Clay Clod Buster?

[Fergienewbee]

A couple of years ago I bought an implement the auctioneer said was for breaking up clay clods. I can't post a picture, but here's what it looks like. It has two shafts inside a squarish frame. The front shaft has what can best be described as eight or ten, four-blade propellers, each blade set at an angle around a thick disc. Each propeller is separated by spacers about six inches apart. The back shaft has several more smaller propellers shaped the same and spaced closer together. It is designed to be pulled. Is there a name for this thing?

Larry in Michigan

 

[Sid]

Rotary ho?

 

[Sid]

Rotary ho?

 

[Fergienewbee]

The moving parts are much heavier than a rotary hoe. The disc with the blades attached is about two inches wide, six inches in diameter and the blades are around a half-inch thick.

Larry

 

[RandyB(MI)]

Sure sounds like a "clod buster" to be attached behind a plow. As I remember the two shafts were also set at slightly different angles to each other too. They were popular back in late '60,s when "minimum tillage" , "plow / plant" and other such conservation methods were being experimented with. Our neighbor had a 5 btm plow with 2 of these behind. He then came right back with the planter and sprayed post emergence. Worked great if you had good rainfall but dried right out quickly if not.

 

[Leroy]

How big total are the wheels and do they run on oposite angles in a patern like an offset disk? I am thinking you may have what the factory called a clod buster and that was its name. someplace in my thousands of books I have a bit of lit on it and 40 year ago I had one. Just the correct width for a 4 bottom plow to pull back of the plow, bit wide for a 3 bottom but it worked. Only had that big Moline tractor and plow for a couple of month but it worked but sold it because it was too big for the other tractors at that time.

 

[Fergienewbee]

The shafts are set at different angles. The whole unit is maybe 4' x 4'. In sandy soil, it does a fair job of smoothing a seed bed. I used it yesterday, hoping to break up some quackgrass sod after I disced. Time to get the sprayer out. That stuff is hard to get rid of.

Larry

 

[Leroy]

Sure sounds like an old clod buster, the ground had to be the correct moisture for them to work. If it was too wet when plowing then it would ball up or pack into one hard surface or too dry would not be agressive enough to break up the big clods the plow would bring up. We used a rotary hoe section at times to work on the same principal on the 2 bottom plows that we had at that time. Haven't seen one since I sold mine and years later when got anouther bigger tractor wished I had it back.

 

[Bob Bancroft]

Rusty/orange paint? Trying to remember- I think McConnell might have made them. Maybe in Steuben County NY? I was just thinking they were the ones who took over what was left of the old wooden "Ontario" grain drill, and made an orange, steel version.