# Tractor Videos: Something to help pass the dead of Winter by



## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

Thought I might start a sorta Tractor only video thread to help some pass the Winter away.

Found this one this morning.

This video, shot in the Netherlands, is one of the nicest looking 4755 I've ever seen. It's got music at the beginning but the music stops and the raw sound kicks in. Gotta put this one up on the big screen later today and watch it all in HD.


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## thendrix (May 14, 2015)

I hope he doesn't need another front weight. I don't believe he has room.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Not a huge fan of a plough, suppose they need to do something though to get the ground to warm up as quick as possible.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

I agree, that's a nice tractor.......


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

https://www.youtube.com/user/lukestrawalker

My channel... a few vids to keep you busy... LOL

Later! OL J R


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

From the very last dry hay baled in 2015. First time using the 656 on the new to us baler. Usually don't use it to bale as first gear is geared too high but the hay was light (20 bales an acre) actually worked well


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## Wethay (Jul 17, 2015)

mlappin said:


> Not a huge fan of a plough, suppose they need to do something though to get the ground to warm up as quick as possible.


Growing up in the Willamette Valley I thought that everyone plowed, every time, before replanting. Things have changed around here but a plow is still a common sight.


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## Growing pains (Nov 7, 2015)

Luke is that a kiddy pool on your tractor for a sun shade?


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

Growing pains said:


> Luke is that a kiddy pool on your tractor for a sun shade?


Doubles as a cooling system. Remove, fill, add ******** and beer.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Growing pains said:


> Luke is that a kiddy pool on your tractor for a sun shade?


Yep, sure is...

Got that idea from "Farm Show" magazine... All sorts of "farmer made" inventions, modifications to equipment, shop tips, repurposing old equipment into new stuff, etc... I love it. ONLY farm magazine I will PAY for a subscription to (still get plenty of ag-rags in the mail for free, but I won't waste money paying for them). Love the "best and worst buys" section in there as well... saved my bacon a time or two.

When we bought the 5610S's, they came with ROPS. None of our older tractors had ROPS, so we used those "buggy top" umbrellas or the cheap umbrellas from TSC. I priced one of those aluminum "topper" kits for the tractor from the dealer, and it was like $900 bucks (and this was probably close to 20 years ago-- hate to think what one costs now). NO WAY I was paying that much... Read in "Farm Show" (www.farmshow.com) where someone added a small frame to their ROPS and put a kiddie pool up on top for a topper...

I got some thin, lightweight 1.5 inch angle iron, and made a lightweight frame for it, and put a $9 kiddie pool up on top, and presto-- instant shade.

What's nice about it is that I custom made the frame to hold the pool up so that it's at just the right height, so that the sun only hits me in the eyes for about the last half hour before sunset or after sunrise, at which time the sun is usually dim enough not to be so much of a bother. Plus, it gives excellent coverage from the sides as well, being round, unlike the rectangular aluminum toppers which allow the sun to roast your arms and upper body from sunup to about 10 am, and then again from about 1-2 til sundown... plus it keeps the rain off in sudden showers and routes it around the upturned rim to a few holes I punch in the rim around the back of the tractor, where the water can drip off...

I did have to cut a circular piece of thin plywood that would fit just inside the bottom of the pool, to reinforce it some... a couple 1x4's screwed to it on top keep the plastic pool snug on top.

The plastic pools do deteriorate every year or two... but another $10-15 kiddie pool at Wally world fixes that problem right up in about ten minutes...

Cheap enough and it works like a champ... and it gives my nephew something to thumb his nose at me about... (though I thumbed my nose at him after he got roasted to a crisp during planting season riding the old Case 1070 spraying preemerge... with no topper or umbrella... told him he needed to get a kiddie pool... LOL Said he'd rather burn... LOL

Later! OL J R


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## Growing pains (Nov 7, 2015)

It always make me laugh when people thumb their nose at something like that. Money saved on things like that means more money for other tractors, equipment, cattle, land, etc. I may have to rig up a kiddy pool myself. I was going to buy a couple of the umbrellas but I think the kiddy pool would be better coverage.


