Iowan's Folding 24-Row Cultivator Gives Two 12-Row Units New Life

Iowan's Folding 24-Row Cultivator Gives Two 12-Row Units New Life CULTIVATORS Cultivators (58C) 24-4-33 When he switched to using to a 24-row planter three years ago, Dan Wood, Garner, Iowa, wanted a row cultivator to match. He couldn't find a 24-row cultivator at a dealership and rather than having one custom built, he decided to make it himself. He started with two Deere 12-row (30-ft.) folding toolbar cultivators and painstakingly put them together into one. He started by taking the center toolbar section out of one cultivator and replaced it with a 26 ft. long, 10-in. square tube. He hung 10 row units on the tube. On the ends of this new center section, he added two 12 1/2-ft. sections (for 5 rows), hinged to fold up. On the outside ends of the two 12 1/2-ft. sections, he added 4 1/2-ft. sections with two row units each. When the cultivator folds for transport, the short end units drop in flat on top of the next sections. Then both units fold up and past center to rest over the center section. Wood says the cultivator is about 13 ft. high in transport position. To make the lift work properly, he had to lengthen the linkage arms on the cultivator. And, although he used the hinges from the old cultivators, he had to put in heavier tubing and a longer, heavier hinge pin. While this sounds simple enough, Wood says he and an employee put more than 200 hours into the project. "The hardest part is cleaning up the old cultivators, going through them and making sure the parts are good and then repainting everything so it looks right," he says. When he finished his 24-row cultivator, Wood found a couple more 12-row models and made a second big one. "They cost me between $16,000 and $17,000 each," he says. "But you have to have a cultivator this big custom made, So I figure I saved at least $15,000 each by making them myself." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Dan Wood, 2140 Welch Ave., Garner, Iowa 50438 (ph 515 923-3312; E-mail: woodfarm@ncn.net)

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