I live in the middle of the woods and I spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with leaves. I ahve a 1/2 mile steep drive whose ditches must be kept free or leaf jams wash out the road. The actual yard and shop all have to be cleared for landscaping and fire hazard. When young it was all rake work till i developed rakers elbow. Then cheap blowers till finally got my Huskyvarna Back pack which works great but you can only move leaves so far by blowing.
I want an easy way to pick them up and moved them to mulch piles. Was wondering why a fellar couldnt take a cheap dust collector like my smaller Grizzley and power it with say a 5hp. Honda horizontal shaft engine and suck them up and blow them into back of my enclosed pickup bed.Could the impellar blades take it if i wasnt sucking up road gravel ? I know id have to cut out metal matrix on inlet of blower so it wouldnt clog which i had to do on my big collector in shop (pine planer shavings gagged it) . I have no idea what size pulleys id have to use configure the two machines sincer dust collector has 1 1/2hp electric.
Does this sound at all feasible? I know they make big machines to do this but they are pretty pricey and thier mobility is limited. But after last weeks wind storm and leaves drifted up 3′ deep behind the house im looking hard for easier ways.
Replies
I want an easy way to pick them up and moved them to mulch piles. Was wondering why a fellar couldnt take a cheap dust collector like my smaller Grizzley and power it with say a 5hp. Honda horizontal shaft engine and suck them up and blow them into back of my enclosed pickup bed.
I would say I use your method every week end to clear my shop of dust... When it is warn outside!
I never tried to use the pickup truck.. Why would a man spray litter to his favorite lady?
Do you have an emergency generator? It could come in handy for a lot of things. Why don't you create a pile of leaves outside your shop near an electrical outlet and observe if the collector would work satisfactorily?
Edited 2/17/2009 9:27 pm ET by Tinkerer3
I did something like this in my "yoot". I bought a gas-powered yard vac and canablized it to make a vac I could tow behind the ride-on and blow leaves, etc., into a cage I hauled on a trailer. Worked like a charm. However, the majority of the work was accomplished by the mower blades sucking up and chopping the leaves. The vac collected them from the mower discharge. I'd be surprised if you could get enough suction to pick up leaves, especially if they're wet, without the help of the blades.
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
PS: You may wanna post this Q over at Breaktime as well. Wouldn't be surprised if someone over there has some interesting ideas on this.
tree
You might want to check this place out. http://www.cyclonerake.com Thier top of the line model is only $1695 and you can get a 32' estate hose to do those ditches. Can't imangine building anything comparable any cheaper.
Rich
The Professional Termite
Yep -- that's pretty much what I made (for a couple hundred $, IIRC). I don't think it would work for the OP tho', cause you need the mower to pick up the leaves. The vac just moves 'em to the trailer once they're up and moving.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
Mike
Go to the website and look closer. You don't need the mower to pick up the leaves. The unit is self contained and has it's own vacuum, which will also work to unload the unit if you want to blow them over a wall rather than dump them. IF you have the parts already on hand it wouldnt take much to put it together, but, IF you are buying an engine, a blower, trailer or wheels, a hopper and all the piping it wouldn't take much to go over the cost.
RichThe Professional Termite
Well, I looked again. It still looks like it basically takes takes up where the mower leaves off, simply collecting the discharge and moving it to the bin -- i.e., it relies on the blades for the initial pickup-and-push. My guess is that it would hardly do anything if the mower wasn't running. Could be wrong, but . . . .
I think you'd need a LOT bigger fan to pick up very much without the mower blades. I know our township picks up leaves in the fall with a fan unit. You rake 'em into the street, and once a week, they drive by with a dump truck and suck 'em up. The fan is huge -- about 5' in diameter -- and driven by a big diesel engine. Sounds like a jet landing in front of your house. If the leaves are wet, even that sucker can't do the job. The workers have to get out with a shovel and help it out a bit.
Also, I'd be surprised if the OP could drive his mower down in the ditch. Without some really serious equipment, like highway department-type stuff, I think he's stuck with doing it the hard way, unfortunately.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
Mike
On thier main page click on the Year Round Uses tab and there are some photos of the vacuum hose in use. Nothing is even connected to the mower during use of that feature. I have never used one of these units so cannot personally vouch for what it can or cannot pick up. The blower looks to be about 18" dia and the hoses are 8" so it should suck pretty good. :o) My little Stihl leaf blower has no trouble picking up wet stuff along with #2 crushed gravel.
With its high impact plastic impeller and being designed for this use I would have to believe it would work better than something rigged up from a dust collector. I was only trying to show the OP that such things as he was trying to design are already on the market and it is usually easier and cheaper to buy what someone else has reaserched and developed.
Anywho it's the wrong season for leaf suckin right now. Gotta go move last nights snow.
Rich
The Professional Termite
Edited 2/20/2009 9:27 am ET by trialnut
It seems obvious to me that you have so many leaves, that collecting them is not the answer. You need to move them.
When I lived in Ohio, there was a local landscaper that got most of his all-summer lawn business based on how effectively he did the leaves in the fall.
He had a couple of those backpack units, but they were used for mid-summer grass clippings. When it came to the fall, he had two machines.
One was a huge blower (maybe 30" diameter, 12" depth) that was powered by a rather large gas engine. I'm thinking it was maybe 8 or 10 HP. Motor and blower were mounted together on a roll-around frame. The shaft of the motor and blower were horizontal, and the air outlet was at ground level. This thing could blow leaves -- lots of them -- 40 or 50 feet in one pass.
The second machine was a combination of something store-bought, and something home-made.
As I mentioned, his main business was lawns. He had a mower that was one of those weird things that you stand on and ride, while holding the handlebars. For leaf-moving, he removed the mower deck, and built a huge "snowplow" type of thing on the front. It was made with angle iron, and chicken wire fencing. (Come to think of it, this looked very much like it belonged in a reprise of a "Mad Max" movie.)
He'd use the big blower to move the leaves as far as he could. When the pile got too large or too deep, he'd plow the pile with the madmax machine.
As for the ditches....... I never saw this guy do a ditch. But I'll bet that if you could attach a hose to the outlet of the blower, with some sort of handle on the end of the hose, you'd be in business.
Check out the offerings of Country Home at http://www.drpower.com/content.aspx?id=56. They've got a variety of products designed for doing what you're after. Although I've never purchased a leaf vacuum from them, I've got several of their products. They put out a good line of equipment and are good people to deal with.
For a heavy-duty vacuum, I've been toying with the idea of modifying a silo blower to mount on the three point hitch of a tractor. I'm thinking that would be a nice way to clean up around my sawmill.
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