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

luke strawwalker said:


> https://www.youtube.com/user/lukestrawalker
> 
> My channel... a few vids to keep you busy... LOL
> 
> Later! OL J R


Luke:

On the Ford 552- are the gathering wheels on the pickup homemade totally or just the (what appears to be) tire sidewalls. I have made a set from rolling fenders from and old cultivator. Work OK, but not at good as those. I thought using sidewalls like that, but never got around to it. They went with the baler when I sold it, but now I have a new(er) baler and am gonna hafta make s'more.

That steam locomotive was pretty neat as well. I saw all the people gathered to watch it go by in all its glory. There were probably more people than that gathered on its first time thru...kinda neat to ponder....makes one feel awful small in the spirit of time.

Thanks for sharing

73, Mark


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## thendrix (May 14, 2015)

How's this for productivity?


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## atgreene (May 19, 2013)

Luke, in your mowing video, it looks like you round your corners, skipping a little swath at the point of the corner? Do you mow that after? You find that works better? I've never been able to square up my corners with my drum mower, always try different methods depending on the field, just curious how others do it.


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## atgreene (May 19, 2013)

My drum mower.


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

Interesting new big Square bale Wrapper, I'd hate to see the price:


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## Yellowchevelle (Nov 9, 2015)

View attachment trim.2C898B5F-7075-4C5E-A8FF-450F9ABB9726.MOV
View attachment trim.C4817F6A-8C7E-4CA3-9E8C-AE36B18488C8.MOV


A couple I had in my phone


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

The new Kubota M7 171 in action. Fairly recent video, released about 2 weeks ago. I'd hate to try and do anything under the hood, can't even see the engine


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Growing pains said:


> It always make me laugh when people thumb their nose at something like that. Money saved on things like that means more money for other tractors, equipment, cattle, land, etc. I may have to rig up a kiddy pool myself. I was going to buy a couple of the umbrellas but I think the kiddy pool would be better coverage.


I'll take some pics for you from underneath... You don't want to "modify" (weld to) the ROPS in any way-- it'll compromise it structurally... I came up with a design that simply bolts onto the ROPS so it doesn't affect it structurally in any way, and can be removed with no damage if the tractor is sold or if you're doing low clearance work (though it doesn't stick up any higher than the muffler...

Yeah, I'm the same way... "A dollar saved is a dollar earned"... Plus, usually such things can work better than the "store bought" solution anyway, because you can make it "tailor made" to what you want/need...

Later! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

glasswrongsize said:


> Luke:
> On the Ford 552- are the gathering wheels on the pickup homemade totally or just the (what appears to be) tire sidewalls. I have made a set from rolling fenders from and old cultivator. Work OK, but not at good as those. I thought using sidewalls like that, but never got around to it. They went with the baler when I sold it, but now I have a new(er) baler and am gonna hafta make s'more.
> 
> That steam locomotive was pretty neat as well. I saw all the people gathered to watch it go by in all its glory. There were probably more people than that gathered on its first time thru...kinda neat to ponder....makes one feel awful small in the spirit of time.
> ...


Yeah, the gathering wheels are totally homemade... I've been meaning to do a write-up and send it to Farm Show... I could probably end up published... LOL

The 552 (built by Gehl, I think they call it a "1400" model or something like that) didn't have them (early 80's baler, we were one of the first to switch to round bales in this part of the country back then) has a fairly small 4 bar pickup, 5 feet wide. I mainly built the gathering wheels to pick up the loose hay that "flops over" the side of the windrow coming off the rolabar rakes so I can crowd it up to the edge of the baler chamber better...

I started with some old cotton picker parts, but it's nothing that can't be fabricated using steel, a torch, and welder. The brackets that bolt to the front of the pickup are the brackets off the front of an old IH 220 cotton picker plant lifter snout cut in half between the top and bottom halves. The picker snouts used two "parallel links" made from a piece of 2 inch channel iron about a foot or so long with a piece of pipe just large enough to fit over a half inch pin, about 4 inches wide, welded to each end of the 2 inch channel. These slid into the bracket on the front of the picker unit, with two of these arranged one above the other to act as parallel arms to allow the snout to move up and down. Since I didn't need the "parallel arm" effect for the baler wheels, I simply robbed one "parallel arm" from a junk picker and the bracket holding both of them on the front of the picker unit.

