Potato digger for a walk-behind tractor with your own hands: how to do it with photos and videos

People living in the countryside and summer residents annually harvest potatoes. This process is quite laborious, especially if you do manual cleaning. To simplify the collection of potatoes, many purchase special potato diggers for walk-behind tractors. However, some owners refuse such a purchase and try to make such a design on their own. However, before a do-it-yourself potato digger is made, you need to familiarize yourself with the types of diggers and the features of their manufacture.

Destination

Before you create a potato digger, you need to study in more detail, this tool is used for it. Such an attachment should be used together with a walk-behind tractor. It is used for digging potatoes and digging land in fields and household plots.

The main function of the potato digger is to separate the tubers from the soil and lay them on the surface of the earth. That is why many vegetable growers and farmers buy or make their own such devices before harvesting.

Varieties

Any potato digger for a mini tractor is made for loosening the earth and digging potato tubers onto its surface. However, despite the fact that all potato diggers for a walk-behind tractor perform the same function, such designs may still differ. There are several types of diggers that you can make yourself or purchase from a store.

Vibrating or screening

The screening potato digger is made of a vibrating sieve and a plowshare. The vibration product has a fairly simple principle of operation. During operation, the digger is placed in the soil and gradually extracts ripened tubers from there.Together with the soil, they fall on a sieve to shake off unnecessary soil. Such a potato digger has a serious drawback - it is very difficult to make it yourself.

Plain or fan-shaped

This fan potato digger for a mini tractor has the simplest design. It is made from a plow to which several arrows must be attached. During harvesting with a motor cultivator with a simple digger installed, the plow will go deep into the ground and dug out tubers will begin to rise along its rods. The advantages of this digger include its versatility. It can be installed on any model of walk-behind tractors and mini tractors.

Transportation

A transport-type potato digger is great for walk-behind tractors of a model such as the Neva, and therefore it must be used with them.The design of such a digger is very simple and consists only of a mobile conveyor and a plowshare. The conveyor has a special hook that holds the tubers and helps to separate them from the ground. The transport potato digger should only be used in areas with heavy soil, as this model does not dig up tubers well from soil with a low degree of density.

How to make a potato digger with your own hands

Before you make a potato digger for a walk-behind tractor with your own hands, you need to read the instructions for making such products. First, you should familiarize yourself with the list of tools that will be useful for creating a manual potato digger. To make a homemade potato digger you will need:

nuts with bolts;
reinforced bars;
iron plate;
engraver;
welding;
Bulgarian;
metal corners.

Creating a Frame

The basis of the homemade product for a walk-behind tractor or a tractor is the frame of a potato digger. To make a quality frame, you need to familiarize yourself with the basic steps of its creation.

Welding the fixing rectangle

The mounting rectangle forms the frame of the entire device and therefore it must be done very carefully. To make the frame, you will need a square iron pipe with a length of at least four meters and a width of about 50 cm. It is cut into four different parts, two of which should have a length of 100-120 cm, and the rest - 80-90 cm. All cut pipes are welded in this way so that the result is a rectangular structure.After welding, hand sanding of the edges should be carried out to remove sharp corners.

Jumper attachment

The potato digger to the walk-behind tractor must adjust its level of inclination and for this purpose a jumper is installed for mounting special rods. It is mounted in the center of a rectangular frame. On the opposite side, two small pipes are installed, no more than 10 cm long and 25 mm in diameter. The tubes are mounted on the frame so that wheels can be attached to them in the future. They are installed on the outside of the frame in one of its corners. After attaching the pipes, small holes with a diameter of 10-15 mm are made in each of them using a drill.

Installation of vertical racks

In order for a do-it-yourself potato digger for a walk-behind tractor to have a more reliable frame, several vertical racks will have to be attached to the frame.First you need to step back from the jumper 5-10 cm along the frame and weld a small metal square measuring 35x35 cm perpendicular to it. Then you need to step back 15 cm from it and attach iron racks 30-35 cm long. As a result, the finished structure outwardly it should look like an inverted ladder.

Stand connection

The final step in creating the frame, which will consist of a potato digger for a tractor, is the connection of the edges of the racks. For this, it is recommended to use metal strips 0.5 mm thick. Each of these strips is welded to the racks at an angle of 45 degrees, after which their edges should be connected to each other. The finished structure will be in the shape of a triangle.

Ralo and pitched board

Having finished with the frame, you can start creating a pitched board and ral.These made parts of a potato digger for a walk-behind tractor are used to dig up tubers from the ground and clean them from the ground. For an inexperienced tractor driver and gardener, creating such elements can seem like a very difficult job. Therefore, before getting down to business, you need to familiarize yourself with the peculiarities of their manufacture.

Ral welding

To create this element with your own hands, you will need to make two small holes in a small iron sheet with dimensions of 30x30 cm for installing M12 bolts. They will also have to be made in each of the racks at a distance of about 45 cm from the bottom. When all the holes are prepared, it will be possible to screw the metal sheet.

Then place another iron sheet on the opposite side. In this case, metal is used with dimensions of 60x30 cm and a thickness of 0.5 mm. It is necessary to hit the center of the attached sheet 2-3 times with a sledgehammer to form a cone.

Welding the pitched board

A device for digging potatoes must necessarily have a pitched board, and therefore, after welding the ral, it is necessary to start manufacturing it. To create a pitched board, you will need to prepare one twig with a diameter of 10-15 mm and a length of about one meter. One of its edges is welded to the newly created ral, and the second should go beyond the base of the potato digger for the walk-behind tractor.

There are times when a welded twig starts to wobble a lot and you have to create additional support for it. To do this, a riser 25-30 cm long is welded at the end of the frame. Then a square pipe is attached to the riser, to which three twigs will have to be welded to ensure additional stability of the structure.

Installing adjusting rods

A homemade potato digger for a walk-behind tractor must be equipped with adjusting rods.They are installed so that in the future it will be possible to independently adjust the slope of each installed rod. They must be mounted to the first cross member on the frame of the product. To reduce the angle of inclination, the installed thrust will have to be unscrewed so that its rods begin to protrude. To increase the angle, you have to screw the rods back.

Mounting wheels

In order for the potato digger attached to the walk-behind tractor to move better around the site, you need to install several wheels on it. To do this, you can use any wheels from wheelbarrows, the carrying capacity of which should not exceed one hundred kilograms. A mount must be welded to each wheel and installed on the potato digger.

Conclusion

Every gardener who grows vegetables on his plot is engaged in digging potatoes.Doing this manually is quite difficult, and therefore many use special potato diggers for walk-behind tractors. To create such a design yourself, you need to read the step-by-step instructions for making diggers.