When I moved into this house 15 yrs ago, it had a switch in the kitchen that turned on a barn light hanging from a tree down by the road. So years ago I tapped into that line as it runs up the tree and installed an outlet. That way I have a nice power supply for my Christmas lights down by the road.
But last year it didn't work. I made a mental note to track down the problem, knowing that if the feed coming up into the outlet box is dead, then there's a wire break somewhere underground, and I just need to lay a new wire. And I don't want to lay a new wire. So I ignored it.
So last year I ran a 100 foot cord for Christmas lights, and repeated the same this year.
But my procrastination hit a snag when the 100 foot cord, which looked fine to the naked eye, apparently had an internal fault. And while I was at work that fault overheated and lit the yard on fire, at which point my wife had no choice but to call the fire dept. (I only had about 800 watts running through a 12 ga. cord, so it should have been fine.)
Needless to say, my extension cord "pass" has been revoked.
And the underground wire is live when it enters the dirt, and dead where it comes back up 100 feet away. So time for a new underground wire, which means time for a 100 foot long trench.
I said all that to say that I now need an implement that I've had on my radar for a while, namely a "subsoiler." The dirt around here is generally a hard-packed red clay that's full of rocks. None of that nice black northern loam that I enjoyed as a child. You have to fight for every inch in this stuff. So having a ripper on the 3 pt. could greatly speed up the trenching process, as you can at least break up the hardpack so it can be shoveled out.
I went to the scrap pile to see what I have available to build one, and while I was out there I looked at what was already installed on the tractor:
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And I realized that all I need is a vertical strongback/bar, and I can just pin it right onto my (heavily built) ball hitch adapter. The hitch adapter already has those nice vertical flanges, and the ripping bar can just slide in between them. Then a horizontal pin at the top to lock into vertical.
So I cut off a 24" piece of my 1x4 steel plate from which the backhoe frame will soon be built. (I'm really glad I bought that second length so that I now have a bit of extra) and laid out a likely looking shape using a straight edge and scribe.
And then cut it on the mini bandsaw. The little saw does a fine job, you just have to exercise patience cutting something 1" thick. I probably stood there for about 20 straight minutes to make 24" of linear cut in the steel plate. I could have used my big 18" floor model bandsaw, but this little one can follow a scribe line really clean, where the bigger one wanders a bit.
For a pin I rustled up an old galvanized bolt from a telephone pole. It's 11/16 thick, so I cross-drilled the flanges in the hitch adapter to that size.
One trick I've learned making your own pins is the value of treating any bare metal with cold blueing. It doesn't increase the pin size at all, and it gives it a bit of corrosion protection.
Next I drilled the new ripper bar, pinned it in place, and measured it for some spacers to make it snug-ish between the flanges. Some old hole-saw plugs from 3/8" plate turned out to be perfect.
Then I pinned the new ripper bar in place and drilled and tapped it 3/8 coarse, just so it isn't swinging free.
lastly I want the cutting edge to be vee shaped, just so I'm not pulling a 1" wide plane through the soil. So rather than grinding it sharp, I welded some 3/4" angle iron in place. Once that wears through it'll be easy to just replace the angle iron, so I consider it a wear item.
Lastly, shoot a coat of paint on it to give a little rust protection.
It's pouring rain today, so no action pictures yet. But I'll post back with observations and pictures of how it performs.
Bob
"Never be afraid to try something new. How hard can it be?"
Harry
