Fabrication Project.........

[Goose]

My wife does all of our lawn and yard work. She says it's her recreation. About 2 acres is our house yard, and she keeps about 5 acres mowed. She sprays most of the 5 acres with herbicides, and sprays the house lawn with insecticides, fungicides, etc.

She's been using a 25 gallon pull behind sprayer with a 7' swath that she pulls behind a garden tractor. She's always said she wished she had a little bigger sprayer, but we've never found one we liked at a price we liked. I have a 24' field sprayer, but that would be overkill. Then a couple of weeks ago, I picked up this 60 gallon tank for $10 on a consignment auction. So-the logical thing to do was to make a sprayer out of it.

I'm fabricating the undercarriage right now, and will fabricate a folding boom that will cover about a 12' swath. There will be a platform in front of the tank to hold a 3.8 gpm 12 volt pump. The wheels with be the fronts off of a defunct Murray garden tractor.

Then, while working on it, I got to thinking how much easier life would have been 30-40 years ago when I was building and racing stock cars if I'd had the equipment in my shop then that I do now. Chop saw, MIG welder, (although I've used my stick welder on this project), angle grinders with both grinding wheels and cut off wheels, air cut off tools, etc. Back then, I basically used an acetylene torch, stick welder, and a bench grinder.

We'll see how it turns out.

 

[1970-1655]

Think that pump will be big enough for the 12' boom? I have a 15 gallon pull behind with 8' coverage. Most of the time the spray pattern was hit or miss. On top of that, I have a hand gun to reach the top of the fruit trees. The trees have grown taller so the little pump would not hit the top. I bought a 7 GPM at 60 PSI pump for it. I can turn down the output pressure and still keep full flow as needed.

Is your yard pretty level? What are you pulling it with? That will be a lot of weight if you pull with a garden tractor on hilly ground.

 

[Russ from MN]

60 gallons of water might be a little heavy for lawn mower tires.

 

[caterpillar guy]

Biggest problem I see is the agitation to keep the solution in suspension while spraying. The electric pump will either do the spraying or the agitation. I like a sparging line for the agitation as it will sweep the bottom of the tank the length of it. The line goes in on the ends through the end of the tank with a line connected to one end of the sparging line the other is plugged. The sparging line has holes in the side of it to spray along the side aimed towards the bottom. It will give a rolling action to the solution in the tank if you have enough pump.
If you put car tires on it will pull fine with a lawn tractor. We used to move dads manure spreader with a cub cadet back in the late 60's it was a about the size if a 213 NI
Looks good otherwise.

 

[Goose]

I've seen sprayers that size advertised with a 3.8 gpm pump. Oerscheln's have them for $99. And all of the area she sprays is totally level.

 

[leroy in ne]

goose check your tire/wheel rating. 60 gallons is 480 lbs. + trailer and tank weight

 

[Adirondack case guy]

I believe that you need to rethink your wheel and tire combination. sounds pretty small and light duty.
Loren

 

[Ozlander]

(quoted from post at 12:42:49 08/24/17) goose check your tire/wheel rating. 60 gallons is 480 lbs. + trailer and tank weight

Some of the people I see mowing will top that.

 

[kevinthefixer]

Recommend a MUCH bigger pump, maybe gas powered, and a relief type regulator, plumb the return line to the top of the tank at the opposite end from the tank outlet, keep things stirred up. What are you planning for control valves?

 

[derwen1959]

when the container is down to half full or so will it become unstable with the contents sloshing about??

 

[Geo-TH,In]

Derwen1959,
We slide a 100 gallon tank in the back of a 4010 mule to water flowers. I was concerned about stability too. We go up and down steep hills in gravel pit. I strap tank to bed. It's more unstable when tank is full than when half empty. The more water we remove the lower the center of gravity, more stable.
You know when there is 100 gallons in the mule, but the mule is rated at 1200#, no big deal, not that unstable.
geo

 

[Goose]

They're just clamped together right now, but I'm going to try them. I can always go to bigger ones if I have to. We have one 25 gallon sprayer that has just the little 4.00-6 tires, or whatever they are and it works OK.

 

[Goose]

Just checked. The new tires I'll eventually put on it are rated at 415 pounds each. Total rating 830 pounds and they'll be carrying about 550 max.

 

[ztrmowers]

if you were close i give you a complete striped down dixon ztr mower frame. all you have to do is put hitch on them. use them for wagons welder carts etc etc. right now hope to make amtrak pull type train out of several of them. have nine frames right now all hooked together so train is getting started.