Blake's 7
Member
- Messages
- 205
- Location
- Ireland
The lane leading up to my old farmhouse is several hundred meters long, bordered on both sides by stony ditches, and every year I've
had to fight a running battle against the encroaching briars, ferns, nettles and other assorted vegetation that make their home
there. It's too narrow for a local farmer I know to spray it with his tractor as the booms on his tank are too wide and
can't be deployed and I didn't want to use a knapsack sprayer either so up to now I've been using a 10 liter handheld sprayer with
each side of the lane requiring roughly 100 liters. And then last year about halfway through the spraying the plastic pump handle on it broke off.
I knew that quad bike mounted sprayers were available, but the largest capacity I could find was 100 liters - a great improvement
over what I'd been using, but the cost\capacity ratio wasn't great at roughly €250-€300 or more and because of their design they do not drain completely. I started to
look in my local scrap yard in the hope that something suitable should appear there that I could modify but nothing did and so I decided to
get one custom made to my own specifications.
My first port of call was the draper tools website where I downloaded the parts list for their range of quad bike sprayers -
Parts List - and I finally settled on the pump from their 37 liter sprayer as the
other two pumps available for the 60 and 98 liter tanks had higher psi to drive the fluid to the booms which was something I did not require.
I bought the pump, a lance, and the remote switch from https://www.lawson-his.co.uk as it was the only place I could find that
stocked all three items.
After that I used various online calculators to come up with a set of dimensions that would equate to 200 liters capacity - I used
more than one calculator for this as I wanted to double check my measurements - I finally settled on a tank size of 500 mm X 500 mm
x 800 mm. I drew up a rough sketch of what I wanted and brought it to a local stainless steel fabricator I know and the result is
what you see below. The breather hole is incorporated into the filler cap and the bottom drains to the center. The cap on the bottom
is to facilitate cleaning, making it easy to flush out the tank. The handles are designed to facilitate storage of the hose when not
in use. There is also a baffle in the tank.
My plan is to carry it in my trailer and run it off the van's battery whilst the engine is running. If I use a 10 meter hose I will be able to spray roughly
20 meters on each side of the lane before moving on to the next part and so on. What took me hours to do before should now be reduced to a hour or so.
had to fight a running battle against the encroaching briars, ferns, nettles and other assorted vegetation that make their home
there. It's too narrow for a local farmer I know to spray it with his tractor as the booms on his tank are too wide and
can't be deployed and I didn't want to use a knapsack sprayer either so up to now I've been using a 10 liter handheld sprayer with
each side of the lane requiring roughly 100 liters. And then last year about halfway through the spraying the plastic pump handle on it broke off.
I knew that quad bike mounted sprayers were available, but the largest capacity I could find was 100 liters - a great improvement
over what I'd been using, but the cost\capacity ratio wasn't great at roughly €250-€300 or more and because of their design they do not drain completely. I started to
look in my local scrap yard in the hope that something suitable should appear there that I could modify but nothing did and so I decided to
get one custom made to my own specifications.
My first port of call was the draper tools website where I downloaded the parts list for their range of quad bike sprayers -
Parts List - and I finally settled on the pump from their 37 liter sprayer as the
other two pumps available for the 60 and 98 liter tanks had higher psi to drive the fluid to the booms which was something I did not require.
I bought the pump, a lance, and the remote switch from https://www.lawson-his.co.uk as it was the only place I could find that
stocked all three items.
After that I used various online calculators to come up with a set of dimensions that would equate to 200 liters capacity - I used
more than one calculator for this as I wanted to double check my measurements - I finally settled on a tank size of 500 mm X 500 mm
x 800 mm. I drew up a rough sketch of what I wanted and brought it to a local stainless steel fabricator I know and the result is
what you see below. The breather hole is incorporated into the filler cap and the bottom drains to the center. The cap on the bottom
is to facilitate cleaning, making it easy to flush out the tank. The handles are designed to facilitate storage of the hose when not
in use. There is also a baffle in the tank.
My plan is to carry it in my trailer and run it off the van's battery whilst the engine is running. If I use a 10 meter hose I will be able to spray roughly
20 meters on each side of the lane before moving on to the next part and so on. What took me hours to do before should now be reduced to a hour or so.
