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Ripping frost

GCC

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Mar 6, 2011
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172
Location
Ontario, Canada
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Excavation
Hello i need to know how big of dozer it take to rip 6" to 8" of frost i have about 200 acre to rip and need to know what size of machine to rent and its going to be 3 Shank ripper Thanks guys
 

GCC

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Mar 6, 2011
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172
Location
Ontario, Canada
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Excavation
when i called tormont (CAT) they told me D6N/D6T with three shank ripper would not be enough i thought it would be since its is only about 6"
 

grandpa rich

Active Member
Joined
Feb 9, 2012
Messages
27
Location
southern mn
The biggest problem with frost is getting under it. 6'' isn't to bad and if there is any kind of parabolic curve to the shank it will break the frost ahead of the shank. Most of the cat rippers I've seen do not have a parabolic curve. I'm from southern mn and I am wondering why you want to work frozen ground at this time. I'm just curious.
 

GCC

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Mar 6, 2011
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172
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Ontario, Canada
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Excavation
I have no idea why they want to I always get left in the dark till half way through projects I'm guess it has something to do with solar. Also I think its do to that we have no snow in that area so they want to get a head start on it they always have me mullboard plow after I clear the trees and underbrush. Why they like to distrub the exsisting ground I dont know but it is what it is and give me work so I dont question it but normally i can get away with using equipment like my hitachi 330 and my D3 and my bobcat 337. So this time I need something to rip the soil if I could make them wait till spring I would. Renting Deere are not out of the question ether
 

GCC

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Ontario, Canada
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What ever machine I decide to rent I have to rent for a min. Of one month
 

grandpa rich

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Feb 9, 2012
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Location
southern mn
I know what you mean about being left in the dark on a job. Clearing 200 acres of brush can be a formidable job at any time of the year. If the equipment is too small for the job you end up with 2 months rent and if it's too big it will set at the end of the month. I have never ran a new high drive, but I would take the biggest horse in the barn. I'm quite a bit south of you and west but last week I was doing some work on a fence line and with the grass and a couple inches of snow the frost was only a few inches thick so It might not be as bad as it normally can be this at this time of the year. Are you as dry there as we are?
 

GCC

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Mar 6, 2011
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172
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Ontario, Canada
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Excavation
well its a mixture of of dry and wet but he has come to the deicion to rent the D8T for a month and I might possible buy a frost ripper for my 330 also it really sounds like its going to be a b*tch ripping the fields. and there is no snow there so the frost is only getting drove in deeper and deeper
 

grandpa

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Oct 15, 2009
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Location
northern minnesota
well its a mixture of of dry and wet but he has come to the deicion to rent the D8T for a month and I might possible buy a frost ripper for my 330 also it really sounds like its going to be a b*tch ripping the fields. and there is no snow there so the frost is only getting drove in deeper and deeper

I dunno what part of Ontario you are in but im only a hundred or so miles from the boarder, an am currently working in a bog area and there is as much frost in the bog as any year i have ever worked in this bog,,, at least 14inches today. Im thinking ur gonna work that 8t pretty good,. Altho on high ground it is very dry and that should lessen the burden quite a bit.... good luck with it all.
 

grandpa rich

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Feb 9, 2012
Messages
27
Location
southern mn
Grandpa If you are clearing the bogs now so that they support the heavy eq. will they try to farm it in the spring or is this for a road? If they are going to farm it next year what do they do with the water? I was deer hunting about 30 miles north of thief river years ago and they just ran surface drainage to the road ditches. I had never seen that before.
 

alco

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Apr 7, 2006
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here
id say a 6 would be plenty, buu if you got an 8 you would be able to get it done in a day

Wow, I see math isn't your strong suit. Even if you worked 24 hours a day without stopping for food, fuel, bathroom breaks, that would leave you at 7 mins and 12 seconds per acre. Good luck with that.
 

grandpa rich

Active Member
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Feb 9, 2012
Messages
27
Location
southern mn
If the field is one half mile square it would be 160 acres with a 40 to one side to make 200. I'm just assuming your going to travel from one end to the other and farm it down, and that the field is fairly level. With a 3 tooth ripper on 3 foot spacing the machine would take a 9 foot swath, traveling wide open in low gear on a half mile pass without much slippage the tractor should cover around around 2.18 acres /hour. This is just ripping from one end to the other on a fairly level field with no slippage and coming back to work the the ends when your done. If the field is not square you can start backing off from the 2 acres / hour. I have a 320 or half section filed that is 1 mile long and one half mile wide with a 50 foot field cultivator I can usually figure 12 hours and that includes coming back and reworking the ends to level them off. that"s not quite 26 acres / hour. By contrast I have a 44 acre field that lays up next to a creek with only one square side and that usually takes 2.5 hours to work because of all the turning and that"s with the same machine. So now we are only working 18 acres per hour. If your full capacity with the 8T is 2.18 acre and you irregular shapes, hills, slippage and whatever else can go wrong gets cut to 70% of full capacity your down to 1.5 acres per hour. So just a wild guess is 90 to 130 hours to just farm it down with a 9 foot ripper traveling at 2.5 mph.
 

245dlc

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Canada
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So is this for a housing subdivision, it's kinda hard to understand what you wrote. I live in Manitoba and despite being a mild winter, the complete lack of snow the on again, off again snow makes it very difficult to get through the top 12-18" of frost. Are you pushing all this frozen ground into a pile after? Leaving it to thaw out till spring? Is this for a quarry or gravel pit? And getting under the frost isn't the worst thing it's getting enough traction to pull all three shanks through the ground so I hope your able to rent something with fairly new grousers you might even want to weld some spikes on to them. Once you clear those trees your frost will get pounded down deeper and harder and if there is any sand, silt, gravel, or rock it'll be a hell of a fight the whole way.
 

GCC

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Mar 6, 2011
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172
Location
Ontario, Canada
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Excavation
Ok so there is no trees on it and the frost is only 6" at this time also the D8T only has a single shank on it and its for solar
 

grandpa rich

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Feb 9, 2012
Messages
27
Location
southern mn
I feel dumber than a box of rocks! I'm still not understanding why you are going to just rip sod and leave it until spring to moldboard plow. A moldboard will work a lot better if the ground is firm. If there is a considerable amount of grass which would explain why the frost is only 6" deep you would be better to shred the grass and leave it lay on top until spring but by doing that the ground is not going to thaw as quick in the spring. The mulch lays there like a blanket and won't let the ground warm up. If your just trying to get a jump on spring tillage why not try controlled burns to get rid of all of the foliage so that you have completely black ground. This will drive the frost much deeper but it will also warm up and thaw a lot faster in the spring. I don't understand why you would want to rip the ground unless it has some kind of a compaction problem, and if so a completely black surface with deep frost will do more to the top few inches than a ripper ever will.
 

grandpa rich

Active Member
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Feb 9, 2012
Messages
27
Location
southern mn
sorry about the last post. I just went back and re read what you you wrote earlier and your right. It sounds like they just want it ripped. If you can still rip it on a 9 foot interval the figures I gave before are still valid. If you have to go to a 6 foot or 3 foot interval it would be a a lot more time.
 

GCC

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Mar 6, 2011
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172
Location
Ontario, Canada
Occupation
Excavation
Ya its a stupid job but I guess if they wanna spend the money ill gladly take it why they would spend so much on solar farm idk
 
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