The single parallel arm was cut in half right across the center of the 2 inch channel iron, to give me two pivot points, one for each side. The bracket was cut in half across it between the top and bottom halves, to give two brackets, one for each side. Bolt holes were drilled in the front of the baler pickup side bands to mount them facing forward, and bolt them in place so they could be removed if desired. Each pivot arm then had a piece of pipe welded to it, with a hole burned in the side and a nut welded over it for a set screw. A slightly smaller piece of pipe (about 1-1.5 inch IIRC) was made to slide into it, to make the arms adjustable for length as well as angle of the gathering wheel (top leaning in or out). Another piece of pipe was welded to the opposite end of it in a "T" configuration, again with a hole cut in the pipe and nut welded over it for a set screw...

Into this "T" pipe, another piece of pipe slides in, to make the wheel adjustable for how sharp an angle it runs at compared to straight ahead... with these two adjustments, the angles of the wheels are COMPLETELY adjustable, like a "U-joint", and then the set screws are tightened to lock them in place. At the ends of these second bits of pipe, a pipe nipple is welded on about 3-4 inches long, that a cultivator or planter guage wheel bearing stem will slide snugly into. Again, a small hole is drilled and a nut welded over the hole, to secure the wheel bearing stem once installed to keep the gathering wheel on.

For the wheels, I dug through an old pile of junk disk blades I had in the scrap pile... I found two that fit nicely up against the bead of a 12 inch car tire (you can use any size tire you prefer) and then cut the sidewalls out of the tires using a jigsaw. I chose to use Deere 7000 press-wheel bearings, mostly because I had a spare aluminum press wheel in the shop that was no longer suitable to use on the planter, and I could use the two halves to make the back halves of the gathering wheels for the baler, since they'd hold the bearings snugly and be smooth backed, and they already had the three holes to hold the two halves of the gathering wheel together, trapping the bearing inside. I needed an "outer half" to hold the bearing, however. After a bit of head scratching, I found a couple pipe bushings in the shop that the press wheel bearing fit quite snugly into. I lined them up carefully over the square hole in the disk blades, traced around them with soapstone, and cut out the center square hole of the disk blade so the pipe bushing could screw into the hole. I then installed the bearing, put the press wheel half up against it, and rolled it to be sure everything "ran true" and didn't wobble, and then tack welded the bushing to the blade, removed the bearings, and then welded the bushing to the blade all the way around.

Next, I put the wheels back together with the bearings and press wheel back halves, marked the location for the three small bolts to hold the disk blade and press wheel half together, and then torched the holes in the disk blade. The disk blade and press wheel half are then tightened up snugly together using (3) 1/4 inch bolts and nuts in the recessed holes on the back of the press wheel halves, trapping the bearing snugly between them. To keep dust and filth out of the bearing end, I capped the pipe bushing with a small pipe plug.

To hold the two car tire sidewalls to the disk blades, I decided to use fender washers and 3/8 bolts and nylock nuts. I put the disk blades against the tire beads, spun it to ensure everything "runs true", and then marked locations right up against the edge of the disk blade all the way around the tire for holes to be drilled through the rubber sidewalls for the bolts and fender washers. They're evenly spaced, about 8 of them IIRC. The holes are drilled and a fender washer is put on a bolt and pushed through the hole, and another fender washer put on the back and a nylock nut, once all the bolts and washers are in place, they're snugged down like you would lug nuts, on opposite sides of each other one by one, to pull the tire bead down evenly against the disk blade.

Then the wheels are installed into the small "T" bracket and the set screw tightened down against the bearing stem to lock the wheel to the "Little T". The Little T is then swiveled inside the "Big T" until the desired angle of the wheel to the pickup is achieved, and the setscrew tightened. The Big T can then be swiveled inside the pivot pipe until the desired "tilt angle" (up and down) is achieved and then the second setscrew tightened, thereby allowing ANY combination of sweep angle and tilt angle desired or necessary to clear frame or pickup components...

To hold the wheels up for transport and keep them from "digging in", pieces of 1/4 inch chain from TSC was welded to the end brackets, which is then attached above the wheels to the baler pickup adjustment frame, so the wheels adjust with the pickup height, using a "quick link" so they can be adjusted for height if needed.

