- Joined
- Jul 28, 2017
- Messages
- 2,565
We have a really bad infestation of a particular weed, called shining geranium. It spreads like wildfire and chokes out everything else. It can be killed with herbicides like glyfosate (A.K.A. Roundup), but that stuff kills lots of other plants, too. Some plants and vegetables are very sensitive to it so herbicide drift also is a concern. I'm not a purist when it comes to using herbicides but there are situations where that approach isn't the best.
Anyway, I realized this particular weed has a growth habit that makes it possible to design an effective weeder to remove it. The weed puts roots down to the soil from a little crown where the stems come from, so the crown is larger than the roots. A rake with more closely-spaced tines might do the trick. After some experimentation I came up with something and today had the first opportunity to try it out. It works a treat. And here it is:
Based on experiments using a moss rake, the weed's crown had a tendency to pull through straight tines so I had the idea of making V-shaped ones. I cut the Vees on my bandsaw, then used an angle grinder to grind the edges down so they would grab and cut off the root portion. I used a cutoff wheel to get down into the smallest part of the V.
This is the first time I've used my newly-acquired stick welder to actually make something. Nothing like doing something challenging the first time, huh
. Not pretty but I think it will do. I initially tried using some smaller diameter rod but couldn't get a very good fillet so I switched to some larger-diameter stuff and that worked much better.
For the handle I re-purposed an old handle from a defunct rake. The rake had pulled loose from the handle so it was "available". But the bottom end of the handle was a little too large in diameter to fit in my 1" ID iron pipe so I chucked it up in my metal lathe and turned the end down. I installed my steady rest on the far right side of the lathe to stabilize the handle while it was (slowly) spinning. It wasn't easy to get the runout at the end of the handle down to a reasonable amount, since I couldn't grip the chucked-up end hard enough to keep it from sagging. But, hey, at that point I just needed woodworking-level tolerances, right?
The weeder does a good job of scalping off that dratted weed; and best of all I don't have to get down on my hands and knees to use it!
Anyway, I realized this particular weed has a growth habit that makes it possible to design an effective weeder to remove it. The weed puts roots down to the soil from a little crown where the stems come from, so the crown is larger than the roots. A rake with more closely-spaced tines might do the trick. After some experimentation I came up with something and today had the first opportunity to try it out. It works a treat. And here it is:
Based on experiments using a moss rake, the weed's crown had a tendency to pull through straight tines so I had the idea of making V-shaped ones. I cut the Vees on my bandsaw, then used an angle grinder to grind the edges down so they would grab and cut off the root portion. I used a cutoff wheel to get down into the smallest part of the V.
This is the first time I've used my newly-acquired stick welder to actually make something. Nothing like doing something challenging the first time, huh
. Not pretty but I think it will do. I initially tried using some smaller diameter rod but couldn't get a very good fillet so I switched to some larger-diameter stuff and that worked much better.For the handle I re-purposed an old handle from a defunct rake. The rake had pulled loose from the handle so it was "available". But the bottom end of the handle was a little too large in diameter to fit in my 1" ID iron pipe so I chucked it up in my metal lathe and turned the end down. I installed my steady rest on the far right side of the lathe to stabilize the handle while it was (slowly) spinning. It wasn't easy to get the runout at the end of the handle down to a reasonable amount, since I couldn't grip the chucked-up end hard enough to keep it from sagging. But, hey, at that point I just needed woodworking-level tolerances, right?
The weeder does a good job of scalping off that dratted weed; and best of all I don't have to get down on my hands and knees to use it!
