aim for an 8 foot wide 70 foot long slope with a few feet of steeper slope/sidewall on either side of the ramp. I would probably to start off using the backhoe to make a rough version of the ramp followed by the loader bucket to smooth things out.

Has anyone done something similar? Thanks for any suggestions!

Tommy Bolin wrote:I have the brother to that DR brush hog out here, '82 vintage or so. Was my dad's. Thing is a beast, digests about anything. Maintenance welding repair and a carb kit, the only real work ever done to it.

Indeed. Those old DRs (or their predecessors, the Bachtolds) are great. Regular greasing along with the occasional oil/belt changes have been the only real things I've done for it in the past 5 or so years. There's a finish mower attachment for it that I would love to get, but they're rarer than hen's teeth.

With the battery powered warmer out, I decided to make the world's okayest stove by cutting some holes in a stock pot, igniting some charcoal in the pot, and than closing it up. After about 20-30 minutes, the engine was warm enough to start after a few pulls.

I think the next iteration will have bigger holes to allow for more combustion and shorter heating times.

So, it was about 15F this morning and I can report that the battery powered blanket was a colossal failure in warming up the engine enough to get it started.

My first warning was the blanket wouldn't even turn on in the cold. I had to keep it inside my coat for about 20 minutes for it to be warm enough to turn on. Once I finally got it started, it ran for about half an hour, but the battery powered blanket was still quite cold. It just didn't have enough power to make a difference in starting the engine.

To get the engine started, I ended up making a small fire in the pot shown above, suffocating the fire, and then using the pot to heat the engine once again.

The Amazons were slow in delivering the battery powered heater this weekend, so I wasn't able to test it out. However, placing warm coals from a fire pit in pot under my brush hog for about 20 minutes worked wonderfully in getting it started in 5F weather. Hoping to try out the electric blanket next weekend.

thomas rubino wrote:I have never tried this, but I'm sure it would help.
I wonder how long a battery would last?
Might, take a bit to  heat up the metal enough for it to be above ambient room temperature.

According to Amazon, it say's it should last about 4 hours on a standard 20V DeWalt battery, so I'll figure 2 hours per battery. Luckily, I have several so that shouldn't be a problem. I doubt it will ever get things warm, but just going from 5F to 45F would be a huge improvement for some things.

Decided to spend $30 and order one. Will report back in a week or two with the results.

Anyone ever use a battery powered blanket for warming machinery/equipment in the cold?

For some reason, I got it into my head that a 5F/-15C morning would be the perfect time to do some brush hogging with my walk-behind DR mower out at my orchard. After about 10 minutes of trying to get it started I gave up and decided it was not to be that morning. Last week, I was dealing with low pressure in a really cold propane torch I was trying to use, and there are couple more months of winter to go.

I've been looking for an easy way to heat things up while out there, but don't have electricity or gas available at the orchard. Burn barrels can throw off a lot of heat, but would be a bit of a pain to set up. So, I've been thinking about using an inexpensive battery powered blanket as a makeshift block heater and was wondering if anyone has tried something similar. If so, how well did it work?