They work great and it didn't cost me the $1500 the dealer wanted for a "gathering wheel kit" that I would have had to adapt from a New Holland baler for my Ford/Gehl, or nearly that much for an "aftermarket universal gathering wheel kit" from some "will-fit" supplier... All it cost was about $20 bucks in materials and a day in the shop, and they work as good as any gathering wheels on the market IMHO...

Later! OL JR


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

atgreene said:


> Luke, in your mowing video, it looks like you round your corners, skipping a little swath at the point of the corner? Do you mow that after? You find that works better? I've never been able to square up my corners with my drum mower, always try different methods depending on the field, just curious how others do it.


Yeah, I was taught to cut in a spiral pattern from the outside the field the center... always seemed like the most productive way to cut with a 3 point mower... (yeah, I know guys with moco's/haybines tend to cut endrows and then cut back-n-forth... whatever floats yer boat I guess... But lifting and turning seems a big waste of time when I can just make the corner and never stop cutting at all)...

Even with a sicklebar like we used to have, the corners are still kinda ragged. I found with the drum mower what works best is to just make the turn as tight as you can without having to slow down (I mow in 6th gear at 1900 RPM on the 5610S, which is a hair over 6 mph at 540 RPM on the PTO for full blade speed on the mower) and then come back when I've cut to the center of the field in an "X" pattern across all four corners of the field to cut the crescent-moon shaped uncut corners when I'm done... I simply make a pass from the center to the outside corner down the diagonal, hit the brake in the corner and swing back around to the right and run the mower back up in a pass beside the one I just made to ensure I get any that might've slipped past the end of the outside drum... then do the next corner... then make the last pass up the center of the field and do the other end the same way, ending out where I started... then I make the last pass around the field running the cutter to the outside, so I cut up within a couple feet of the fence...

Works for me...

Later! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Grateful11 said:


> The new Kubota M7 171 in action. Fairly recent video, released about 2 weeks ago. I'd hate to try and do anything under the hood, can't even see the engine


Ja, ist gut... alles elektronischen... sehr teuer...
Spater! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

atgreene said:


> My drum mower.


Nice ride... good music... 

Later! OL J R


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

Sometimes cellphones and combine operators don't mix.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Grateful11 said:


> Sometimes cellphones and combine operators don't mix.


Yep, saw that one during harvest this year while I was in Indiana... BIL found it on youtube or something...

OOPS! LOL Bin started running over above the auger at 25 seconds, he didn't yank the hydro back until 35 seconds when he doused the cab and head...

Probly 40 bushels went over the cab...

Later! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

luke strawwalker said:


> I'll take some pics for you from underneath... You don't want to "modify" (weld to) the ROPS in any way-- it'll compromise it structurally... I came up with a design that simply bolts onto the ROPS so it doesn't affect it structurally in any way, and can be removed with no damage if the tractor is sold or if you're doing low clearance work (though it doesn't stick up any higher than the muffler...
> 
> Yeah, I'm the same way... "A dollar saved is a dollar earned"... Plus, usually such things can work better than the "store bought" solution anyway, because you can make it "tailor made" to what you want/need...
> 
> Later! OL J R


Ok... here's the pics of the frame and plywood round that I installed on the ROPS... the kiddie pool gave out a few weeks ago when my brother was doing work with the tractor... the weakest part of the kiddie pools is where they curve up from the bottom to form the sides when the pools are molded. The molding process thins them out the most in that area... That and the action of vibration and exposure to UV in sunlight means they usually fail at that point-- they start cracking and the 'wall' finally busts off the bottoms... BUT, if you store them under cover in a barn or shed, you can usually get about 2 years out of them... 1 year is about all the kiddie pool will last parked outside in the sun all the time...

Since the sides were breaking loose on this one (it's at least 2 years old) he just grabbed the pieces and yanked a few times and ripped the sides off and threw them away... the bottom of the pool is still up on top over the plywood... When Wally World puts out their kiddie pools, I'll buy a new one and unscrew the purlin boards holding it down, toss the old bottom in the trash, slap the new pool on top, and then screw the purlin boards back on top to lock it down in place... takes about ten minutes total...

