[Tim Harrigan]

LF, I think you are going to have to be more descriptive or include some calculations for me to understand what you are getting at. The evener under discussion does not require one horse to be ahead or behind in order to re-distribute the load, but it will redistribute the load when that happens. That is the cleaver part of the design. You also have the option of moving one end in to shorten the lever arm for the stronger horse. That changes the load distribution when they are pulling even. So this evener does both, it allows one horse to have more of the load all the time, but it will also apply a differential correction in redistribution to the faster or stronger horse that forges ahead. The more that horse charges ahead the more of the load it has to carry, and the load shift increases at an increasing rate the more out of sync they get.

I would like a little more clarification on the system you are referring to.

[Tim Harrigan]

I can see where it would be more comfortable for the team for some tasks like drawing wagons and carts downhill and it would make backing things easier. Makes sense.

[Tim Harrigan]

Do I understand correctly that you are using britchen with a standard double neck yoke? Why do you do that?

[Tim Harrigan]

@Countymouse 23654 wrote:

…Based on these graphs, I would have predicted that a 4 inch offset would be best. It is very interesting that this seems to be popular.

Yes, isn’t it fun to prove in the laboratory what the old-timers proved in the field? And isn’t it fun to understand exactly what is was they proved by trial and error and perceptive observation. Maybe this is a case where ignorance is not bliss. Old farm tools are full of these subtle examples of mechanical advantage, from the seemingly simplest hand tools to more complicated threshing machines. These are the real innovations that advanced agriculture and are too often taken for granted.

[Tim Harrigan]

A deeper double tree would accentuate the load distribution as Carl mentioned. The length of the double tree is not so much the issue as the relative difference in length from side-to-side. It would also be possible to design a evener that would shift the load to the lagging animal by pinning the load in front of the end points.

[Tim Harrigan]

Nice work, Wolfgang. What size are the bows? What are you going to use for a staple or other yoke hardware?

[Tim Harrigan]

Thanks for working that out, Andy. It is quite interesting how subtle differences in pin placement allow quite a large range in fine-tuning in distributing the pulling forces to the team. The differences could be accentuated (not with this evener, but in designing another) by dropping the center pin back an inch or so, or perhaps by allowing a little lateral adjustment in the center pin placement. As I mentioned earlier, moving the center pin 1 inch side-to-side has the same effect as moving an end pin 2 inches. Good stuff, and these historical designs were no accident.

[Tim Harrigan]

http://www.mwps.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=c_Products.viewProduct&catID=720&productID=6482&skunumber=MWPS%2D45&crow=1

Here is one that comes to mind. It is a 2000 publication but it has a lot of good information. Check with MWPS, you could also try Amazon or ebay.

[Tim Harrigan]

George, I was a little frustrated with my Husky when I got it. Like Scott said, mine will grunt on the second or third pull, then I put the choke fully off. Then is usually starts on the second pull. I am not shy about giving it a shot or two with the primer bulb even if it is warm. I am pretty happy with it now that I know what to expect.

Good suggestion, Scott, to kick off the chain brake after it starts. It cranks pretty good until you throttle down.

[Tim Harrigan]

That planter was frequently used for a variation of no-till known as ridge-till. Ridge till was more common west of the Mississippi on soils that were poorly drained. Ridges were built in the fall and then the tops were sliced off in the spring to expose the seedbed. There would typically be no residue in the seedbed because it was thrown into the inter-row area by the sweep that sliced off the top of the ridge. The ridging helped dry the soil early in the spring and then exposing the seedbed with no residue speeded soil warm-up. There was a very low-level of adoption in MI years ago, I do not know anyone doing it anymore since no-till planters have improved. So although it is technically a no-till planter it is not designed to work well in residue as it is. When it was used for more standard no-till it was used with a cutting coulter to slice the residue so the runner type opener would not drag it along. The knock on it was furrow side-wall compaction and heavy residue in the seedbed. Zone tillage with multiple coulters and/or sweeping the residue aside with row cleaners is much more effective for warming the seedbed for early spring planting.

