DIY ROPs, with plans.

kylemorley · Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2012 9:56 am Post subject: DIY ROPs, with plans.

The subject of DIY ROPs comes up regularly, and when it does
someone always will point out that you can't DIY a ROPs, and
that if you did, you could be in worse trouble with your
insurance company in the event of an accident than it you didn't
have one at all.

So I was amused to stumble across some professionally
engineered plans for one from the US gov CD. Apparently when
ROPs first started catching on some of the extension and gov
agencies were hard at work on trying to come up with a cheap
and cost effective versions for old tractors, before the spoilsports
started screaming LIABILITY!

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/aginjury/crops/

All bolted, no welds. Klutzy but about the only way you could
get around the varying quality of "farmer" welds. But even if
someone wanted to weld one it's a useful source of info
on what size steel to use, as one assumes they did all the
calculations rather than going buy guess and ROT.

Don't thing I'd make one. My state has a 70% subsidy to promote
ROPS; the end cost to me would be about the same as the steel
would cost for a DIY version.

Jack L · Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2012 5:36 pm Post subject: Re: DIY ROPs, with plans.

Are you in New York State? NY state has a rebate program that reimbursed me about $480 on a $700 purchase.

Jack

kylemorley · Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2012 5:26 am Post subject: Re: DIY ROPs, with plans.

NH, but we seem to be in the same program as NY and VT.

Which ROPS did you get? Are you happy with it?

Foldable ones seem like a useful feature in the woods, but a lot more $, just about double.

oldtanker · Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2012 5:45 am Post subject: Re: DIY ROPs, with plans.

The fact that 1. It's put out by an agency of the federal government 2. list standards for the grade of the steel and hardware should make you OK with your insurance company an would put some of the liability on OSHA and CDC.

Also if you read the page these plans can be used by a company to produce for sale these ROPS.

I may have to think about this for the 8N that I do my bush hogging with.

Rick

Jack L · Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2012 6:12 pm Post subject: Re: DIY ROPs, with plans.

I bought one from this site and I think it was manufactured in Austraila. It"s a one piece and only problem I have is hitting tree branches when I"m in the woods. Looks like this:

Allis Chalmers	Case	Cockshutt	Farmall IH	Ford 8N,9N,2N	Ford
H. Ferguson	John Deere	Massey	Minn. Moline	Oliver	All The Rest