How much disc...

Not that I am having a great deal of luck finding one...but I have a couple leads. Tractor is an SMTA and a good strong runner/worker. My soil is sandy clay to just plain sandy but you never know where I may end up. I was thinking up to 10 foot on the disk but will defer to people who might have already done it. If I can go a larger I have more to choose from.

(quoted from post at 13:45:11 06/13/09) Not that I am having a great deal of luck finding one...but I have a couple leads. Tractor is an SMTA and a good strong runner/worker. My soil is sandy clay to just plain sandy but you never know where I may end up. I was thinking up to 10 foot on the disk but will defer to people who might have already done it. If I can go a larger I have more to choose from.

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If you buy an IH 37 or the comparable model in Deere or Kewanee you should be able to pull a 12 footer with a strong running SMTA.

Dave: I never go by width, count the blades. 16" blades you'll handle 44 blades quite easy. You get into 18" and 20" blades and if you want to use that added depth, 36 or 40 blades. I had a 44 blade with 20" blades and in some conditions it could stump my 560 for traction.

Appreciate it. Actually been looking to find an IH but only been looking the past couple weeks and need to keep it close to home for cost reasons.

That makes sense, Hugh. This one is listed as "36 blade" so I figure you and the auctioneer are on the same page. I put that as four gangs with 9 each...can't be much more than 10-11 feet?
It's on the outside of my distance range and on a workday to boot. Add that to the green color and, well, maybe I'll keep shopping until something red comes along.

Dave: I've heard unkind words about older Deere disks. Never had one myself, but some of that came from a guy that would buy a Deere cofin if they made such a thing.

I never liked the new disks I saw around the IH dealers in the 60s and 70s. Found out later he was ordering all his new disks with light gauge blades. Same with other options, light as possible.

The disks I liked from that era were Oliver or Cockshutt, (same disk) but much heavier than I saw at IH. I remember going through a Oliver spec sheet, and they had light options, but that dealer was bringing everything in heavy. I suspect one can experience that with most any make, depending on what dealers in a given area sold years ago.

My first wheel controlled disk, and my dad bought this one in 56, was a 28 blade Cockshutt with 16" blades. It could make the Farmall 300 sweat. I remember disking a slight hill, roughly 1,000' and 20' higher at one end than the other. 300 would make 3rd, high on TA going down hill, but coming back up it was low on TA. I bought a new 44 blade Oliver, 20" blades, for use behind 560 and 656. For the most part they handled it well, except if cutting deep with single wheels. Traction was the short coming, and duals cured that.

The reason I suggested count the blades, disk were sold with 3 basic options that affected power requirments greatly, You could get 7" spacing, 9" spacing or a mix of the two, like 7" front 9" back. Bear in mind most of those 9" spacing were sold for heay clay land. Not likely too many of them in Michigan.

I know that JD made at least 5 different discs "back in the day", 3 w/o wheels... a light weight flexible gang version, a heavier flexible and a heavy rigid (Dad had both a light and a heavy flexible) and also both of the heavier models [u:8fac56d836]with[/u:8fac56d836] wheels. Pulled both 10' discs that he had with JD 60s. Later he had I believe it was a Kewanee 11 1/2' or 12' with 16" blades with wheels he pulled with a Farmall 460. This was a sandy loam (or what we called "timber soil") in NE Iowa. I would think under similar conditions, the SMTA could pull about the same as the 460.

I am pulling a 10-11 foot Massey Furgeson disk (its red...) behind a Farmall 504 Diesel. I can run 3rd gear all day. It has 18" blades I think. I'll measure.

Charles

I pull a 40 blade 10' Ih wheel carry disc with my regular M in sandy loam soil no problem. Traction has been an issue, but never power. Haven't hooked it to my MTA, but think it'll be fine..

Ben