Made-It-Myself Shaft Clears Out Tree Roots

Made-It-Myself Shaft Clears Out Tree Roots FARM SHOP Repairs Discovering tree roots in his well casing Roy Sims cleared them out with the help of some rebar and a cutting bit The problem became apparent when he tried to pull his submersible pump     “We were using a half-ton winch on the water pipe and when the pump hit the root mass the plastic pipe broke ” recalls Sims “We had a rope on the pump but we just let it fall back down ”     Sims used rebar rod as a stem for a cutting bit suspended from a winch to clear the root mass He turned the bit with his 1 000-ft lb impact wrench He ordered the cutting bit online but the rest of the device was fabricated with rebar destined for a porch foundation     He first fabricated a rectangular suspension frame from rebar and welded a large washer with a 1/2-in interior diameter hole to it The winch would attach to the frame He then welded a matching washer to the end of a short length of pipe and slipped it over a 10-ft length of 1/2-in rebar washer first Welded to the rebar the facing washers well-greased would allow the cutting bit stem to turn     The final step was to weld the cutting bit to the end of the rebar and a 1/2-in drive for the impact wrench to the pipe end He reinforced the connection to the bit with short lengths of rebar welded over the joint Inserted into the 4-in dia well casing the 10-ft cutting bit hit no roots Sims then cut the rebar in two and inserted another 10-ft length of rebar He repeated the process until he reached the root mass at a 36 ft depth He reinforced the welding graft each time overlapping the rebar by 4 to 5 in lengths and welding both sides     “I didn’t want it to come apart in the well ” says Sims “As it was the rebar had enough flex that the 3-in cutting bit wandered around inside the 4-in casing and cleared it completely ”     As the cutting bit chewed into the root mass and cleared the latest 10-ft section Sims pulled it out and added another section At 66 ft he reached a clear pipe     He recalls the first roots he encountered as being very hard to chew through When he withdrew the cutting bit it was covered in fine root hairs He’s confident the roots came from a nearby pecan tree with an 8-ft circumference     “I cut it down ” he says “I wasn’t going to do this again ”     That said he has kept the cutting bit and suspension frame He also cut apart the rebar stem and retained the pieces…just in case     While the device worked well he plans to try a different driver if he does the job again “I think I would try to use my gas-powered one-man post-hole auger ” says Sims “It has more power than the impact wrench and wouldn’t need a portable air compressor like the wrench ”     Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Roy G Sims 31044 Caddo Rd Anadarko Okla 73005 ph 405-933-2943

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