Making your own ripper

[suladas]

Been kicking around the idea of making a ripper for my Takeuchi 153, trying to find some kind of shank and only need to make the mount to go onto the machine but no luck. Has anyone just bought some steel and made the entire thing from scratch? I know they always have a curve in them, but what about just getting a heavy piece of steel and making it straight? The machine has wain roy coupler, so making it mate to that is easy, and I could still make the end have a replaceable tooth. But making the curve like they usually have wouldn't be possible. It wouldn't see a lot of use, but with the cold temperatures we are getting, would make it a lot easier when I go to dig trenches.

 

[007]

There is no need to have curved back.
On your weight machine will make little difference.
In fact on your size machine having a square heel at the back is handy cause you will find if you hook it under the ground on large rocks you can rotate it back and it acts like pry bar.
It increases your machines ability to dislodge big time.
But fit a nice big strong tooth cause it puts huge pressure on tooth.

 

[Junkyard]

Mild steel would be fine, run a hard rod pattern on the leading edge and the sides to help it last. Straight would be ok as you can create whatever angle you want with bucket curl.

 

[hosspuller]

You might consider starting with a tractor single point sub-soiler. Adapt as needed.

 

[suladas]

Yea that makes sense, it doesn't have near the power of a full size machine, I just wasn't sure why every ripper i've seen was curled. I was going to head to metal place tomorrow and see what they have for random pieces, I was thinking 1"x4" solid would probably be as small as I want to go for the shank? There is a place close by that sells teeth and has the shanks to go onto buckets and replaceable teeth for rippers, thinking maybe get a tiger bucket tooth for like a 12 ton machine, i think that would be suitable? Instead of trying to grind down and make the tooth fit into the shank, I figured much easier to just get the replaceable part that normally welds onto the bucket and weld onto shank? I'm not a good welder, but I have someone who welds stuff up for me who is.

 

[JD8875]

I built one three years ago for my IHI 30 class. Tooth is a piece of 3/4" thick mild steel from something I scrapped on the farm. Mounting ears are 3/8" scrap steel. I use it a lot this time of year when digging utilities. I usually rip about 2ft wide and dig a 16" trench. Much faster than scraping away at ice with the bucket teeth. My ripper shank is 20" long and about 6" wide. It also works good paired with the thumb for pulling stumps. I can try to grab a pic of it later this week if you want.

Good luck
John

 

[007]

Most of the small machines have fairly short rippers, I could measure mine if you wanted.
4'' by 1'' will be fine for the shank.
Not shore i would use a tiger tooth on a ripper, not sure that's going to work out for you.
You can buy a weld on shank for your tooth if you go that way.
I have a factory ripper with a tooth that was hand fitted to to the shank.
They have done a crap job that must have only taken minutes to grind but works ok.
Some thing i have always wanted to do to mine was make a bolt on plate at the back of the shank.
Sometimes when you are breaking up shale you carn't see what you are doing after a while and you have to keep putting the bucket on to clear the material out of the way.
I reckon if in those conditions with maybe a 4 or 6 inch plate at the back you could rake the material out of the way more.
Changing from ripper to bucket can drive you crazy sometimes.
Anyway just a thought.

 

[suladas]

Didn't end up having 1" by 4" I didn't want to buy 10' I just wanted to buy a scrap piece, so I got 3/4" by 5" I got two pieces, not sure if I should weld them together, or one would be sufficient? I was thinking the tooth would be probably about 10" long, so ontop of that if I had about 20" of usable shank it would be sufficient? I have about 4' of piece for the shank, so I have plenty of length for bracing. I was ripping frost this week with my 210 and there was nearly 2', so I think I need a bit more then that of usable because I could run into it even deeper then that. I thought about it more and yea the tiger tooth doesn't seem like a good idea, It should be one really pointy one. I wonder if I should just use the same one as my 210 is? The end sure isn't that big, I could probably grind it more pointy if I needed to, I have a bunch kicking around I got when I bought the machine that I will likely never use. Yea a piece of plate would be nice to be able to move the material out of the way for sure.