You might want to see what else you can find, I really think you want either a single or double-disk opener.

[Tim Harrigan]

I have never used an aluminum one but it is probably made to be lighter than wood. But I like heft of the wood and also the varying contour of the wood handle, particularly when I swing it into the log to get a good bite with the hook. Probably depends on what you are used to.

[Tim Harrigan]

@Biological Woodsman 23564 wrote:

A question I always wanted to ask Tim is if he thought a buffer would add to the capacity of a pulling team? If so, I want one…
Jason

Based on the measurements we have made it is clear that a buffer can change the nature of the pulling force, but it is not clear to me yet that it can add to the capacity in a practical way. I suspect that it is possible to design a buffer to do that for a task that is predictable as far as the speed and pulling force needed but not so easy to do over a wide range of tasks and pulling forces. For instance, we compared wagon draft with horses using standard traces or a type of nylon rope trace (ZEP). When we pulled a wagon with pneumatic tires the average draft was 19% higher with the standard traces than with the nylon rope. When we used the same harness systems with a wagon with the same load with steel tires which of course pulled much harder there was no advantage for the nylon rope trace.

So I think it is possible, not sure how practical it is. Andy designed a nice singletree that we will be testing in the near future as soon as I can get some final details worked out. We will be discussing it on DAPnet for sure when we do.

[Tim Harrigan]

Good points on the conditioning of draft animals and there is no question that real work sharpens the intent and demands on both the teamster and the team. I am a proponent of measured conditioning, though, and I have never seen it as mindlessly pulling a load. Pulling a known load trains the observant teamster to read the response of the team to various levels of exertion and effort. The response is both physiological and mental, and it can be functional as well if you demand the level of precision and responsiveness required in real work. Usually, though, that is not one of the higher objectives in this type of conditioning. This type of conditioning is, I think, respectful of the animals in helping their transition from a period of inactivity to more demanding work. This is something many of us see every year in events like plow days. Too often a team is not conditioned to the physical demand, perhaps the teamster underestimates the exertion needed, and the team refuses to pull, jumps the furrow, or is generally unpleasant because they have been poorly prepared.

It is unfair to expect a team to be mentally tough if they are not physically conditioned. The effort required of stone boat loads is readily transferable to other working loads with a level of awareness that is within the reach of most good teamsters. I think it should be a goal of draft animal practitioners to understand the flux of physical and mental limits of their team, and to be able to take them to that limit if necessary, and rarely ask them to move a load that is beyond their capability.

Not many of us work our animals on a daily basis. That puts us in the position of having to make extra efforts to see that they are ready to go when the time comes.

[Tim Harrigan]

Andy, I am still not clear on that planter. I think of a lister as a hilling device so I am not clear on how that planter is supposed to work and I can not see it very well in the picture. Even if you go with the row cleaner I think it would be best to find a planter with a disk-type opener that will roll over any residue that is missed. The row cleaner will not be perfect and it does not take much sometimes to plug up.

[Tim Harrigan]

@Countymouse 23470 wrote:

Mac,

Any idea how much weight (or downforce) these row cleaners need on them to work well? I saw that even though some row cleaners float with a unknown downward force from a spring, but there is still a market for wheel weights with the floating cleaners. The wheel weights are pretty light though, so I am guessing they don’t need more than 50-100 lbs on them??? That is do-able from a design standpoint.

Andy, I am not seeing any down pressure springs on the floating row cleaners. I am a little more familiar with the fixed type and they are on heavier planter units so it might take some experimentation. I would start with just the wheel weights and see how it goes. You do not want to dig a trench, just skim the top and sweep the trash away. If you are on lightly tilled ground it will not take much. It might be more important to add a little down pressure to the planter unit to keep it stable and prevent bouncing and shallow seed placement.

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