Half-Scale Road Grader

Half-Scale Road Grader MISCELLANEOUS EQUIPMENT Earth Movers a North Dakota farm he loved riding with his father while using their pull-behind road grader These experiences inspired him to build his own version after he retired from his welding business “I took a picture of a grader off the internet that had some dimensions and figured I’d build one half size ” says Hadler “I tried to draw it half-scale on a piece of cardboard but ended up designing it full size and just kept changing the angles to get it where I wanted Then I just started cutting tubing ” The grader is all steel with the front frame made from 3/16-in walled 5-in square tubing The rear frame is 2 by 5-in 3/16 and 3/8-in walled He found a 5-ft blade that fit perfectly and installed 12-in tires normally used on Bobcat loaders A local windshield company cut the windows to size after he supplied them with patterns Hadler bought a new 19-hp Briggs & Stratton single-cylinder engine with a bottom electric clutch to run the hydraulic pump so it wouldn’t turn while starting the engine Valves and cylinders came from a nearby surplus center One cylinder rotates the blade while the other side shifts it “I ended up using Toro zero-turn lawn mower individual trans-axles so I could spread the frame a bit and made some linkage to tie the two drive motors together ” Hadler says “I didn’t want to put in a regular steering box with a shaft running down the side of the frame so I found one used on drag-type cars and dune buggies with a center steer rack and pinion It’s manual but steers easy ” Hadler estimates he put about $10 000 into the mini road grader over the few months it took him to build He uses it on his driveway and recently ran it in their town’s 4th of July parade Contact: FARM SHOW Followup George Hadler 920 Hunts Mill Road Troy Mont 59935 ph 406-295-9770; george@troymontana net

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