As you can see from the pics, the frame is designed out of thin-guage ~1-1.5 inch angle iron-- the lightweight stuff is strong enough. It's designed with some "rise" to it to get it up high enough that I don't have to "duck" getting on the tractor, and more importantly, so that when I'm sitting in the seat the rim of the pool wall is high enough that I can see the horizon sitting in the tractor seat (and enough above the horizon to avoid obstacles, while still maintaining maximum shade. As every tractor and operator is a little different, I'd recommend "experimenting" with the pool, holding it above your head to get the right height, and having someone measure from the top of the ROPS to the bottom of the inside of the pool, to know how high to make the rise of the frame.

The frames are constructed as "triangles" to get strength from shape, and the thing is solid as a rock, even with lightweight angle iron construction... Had a few tree limbs "reach out and grab me" enough to tear up older pools, but they've not damaged the frame. I added the plywood circle (half inch plywood) a couple years after I built it-- it adds a lot of stiffness to the pool and helps it last longer than just using fender washers directly on the pool, and makes it easier to attach the pool, using a couple 1x4 boards on top with the corners rounded off (to eliminate stress points that would start cracks in the pools).

Makes a dandy sun and rain shield, while still letting the breeze blow through 360 degrees around and not limiting visibility at all...

Later! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

luke strawwalker said:


> Yeah, the gathering wheels are totally homemade... I've been meaning to do a write-up and send it to Farm Show... I could probably end up published... LOL
> 
> The 552 (built by Gehl, I think they call it a "1400" model or something like that) didn't have them (early 80's baler, we were one of the first to switch to round bales in this part of the country back then) has a fairly small 4 bar pickup, 5 feet wide. I mainly built the gathering wheels to pick up the loose hay that "flops over" the side of the windrow coming off the rolabar rakes so I can crowd it up to the edge of the baler chamber better...
> 
> ...


Here's the pics of the gathering wheels and brackets that I promised... including a couple pics I "labeled" in Paint...

Later! OL J R


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## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

An early video of our New Holland 68 before the refurb. Hay fields were pretty much weeds too. Bales were ragged but this effort helped us see what we had in a baler and what needed to be fixed, adjusted, etc. Sold every bale - thank God for those that have goats and need hay!






Next video is my trusty MF50 diesel and the MF32 sickle bar mower. Second cutting - again, not great hay, but much better than we had in 2014. The fields in both videos have been killed down with roundup, had their share of lime and fertilizer and redrilled with timothy. Fingers crossed for some very nice hay come June.






We're going to try to get some video of the MF and JD tractors working the New Holland 68 and JD 348 balers - with stack wagons behind them - side by side next summer too - just for kicks.

Bill


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## thendrix (May 14, 2015)

This is some petty high efficiency. I would hate to have to try to use it around here though.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)




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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

Nice rig. Most everyone around here spreads poultry litter with a truck.


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

Interesting


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## thendrix (May 14, 2015)

I bet that bottom piece on unlevel ground could result in one hell of a ride. Those are both neat but the first one carrying a round bale above the operator that way would make me nervous


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)




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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

New Kuhn Balers:


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Chopping dry stuff at Shiner last week-- set the camera on my Droid Maxx to "slow motion" and held it behind me...






Later! OL J R


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

Quite the machine. I'd hate to see the price on it. I like how it can dog-track in the field.


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

Clips from around the National Farm Machinery Show 2016, not mine.


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## Lewis Ranch (Jul 15, 2013)

Nice video, wish I could make it up to that show. Who ever filmed it is a real Massey fan.


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

Not exactly a tractor video but still a interesting one






I can only imagine the intial cost of it all


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)




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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)




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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

This some more snowplow rig right here.


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

Grateful11 said:


> This some more snowplow rig right here.


Just normal plows HERE. On a tractor instead of a dump truck or grader.


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## thendrix (May 14, 2015)

That is some more plow. Around here a snow plow is a 6 to 8 ft scrape blade turned about 10 to 15 degrees


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)




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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

There sure seems to be a lot Massey's in Europe, nice looking tractors.


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## Lewis Ranch (Jul 15, 2013)

Few weeks back running 32 out on grazing wheat.


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