Rotary Hoe

Sometimes known as a “Rotary Tiller” or just a “Tiller”

Out of the box, the core part is heavy and here sits on my kitchen floor while I contemplate …

… which way is Front and which is Back.

The wheel assembly and four sets of tines seem fairly clear at this point, but read on, Dear Reader, read on.

Two manuals, one in French bears the word "Manuel” which I think of as a Spanish name. A bag of bolts and stuff in a sealed clear plastic bag.

Bits and pieces, including what look like mudguards and part of a handle.

I suspect that my time blades will quickly suffer from rocks embedded in the soil. Can my neighbour make news one for me? Should I ask him BEFORE I coat these puppies in clay and soil and half-rotted compost?

More bits and pieces. I am clever enough to recognize the knobby bits as being related to an adjustable handle.

Bolts of various sizes and quantities. Two twist-ties. That is my vegetable knife lower-right corner; see “plastic bags” above!

“First attach time wheels to axle”. Done! But only loosely; I have tightened nothing at this point. Do I have the sharp edges of the times facing down and to the front? Who knows?

Somewhere I read 21”, but the width seems more like 24” to me. This is much better than the $300 model I was looking at; I suspect that the $300 is good for tilling between rows of vegetables whereas MY tiller is better at preparing a vegetable plot.

One of the books in the five cartons I collected from Clarenville Library yesterday.

Now get back to work!

By eleven o’clock the beast is assembled. Looking good, even though everything is attached but loosely.

Which brings us to the problem that faces everyone who tackles "fix flange A to stub B and align with the linch-pin C".

Leftovers. Where were these supposed to be?

Later:

It seems to me that if I had a neighbour who was a top-class car-body repair and welding guy, I could persuade him to rig a cover extension to bolt to the fenders, extending the screen pretty well to the ground behind the tines. It would probably take him less time to do that for me than to drive me all the way to Clarenville Emergency to get my feet stitched up and my ankle bones reset.

It seems to me that if I had a neighbour who was a top-class car-body repair and welding guy, I could persuade him to rig a cover extension to bolt to the fenders, extending the screen pretty well to the ground alongside the tines. It would probably take him less time to do that for me than to drive me all the way to Clarenville Emergency to get my feet stitched up and my ankle bones reset.

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Friday, April 19, 2024

I was unhappy with my dry-run assembly, so this morning, armed with a stiff coffee, I dis-assembled the beats.

Not shown here is my kitchen floor near the porch door. There are arranged the parts as they came OFF the beast, the mudguards were last to go on, so they lie closest to the wall. Then, two-by-tow the parts are set out.

I have two extra large black bolts. The two bolts (washers and nuts) here are destined to hold the inner tines to the drive shaft from the gasoline engine.

General opinion is that these should be shear bolts, but I suspect that they are just high-quality steel, not designed to break. (Skip ahead to the 1m0s mark in this YouTube video )

As I dis-assemble the tines I note again the red darts labeled Left and Right. I still do not know whether Left refers to the Left-hand side of the machine as I drive it through the soil, or the Left-hand side of the machine as I face it, as shown in the assembly manual illustrations.

Shrug!

Nonetheless, the size of the bolt-hole in one set of tines shows that this must match the size of the bolt-hole in the stubby shaft.

In this image the bolt (left-hand circled) is in place and the inner tines are secured to the drive shaft.

The outer tines have a long section of shaft and short section of shaft. The long section goes inwards, to make sufficient space between the inner and the outer tines.

Note that linch-pin hole at the extreme right-hand side of the shaft assembly. That looks as if I ought to be able to add a third set of tines making this a six tine-wheel machine.

Probably not!

This image, taken from the operator end of the device, shows my experiment. One side of the tines shaft is dis-assembled.

The outer tine shaft won’t fit because the shafts are the same diameter.

However the inner tine has a larger diameter shaft, and slips easily over the narrow shaft of the other side to make a third set of tines on that side of the engine.

This extends each side by about two, maybe three, inches. This could work in easy-ground – previously tilled and free of rocks or chunks of wood.

Down the road, I suppose, one could get two tine shafts made from scratch, to replace this assembly of multiple sections of a time-shaft. The tines could be made smaller, or larger (hence deeper) and closer together or farther apart.

But that comes later if at all. The only trial I can dream up right now is to remove the two outer tine sets and use the tiller with only the inner tines; this should deliver more power per time in heavy ground.

Saturday, April 20, 2024

Well, just before noon today I pulled the cord and the beast started first time. Once I’d remembered to set the engine switch ON.

I trolleyed over to the driveway bed – nominally the easiest because it started off as a 12” deep trench into which we dumped grass clippings and sawdust.

The tiller took a nosedive and screwed itself deep into the ground, up to its fetlock on the left leg.

I pulled the machine out, then went back and retrieved the left-hand time assembly. No sign of the bolt and nut, probably 12” deep somewhere in the soil.

Back to the assembly area. There lies the bolt. In the small patch of earth where the tiller was when I pulled the cord, the washer and nut.

That’s right. I had NOT tightened up all the bolts. Silly me.

Twenty minutes fiddling around with a fully assembled tine machine, loaded with lubricating oil and gasoline, and I had the bolts screwed in.

Smarter and wiser, I stuck to the little patch. Man but this thing chews up the ground.

I stopped it just short of knocking down my fence.

Traps for Young Players: If the only power machine you’ve used is a lawnmower, then letting go of the handle means that the engine stops. With a rotary hoe, letting go of the handle just disengages the clutch, but leaves the engine running.

First Essay

Second Essays

Saturday, October 26, 2024

The past week I asked the rental price of a Rotary Hoe in Conception Bay South. On a weekly basis it came to $40/day.