"Made-It-Myself" Fence Post Mover

"Made-It-Myself" Fence Post Mover FENCING Miscellaneous 34-3-20 Keeping fence lines trimmed up neatly is easy for Michael Yankaitis since he built a 3-pt. mounted mower that reaches under low lying fence wires. It mounts on his Ahrens 18 hp garden tractor. The pto-driven mower uses an 18-in. mower blade mounted inside a circular steel deck. A right angle gearbox belt-drives a pulley mounted on top of the side mower deck. A pair of small anti-scalp caster wheels allows the deck to follow the ground contour. "It reaches right under fence lines, automatically gliding around the posts. All I do is drive my tractor along the fence and the mower does all the work," says Yankaitis, of Mosinee, Wis. "I use it to clear away tall grass from my horse pastures." The mower deck mounts on an arm that pivots on a telescoping steel tube under the gearbox. The deck hits the post and then slides around it as the mower pivots back. A pair of large springs attached to the deck's mounting frame pulls the deck back forward after passing a post. "It works better than I had hoped," says Yankaitis. "I use the tractor's 3-pt. hitch to raise or lower the mower to adjust cutting height. "I already had most of the materials that I used to build it, which kept my total cost to only about $100. Comparable commercial models sell for $2,000 or more. All I bought were the caster wheels, one of the V-belt pulleys, and a stub shaft that fits onto the tractor's pto. The blade is off an old Case riding mower. "One feature that I really like is that I can easily switch the mower from one side of the tractor to the other. It lets me go down one side of the fence and then come back to cut any grass that was missed the first time as the mower deck swings in and out of the posts. To move the mower over I just unhook the springs and swing the deck over to the other side, then hook the springs back up. "To remove the mower I just pull three pins and lift the mounting frame off the 3-pt. hitch." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Michael J. Yankaitis, 938 Depot Rd., Mosinee, Wis. 54455 (ph 715 692-3624; tique@mtc.net).

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