For $3,500 I could buy and stake a few goats out. Fortunately my ditch is not alongside the road were they would get hit.

Don't laugh about the goats ...a few years ago New York City started using them in some of the parks to keep weeds under control

They eat the weeds and everything else before grass. The neighbors kids like grass. Everyone else's that is.

Well just to let you guys know, I got another call before I got out of town.
Emergency heart valve replacement was done at 5:30 this morning, everything went well.
She is in recovery and I am leaving early in the morning to go down and pick her up and give her a ride home.
And I will be staying there for an undetermined amount of time.
She is not allowed to bend over or pick up anything close to 10 pounds for I don't know how long.

If I can remember my MTF password I may be online with my laptop after I am there.
Thanks to all for the well wishes and prayers, from reports they are working.
She's a tough old bird for 90 years old.

I have Fusion 360 and several versions of AutoCAD.
I can draw things in perspective in AutoCAD way faster than I can draw anything in Fusion 360.
Just have not spent enough time drawing in Fusion.

As for the goats, yes they eat anything before they eat grass.
Had a customer a couple years ago that had 6 of them.
They ate the fenders and doors on her side by side.
They were chewing on the hoses on her Kubota front end loader.
And she had one of those DR fence line mowers that cuts under a board fence. They ate the drive belt on it and were working on a plastic guard on it as well.
And as goats usually are, they also like to butt you when you were not looking.

I know around here, they have goats at the solar farms to keep them “mowed”.

So let me get this straight, you guys are recommending this at the end of the boom?



Probably going to exceed my weight capability! 😁

Tim...that's a sheep ( I can tell by the wool sweater) ...I thought you grew up on a farm.....this is what you need....a goat 😁 ..if you notice the fashion taste of the goat is an angora sweater

That was Baaaad!
But most likely effective for grass.
Goats eat the weeds though, so it depends on what you have growing in the ditch.
You could add a hot air balloon 🎈 to make it lighter.
😂

PA318Guy said:

So let me get this straight, you guys are recommending this at the end of the boom?

View attachment 2580275

Probably going to exceed my weight capability! 😁

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Sorry, Angora comes from rabbits. 🤔 😱 Who knew?

MARK (LI) said:

Tim...that's a sheep ( I can tell by the wool sweater) ...I thought you grew up on a farm.....this is what you need....a goat 😁 ..if you notice the fashion taste of the goat is an angora sweater
View attachment 2580277

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How about mohair?..it does not look like cashmere ...to me...but what do I know?

RT3360 said:

Sorry, Angora comes from rabbits. 🤔 😱 Who knew?

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You could mix the goats, sheep and a donkey like my neighbors. They never mow their pasture and it looks like a golf course cut.
You have to watch the goats and donkey.
The kids are cute to watch and don't venture far when they walk out. Next year the may be to big to get out between the drive gates.
Getting way off track but if you want to install an automatic gate or gates a cattle would be a good investment.

Back to the ditch mower. With the right design it could be operated with blocks, cable and winches. Cable and blocks would be a only added weight to the boom. Winches would only add weight to the tractor.

I'm trying to keep it simple and is why I chose electric actuators for the leverage. I may modify my design after looking at other commercial boom mowers a bit though and put the leverage of the pole and head end as an overhang at the pivot point instead of supporting it from underneath.

Ariens93GT20 said:

You could mix the goats, sheep and a donkey like my neighbors. They never mow their pasture and it looks like a golf course cut.
You have to watch the goats and donkey.
The kids are cute to watch and don't venture far when they walk out. Next year the may be to big to get out between the drive gates.
Getting way off track but if you want to install an automatic gate or gates a cattle would be a good investment.

Back to the ditch mower. With the right design it could be operated with blocks, cable and winches. Cable and blocks would be a only added weight to the boom. Winches would only add weight to the tractor.

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Here are some of the projects I saw browsing the web that I found interesting. For my tractor I think the last design could work. Soon it looks like your project will be on my list too

Those are all interesting concepts but I think they all missed on the fact that a triangle is much stronger than a box or single pole. I do admire their efforts though. If this mower head would catch on something, creating tension possibly bending or braking the unit, not to mention flinging a spinning motor head with blade back towards the operator. Would a shear bolt be benefical here? A lot of point, counterpoint and action creates a reaction here.

CCMoe

Wladson said:

Here are some of the projects I saw browsing the web that I found interesting. For my tractor I think the last design could work. Soon it looks like your project will be on my list too

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Unless you have a nicely graded and sodded ditch that you can run along without catching the mower on, I wouldn't trust anything hanging off the side unless it had some type of break-away to prevent grabbing and pulling the tractor over the side.

So here is the backside of the one cut I made yesterday, can you tell when I replaced the plasma tips?

Well Tim there you go, you have a need for a nice big metal shear; a break; a CNC table for your plasma cutter; …… Did I miss anything? Anything to help out a friend.

Bob

PA318Guy said:

So here is the backside of the one cut I made yesterday, can you tell when I replaced the plasma tips?

View attachment 2580309

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When I started with the plasma I only had 120v as an option, now with 220v it says it'll cut 1/2" steel. I've been looking at small milling machines as there is some stuff I could probably do on one and my desktop drill press just doesn't have the power to do large holes in heavy steel.

There you go CNC plasma. I know it works, I did that very thing for my Front Mount X7xx Dethatcher, only the holes were square for the carriage bolts. It was amazing to see how well they turned out even though the guy that did it didn't check his scaling. Since the parts were all done at the same time, everything still fit together, except for what he did manually, but he fixed them. However, your free handing and templates have done a bang up job.

Bob

PA318Guy said:

When I started with the plasma I only had 120v as an option, now with 220v it says it'll cut 1/2" steel. I've been looking at small milling machines as there is some stuff I could probably do on one and my desktop drill press just doesn't have the power to do large holes in heavy steel.

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Tim I use bimetal hole saws to drill big holes in thick steel. I've done 2" holes in 5/8" plate with the drill press. Way easier than step drilling.