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Lawn roller DIY homemade


angiolino

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Lawn roller DIY

hi sorry if I disturb you, I would like to make a DIY Lawn roller, like those used to level tennis courts. some ideas some suggestions. I would like to make it with recycled materials, perhaps recycled at some junkyard. thanks to those who want to help me in my realization.

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As I see it, the roller part of the project is fairly straightforward. You can use a thicker wall gas or liquid tank and fill it with sand. I believe that these bigger tanks can be found in scrap yards. You can also use a section of a bigger pipe form gas pipelines, but you'll have to seal the ends by welding steel plate "lids". I've made myself a snowplow for my tractor from a section of gas line pipe (half of the pipe) which had 12mm thick walls, and it works like a charm.
The main issue that comes to my mind is making a bearing housing on the sides. As there will be axial load on them when you pull the roller, the regular deep grove ball bearing would not suit your need, but they would be the easiest to install. What you would need are tapered roller bearings, and those are more difficult to install.
Maybe you could find axles and hubs form a front wheel of a smaller tractor without the front-wheel-drive and somehow make that work. You have to consider that the bearings must be sealed in the housing in order to prevent dirt from finding its way into them, and you'll have to make it possible to occasionally grease them, and service (replace) them if they start to wear out.
Almost all components can be salvaged from the scrap yard, except the bearings. You'll have to buy them new.
I'm no expert, but I hope my thoughts will help you somewhat. 

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I won’t fill it with sand, I’d use water to fill it. That way when you done with the job, you can drain it. You may have to move it around in the storage area and I really would not want to hook a yard tractor up every time I have to move it out of the way.

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For typical home back yards I have seen them made from hot water tanks here in the USA; As I recall Europeans tend to use the heat as you go systems for hot water and do they may not be as common over there.

I have seen them cast full of concrete; but water filled is the better way except for heavy use systems.

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thanks for the valuable suggestion if it were possible I would need some photos to take inspiration. thanks again for your availability, forgive me if I bored you. thanks

I don't have to compact a large plot of land a garden. the cistern of a hot water boiler would perhaps be indicated or the gas cylinder. I have to look at some scrap iron among the remains of old iron. thanks

"I've made myself a snowplow for my tractor from a section of gas line pipe (half of the pipe) which had 12mm thick walls, and it works like a charm" ???

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https://youtu.be/dF5z5pDZZv8

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Good to see you post again my Italian friend. Your questions are never boring though this one was pretty easy I didn't even had to read it a few ties to figure out what you were asking. 

You don't need it very heavy, you can make a number of passes with a lighter roll. You could make an easy hand roller with a 20lb. propane bottle and not need bearings or anything fancy.  Heck you could even make the yoke from wood, run the axle bolts through greased holes. Something to tow behind a tractor or ATV is only a little more complicated. 

Make sure it's full of water,  slosh can be a real problem.

 Frosty The Lucky.

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Depending on the size of the area you want to smooth out I'd get an old 20 or 40 pound propane tank, run a 1 inch id pipe through it, and use a smaller pipe as an axle. Then you can make the yoke out of more piping or use wood like Frosty suggests. It wouldn't spin as easy as using bearings but you should be able to get all the parts at a scrapyard pretty cheaply.

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Vanyel, availability of stuff is a bit different in Italy where Angiolino is posting from and scrapyards seem to be hard to get access to for most people nowadays. 

Does your local scrapyard still  let you walk the piles?  Mine does and I've heard rumours that some others had opened back up as the scrap market has crashed.  My local scrapyard hasn't sold on a load of scrap for months and their buyer says "maybe early July" and the price may not be high enough to pay for shipping it.  They have stopped buying scrap; but still accept "donations".  I try to go looking every Saturday to funnel some money to them as a good scrapyard that lets you wander the piles is worth a LOT to me!

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I don't actually have a local scrapyard. The closest I have is a private recycling company whose owner is a bit of an xxxx and won't sell unless you're looking to get multiple tons at a time. But angiolino does mention wanting to make it out of material possibly gotten from a junkyard, so I figured they'd have access to one.