 

[Willie B]

Couldn't a tooth shank from a very large excavator bucket be grafted to a mild steel shank? Add a replaceable tooth.

 

[007]

This is just my opinion so don't take offense.
If you were ripping 2' down with that size machine isn't it time to remove material and have another go with spike.
Its just your ripper is stronger and more powerful the shorter you make it.
20'' sounds fine but one 3/4 x 5 sounds a bit ordinary.
I know you can weld them together but have you considered making a V shape that opens out at the top to the width of the ears.
You could weld what ever part way on front or back faces.
This would save you making all the strengthening gussets around the top plate.
10'' long tooth sounds to long to me?
Maybe you can lay it on the ground and post a pic to get a better idea of proportions.
Since you are in creative mode I have a shoe that i made that fits over mine.
It allows me to rake out about a 3'' trench which i have used to put in kilometers of poly pipe.
I know that's not ideal but they just want the poly below the surface.
Just a thought!

 

[John C.]

I'm not sure of the way to attach a excavator tooth shank to a ripper unless you turned the shank on its side. That would put the leading edge of the tooth straight up and down.

The curve in dozer ripper shanks helps make the rippers act like plow shares. The deeper they go the more horizontal they point to penetrate and lift the rock and soil straight up to bust it. If you look at four barrel rippers the shanks are mostly straight up and down. When used on an excavator it would be like the four barrel ripper in that you get to put the tooth at any angle you want.

 

[Willie B]

It occurs to me you want a hook. To break frost you must get a hole first. Said hole could be made with the help of an abrasive saw. Once a hole is created below frost, you need to move away unfrozen soil, undermine the frozen ground as though it were an undercut stream bank. Then it is weak. If you have a thumb, a big honking boulder can be a great breaker. Pick up as big a boulder as high as you can, and drop it on the overhang repeatedly. Then, the point can be used under the shelf to pull it up.

With this system a small, extra duty bucket is useful

 

[suladas]

Completely forgot about this thread. Anyways I ended up buying a shank end with tooth and welding it on the end, works great. The original 5 1/2" by 3/4" bent pretty quick, partly my fault I think as it was a bit loose in my coupler, allowing it to bend a bit. So I added one on each side making it 5 1/2" by 2 1/4", and 1/2" by 2 1/4 pieces on the sides to further strengthen it and works great. The reason I wanted 2' is to rip an entire trench of 2' of frost before going back to my bucket. As far as undermining it, the ground was so wet and so frozen, not a chance. I spent about 10 hours with just the ripper on, it held up great so far wore through an entire tooth. Very happy with it, doesn't look like much but it works and only cost like $200 in steel and not much time. Only thing left to do is shim it so it fits tighter on my coupler and doesn't move.

 

[tomo]

I have a same machine I was going to build one for mine out of a ripper Shank from a field cultivator and one day I was at the local junk yard and actually found one that looks like its for a backhoe. I adapted it to fit my coupler and it works great. You might check around if you have any equipment junk yards or dealers to see if they might have one laying around that you can buy cheap. Good luck!

 

[Jbullfrog]

I found a frost tooth on Craigslist for a Case Backhoe along with a Stanley Hoe Pack. My local welding shop cuts my adapter mounts and I use 1-3/4" cylinder rod for pins to match my quicktach. The Case shanks can be had for $200-500 and the adapter cost me $150

 

[ih100]

I made a straight one for my little Kubota out of 6" X 1" strip, used a profile cutter to cut a 60 degree edge, and welded a bit of dozer wearing edge about 2.5" wide for a wearing edge. It isn't good for levering rocks out, but it slices small tree roots like a knife, which is what it gets used most for. I'm going to make a curved profile one for more general work.

 

[Jbullfrog]

https://desmoines.craigslist.org/grd/d/heavy-duty-frost-ripper-root/6549501537.html
They pop up for sale this's time of year .