[Mikey4]

One of my neighbors whose yard I mow needs her Invisible Fence repaired. For the record, the heart of the system is a copper wire that gets buried a few inches deep around the perimeter of your yard. The wire she has was buried maybe 30 years ago and has too many breaks to begin to find and repair. She'd like to bury new wire.

I'm sure the pros have a machine to do this. I can imagine what might be needed is a knife-like device to cut a slit in the turf and a few inches of soil. You would then just put the wire down into the slit and pack it back with your shoe.

Has anyone ever done this?

I was kind of thinking of replacing the blade on my rider dozer/plow with some sort of fabricated "knife" and just driving forward with it.

Any thoughts from the assembled cognoscenti?

 

[HeyYou]

Phone company uses a 'powered knife'. Basically, it's a blade about an inch and a half wide, that has a guide for the cable, that pretty much 'saws' a slit for the cable. You *might* be able to rent one.... if you have an equipment rental place nearby.

 

[CADplans]

In the drainage ditch thread, no one seemed to like my "chainsaw" idea!!?? :dunno:

:sidelaugh

A "shoe" off of a planter?

or

I have an actual 18" diameter flat disc blade,,, VERY sharp too,,, :fing32:

I used it to create planting trenches before I composted the garden.

It will easily go 3-4 inches deep,,,

 

[mla2ofus]

Coarse toothed wood blade in a sawzall.
Mike

 

[devans]

I was thinking round disk like CAD mentioned. Kind of like a pizza slicer.

 

[Gravely Frank McM]

There's a movement afoot in farming for "no-till planting".... essentially the tractor pulls a "coulter" (sp?) behind it that cuts a narrow slit in the ground for the seed / seedlings, w/o disturbing the surrounding soil.

Perhaps something like this ?

I don't know of anything Gravely-specific off-hand that might do the job...

 

[jim335]

I wonder if a lawn edger would work.

 

[JonnyCraftsman]

I used a manual edger but was thinking the wheel on my mould board plow would work nicely with some weight on it.

 

[richwoodrocket]

Ripper tooth?
I'm not sure a lawn edger would be deep enough/powerful enough. At least mine isn't powerful enough to do that.


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[kyyada]

If you pin it down good it won't get sucked up into the mower and mulch will bury it in time. So they say......I bought one once but never installed it after talking with a friend.

 

[MI GT]

I used a gas edger, one on wheels not a hand held. Worked well. 2-3" deep.
I rented it, took a couple hours, did an acre.
Jim

 

[franklin2]

Everyone in my neck of the woods uses a edger also. Rocks are sort of bad, but other than that it cuts a nice small ditch for the wire.

 

[Canary Al]

I think the best idea there so far is the Sawzall. Some of my blades are 6" long.

I have used mine to cut up to 6" diagonal tree stumps and their roots off under the surface of the ground - a couple inches under. Covered with dirt keep anything they send up cut off.

Sawzall would work.

 

[PA RedRider]

What you want is a sub-puller. I've seen them as a Gravely attachment, likely homemade. It digs the shallow trench and buries the cable from a spool all in one pass.

An easy alternative for the first half of that is to simply take the drop peg off your two-wheeled tractor and flip it upside down and snug to the desired depth, drop the rear end of the machine and drive off and a slow pace.

 

[Ironpile631]

Is there a ball hitch or some other anchor on the back of your tractor? I would take a couple almost tight wraps of chain around the hitch and find a 1/4" x 2" steel flatbar thats long and weld a t handle on one end and miter cut the other end so it stabs into the soil easily. Think ripper blade on a bulldozer. Bar goes through the chain loops and stabs in. The lucky one who gets to walk behind the tractor would keep the bar steered on course and as deep below grade as necessary. There would be alot of leverage over the cut if there was at least five feet of bar sticking up out from the chain. 5:1 ratio at least. What could possibly go wrong. If you hear a WHOA!!! From behind you than you know to stop before you get beamed in the back of the head with a piece of flatbar. Tie the wire to the bar at the grade you want to go and lay the wire in all at the same time.

 

[Surfincr]

as PA RedRider said there is an attachment for the gravely to do this exact thing there is a member on here that has one. from what i remember it was made by a company but is about as rare as a unicorn splitter

 

[Canary Al]

Go to this thread http://www.mytractorforum.com/222-gravely-faq-stickies-section/219770-every-gravely-attachment-known-man.html

Then go to post#152 and read maybe 4 consecutive postings.

Better yet: Contact BlownL67

There's also a failed attempt at this noted in the thread - post #8 and #10

 

[Mikey4]

Thanks to everyone who relied! Seriously, thanks!

:thanku::thanku::thanku::thanku:

Lots of ideas and actually lots of options to consider. We have to do a total of someplace north of 800 feet.

 

[steved]

Personally, I'd call the local rental place. They rent the "mini" trenchers at mine...they look like an edger on steroids and are for burying cables.

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[Mikey4]

Personally, I'd call the local rental place. They rent the "mini" trenchers at mine...they look like an edger on steroids and are for burying cables.

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Heh! After (a) studying my Gravelys, (b) considering my welding skills to craft some sort of device to do the job, (c) considering the very slim chances to score the Gravely accessory to do the job properly, (d) considering the cost to rent such a machine, (e) the wear and tear on my person, and (f) considering the cost to get the invisible fence people to just come out and do the job, I think we'll limit our options (d)/(e) and (f). I'm favoring (f) but that depends on the cost of each option.