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Angiolino is an excellent scrounger and has a love for making his own when it'd be faster and cheaper to buy new material or thing. He fits in here perfectly. 

Most recycling centers operate under single buyer contract and can't sell to anyone else without risk of legal action. They get surly because folk keep asking and get upset when told no while what they're looking for is right THERE. 

Finding a yard that allows small sales is a treasure, treat them well, VERY well.

 Frosty The Lucky.

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I don't think he's an xxxx for not selling small amounts, I think he's one because of one winter encounter. His company plows driveways in the winter, well one year we got almost two feet of snow overnight and had to call for a plow. He quoted $50 over the phone so my parents left a check for 50 made out to the company so I could pay while they were at work. He gets done with the driveway and says that it will actually cost double and he wants the check made out to him personally, luckily I had the cash to pay it, but that's why I won't do anything more than sell him a bed full of aluminum cans once or twice a year.

 

Sorry for the thread derail, but I just thought that my opinion needed a little explanation.

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Yeah, that's cause for thinking he's a jerkolo but you need to call such folk something clean.  Find a better thing to call those nasty old short hair tugger, cheater clowns. 

How long did you make it after delurking before being moderated? It's not a record but it's near the upper end of the curve.

 Frosty The Lucky.

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thanks for the valuable tips and patience. sorry if I disturb you every now and then, but I live in a small country town away from the civilized world therefore I have to get by with the little I have. thanks again for the help and support you provide me. forgive me again if I get bored. thank you for the precious time you give me.

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If you can find one, a hot water tank is probably your best bet. Used gas cylinders or empty propane tanks must first be completely emptied or they can explode when you take a torch to them. I have never done so, but there are tutorials on how to safely work with them. Someone here has probably done a post on it.

Hot water tanks have many uses. You can cut them in half and make a box blade for a lawn tractor, cut and shape them into lawn art, turn them into meat smokers, use them as a shell for a gas forge, or cut them down the middle and use them as water or feed troughs for animals. I have had one in my junk pile for a couple of years now. Some day (meaning likely never to happen) I will turn it into a forge. 

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58 minutes ago, angiolino said:

thanks for the valuable tips and patience. sorry if I disturb you every now and then, but I live in a small country town away from the civilized world therefore I have to get by with the little I have. thanks again for the help and support you provide me. forgive me again if I get bored. thank you for the precious time you give me.

Angiolino: Please stop apologizing for asking us questions, it's what many of us are here for. I love being able to help people it makes me feel good. You're never boring and you bring us interesting problems.  I know a lot of is probably the translation software but that's okay too.

Stop in just to talk sometimes will you?

 Frosty The Lucky.

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thank you for everything you are very creative as a macgiver, I learned a lot from your talent. sometimes with a pile of useless scrap you could make a product useful for other uses. rubbish a person's waste can be a treasure or a resource for another person. it is the art of getting by with the little that one possesses as the Neapolitans teach. thanks again your suggestions are always useful and precious to me, you are priceless.

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Thanks again. it is a 1400 square meter hillside, it has long been abandoned and was terraced with steps, rain and bad weather caused the slope to collapse. I would like to recover it to make something and make it useful. it would take a small manual scraper.

terreno.jpg

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DH; I've wanted to make a wood stove using two different sizes of apartment/trailer hot water heaters: nest them with the inner one justified to the top and fill the gap with clean dry masonry sand to make a wood heater that has both fast heat and long slow thermal mass heat.  I was accumulating when I had to move and we bought a house with 2 commercial wood stoves already.  Now I just lay a slab of soapstone lab bench top on top of the woodstoves' flat tops.  Not as good but I spent the time expanding my shop instead.

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Manual scraper? MANUAL?! 

Making grade by hand is pick, shovel and rake work. I suppose you could call a grade rake a scraper, we used to call them a bull dozer as a joke name. 

What do you have in mind besides smoothing and restoring the slope?

We've talked about this slope earlier haven't we?

 Frosty The Lucky.

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