Hello Guys

I'm looking for ideas to put my D2 to some use (it's slobbering, so I want to give it some real work !!). I have 10 acres of light sandy soil (ancient sand dune type soils) and live in an area of small farms that run mainly sheep, horses and some cattle, very little cropping is done, its all grass fed stuff.

I've been looking for a blade but even if I get one at a reasonable cost, there won't be a lot of work, and my D2 doesn't have the large idlers and extended track frame to do good dozing work (and I'm very inexperienced at this so would be on a steep learning curve anyway).

The D2 spent most of its life dragging a mole plough, but as far as I can tell, mole plowing in our sandy soil isn't that useful.

So . . . I was thinking about other jobs I could do using trailed implements, and was thinking about some of the modern low-tillage type trailing implements such as subsoilers and chisel ploughs. I have an arc welder, some big box section and a front mounted hydraulic pack, I need is some advice and ideas. Here is one idea, the principle looks interesting (at a smaller scale obviously). Any other ideas ??

Thanks - Foster

Hmmm - not getting much "traction" here, am I being un-intentionally rude or just asking the question wrong??

Here is a picture of the mole plough my D2 worked with for most of its life. (the Hanomag doing the pulling here preceeded the families ownership of what is now my D2 , and is driven here by Grandfather Zweiss on their farm in Southland, New Zealand)

If folk have pictures of this sort of trailed agricultural or earthmoving equipment I would love to see them.

Cheers - Foster

anyway you could borrow that plow or go run it whereever it is? That ought to do the trick. How did the D2 handle it compared to the Hanomag? What kind of land did they run it in? I guess it needed draining if they were running a mole in it.

On the other hand why not try your hand at fabricating a dozer or find one. Might be about as easy as some kind of trailing implement. I expect you will find more to do with a dozer blade than a plow on your place.

Here is a picture of my chissel plow behind my model M. This was taken when I first brought the chissel home. I used it last fall to loosen up the soil in our vinyard. The ground was so hard that I could only pull one chissel. Hopefully I will be able to pull more over time as the ground softens up.

I like that tool in NZCat's first post it looks like small keyline ploughs with a conditioner and roller. It would be an excellent tool for dryland farming.

Chris I see thd D8 is not your first crawler. That is a nice Model M. That AC is the tractor that replaced the horse for sidehill farming in our area. It took the 5U D2 to keep up with them. I have an old chisel a little bigger than yours that I got at an auction for $5. There must be old stuff like that available in NZ that could make that D2 work. I must warn you guys that 2 rope setup knocked my back out many times, probably gave me a permenent disability if I was entitled.

Tom