I was bored running a Allis-Chalmers D17 and an old fashioned 12 foot spring tooth drag harrow, so I decided to build a triangle hitch frame that would allow me to connect two 12 foot (plus a little four foot garden drag) together to one tractor. The hitch is about 9 feet long and a little over 14 feet wide and shaped like a triangle. It took longer to build than I expected due to a lack of raw materials. I found myself scrouging about for scrap iron in the iron pile for pieces. As of May 12 I have yet to be finished but am very close and it would probably not buckle should I try to use it now. I just want to go OCD on the welds a little first to make sure they don't break. Then if it breaks I can blame it on the shitty scrap iron I used to build it.
Anyway, the bottom line is that since the hitch is 14 feet wide it will come out to be about 26 feet in total. Luckly I just happen to have a little four foot garden harrow to fill in the gap in the middle. This should be not only more interesting, but should be much more economical, too. For example, when we drag it is the final thing we do before planting to prepare the seed bed. We do what we call "zig-zag drag" or "double kidder" dragging, neither is a term that I can find used on the internet so we probably made them both up. Anyway, because we cover the ground twice, it takes twice as long<no way! Thenceforth, it is tradition to always have two people drag. This theoretically means two salaries to pay, and there are two tractors that have to be running to use it. We get OCD with our tractor to implement matching so we use the EXact happy medium tractors to drag:
Two D17's. A D17 is a 50 horsepower gas tractor from the late 50s and early 60s. So we are using 100 horsepower worth of tractor when we drag the way we currently do it. The D17's do not work hard to pull the drags where we set them (not terribly deep, even for a spring toothed implement). A D15 or even a struggling D14 will pull the drags. Once, I pulled a drag in low road gear with the throttle idled way back to make it not sound so assanine revved way up to keep together with the other drag and tractor which did sound quite assanine revved up so high.
With the Ultimate Drag, I would probably use the 80 horsepower 190XT, a diesel tractor that will burn 5.5 gallons maximum per hour. This setup would only require a single operator. Another possibility is to use the 185, a 65-70 horsepower tractor. A D17 will burn up to 4.5 gallons per hour on the belt. This is only one gallon per hour less than the 190XT, a Diesel tractor with a turbocharger will burn on the PTO. And only one person has to be working. Nothing more needs to be said.
Some other minor things that would be improved are that since a single drag is only 12 feet wide and the tractor is a little over 6, you cannot turn sharp without your front tire leaving the area the drag will cover and smooth out. This happens more than you would think, and the brakes are used heavily to keep the front tire in and not leave a ridge from too much outward push on the front tire so if/when it leaves the coverage area it will not leave to bad of a hill. Sometimes when turning especially sharp the back tire will even leave the coverage area. With the Ultimate Drag, the drags would be an additional nine feet from the tractor at least. Maybe more if they have to trail farther to leave room for the four footer in the middle. However, I assume and predict that the additional seven feet of drag on each side of the tractor will make up for this.
The frame measures 14 feet 4 inches from the center of one hole to the other. This will leave 2 feet 4 inches for the four foot drag to cover. The total width of one of the 12 foot drags is a full 13 feet, the other is a little less. This means there may still only be a single foot of actual clearance between the two drags. Plus they have floats, boards that scrape lightly over the ground behind them, attached by chains to smooth the ground a little but not pack it. The one float was home made out of 2 by 12's and is quite wide, over 13 feet. But if the floats prove to be a problem one could easily be adjusted or taken off.
Okay, as you can see by the last two pictures; I did it and it works fine. I don't have to take the floats off and the little middle piece drag fits in there better than I thought and the frame kind of rides on it and pushes it deeper than it would usually go which is good because it's light. Here's a video of it in action. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5Rx_w4y554 It corners fine, they stay straight and do not twist and rotate at all.
