This last blizzard was my tractor's maiden voyage into the white stuff. I have a pretty nice Simplicity snow blower a friend gave when he moved to California and the movers wouldn't allow it on the truck. Since then I've felt compelled by gratitude this friend's generosity to clear as many neighbors as a I can. The problem is that one neighbor lives about 1/2 a mile away and walking the snowblower down there is kind of a pain. He's in his 70's and hurt his foot recently, and while he said he was content to wait for the 34" of snow to melt, I was concerned that him and his wife trapped in there together that long might not be the best thing.
So, before heading down to his house, I got looking at my H120 bucket, and figured that I could cantilever a platform in the bucket to carry my blower down there. 30 minutes in the barn with a few scrap fence posts and boards and Voila! It's way more stable than it looks and cost me nothing. What's best is that I could have my tractor to push out the pile the state plows left, and the blower to do the driveway. Everything went great except for a "helpful" other neighbor with a much bigger orange tractor driving up and down the driveway first and leaving me 8" of compacted garbage. Ended up using the tractor more than the blower. (I'll refrain from disparaging remarks about orange tractor operators, out of respect from a few close friends).
Anyway, the platform worked great and I'm now seeing that I could use it for other things, at least until I can pry open my wallet enough to get proper pallet forks. Gravity and leverage are marvelous tools if properly managed. Not sure I'd want to put a pallet of bricks on it or anything, but for what I need it works awesome. The key is having the uprights cut very closely to the inside dimension of the bucket, and something like plywood to keep the geometry between the horizontal piece and vertical piece rigid. It just rotates into the bucket so no tools needed. Thought some of you might enjoy it.
So, before heading down to his house, I got looking at my H120 bucket, and figured that I could cantilever a platform in the bucket to carry my blower down there. 30 minutes in the barn with a few scrap fence posts and boards and Voila! It's way more stable than it looks and cost me nothing. What's best is that I could have my tractor to push out the pile the state plows left, and the blower to do the driveway. Everything went great except for a "helpful" other neighbor with a much bigger orange tractor driving up and down the driveway first and leaving me 8" of compacted garbage. Ended up using the tractor more than the blower. (I'll refrain from disparaging remarks about orange tractor operators, out of respect from a few close friends).
Anyway, the platform worked great and I'm now seeing that I could use it for other things, at least until I can pry open my wallet enough to get proper pallet forks. Gravity and leverage are marvelous tools if properly managed. Not sure I'd want to put a pallet of bricks on it or anything, but for what I need it works awesome. The key is having the uprights cut very closely to the inside dimension of the bucket, and something like plywood to keep the geometry between the horizontal piece and vertical piece rigid. It just rotates into the bucket so no tools needed. Thought some of you might enjoy it.