Having worked with rocks on farm land all of my life, from picking them by hand, to crushing them today, I can appreciate the thought and effort that has gone into building that machine. The aim is to pick as much rock as you can, without taking too much soil and then screen the remaining soil out and return it to the paddock. The next problem is to put the rock somewhere when it is picked. Some machines have a truck following them to take the rocks from a conveyor belt, but then the machine stops while the truck is unloading. With his elevating hopper, both the truck and the machine can keep working. It looks like he may have taken the gathering and screening ideas, from some of the other tractor pulled pickers that are on the market and incorporated them in to a self propelled machine.
In our our area a lot of farm land is limestone country and stone picking machines have been used to clear thousands of acres, for decades. Two machines were designed and built here, one in the 1930's and one in the 1960's and are still in use today. They are simple mechanical pickers, one that rakes the rocks into a big wheel and it lifts them up ito a hopper and one that rakes and elevates the rocks into a tractor pulled trailer or tip truck.
I am looking at designing a picker that will pick up milled limestone, to a depth of around 100mm, screen off the oversize which can be used in our crushing operation and the remainder, around -30mm will be returned to the paddock. I plan to start a thread about that down the track, because I need some ideas.
RnR.
I'm happy to hear that you liked the machine!
