As some of you know, we have tons and tons of plants all over the property that need to be watered daily in the Summer. Tracy started out trying to get water to the beds with buckets in the utility trailer. That was not working. By the time she got to where she was going all the water had splashed out of the buckets. Beginning of last year I bought her a 5 gallon rechargeable battery operated sprayer. I then built a cradle for it to sit on the back of the tractor. All she had to do was drive around and spray water. Huge improvement!! Well, she went and added several hundred more plants this year and created a huge problem. With the sprayer I bought for her it was taking 4 hours to water everything. It only put out 1 gallon a minute and she had to keep going back to the house to refill. Needed to come up with a different plan so started looking on Amazon. Bought a commercial grade 25 gallon unit that runs on 12V DC power. As soon as it came in I started taking measurements both of the sprayer and the tractor to build a cradle for it. Needed to get the load points for the cradle lined up with the frame rails on the tractor or it was just gonna crush the steel on the back. Then I needed to figure out how to mount it so it'd be easy to get on and off. The biggest issue was that it needed to be strong enough to carry a lot of weight and endure a bunch of bouncing over rough terrain but light enough that Tracy could get it on and off the tractor by herself. Time to start cutting steel and putting things together. No build pics but here is what I came up with:
Blurry pic but you can see 2) 1/2" steel dowels sticking down.
Slight modification to the frame of the tractor. The 1/2" steel dowels drop into these holes. That's all it takes to put it on the tractor. Drop the dowels into the holes.
I did have to rewire a new socket to run the sprayer. The tractor came equipped with an accessory port but it was only rated for 3 amps but the pump is pulling 8 amps. No huge problem and this thing works like a dream. Watering time is now down to 1 hour. Far fewer trips back to the house to refill and over 2x the volume of spray. Been running it a month now and all is flawless. I'm happy because she is happy
Next was a project for two of my cookers. Had the hybrid Santa Maria grill and the griddle on the granite counter, one on each side of my built-in gasser. This left me with no counter space. I sold the 54" T-Pit so had some room on the patio and decided to build a cart to put the two cookers on. The SM would sit on top and I'd just store the griddle on the bottom. Take it off when I wanted to use it, then put it back on when done. Turned out that getting the griddle off the bottom shelf of the cart was more cumbersome than I thought it was gonna be. Standing there in the pool with margarita at the ready, I was looking at the cart, which was 15 feet away, and came up with the idea of adding a roll-out shelf on the bottom to make getting the griddle on and off a lot easier. Will finish that story in a minute. Here is the "Transformer Cart" as I've dubbed it
Here is the front
The side
Found a couple sets of heavy duty full extension drawer guides from building the cabinets for the house. Was fun getting these to work with steel but got it done and built a roll-out work table.
Now back to the patio when I figure out it's a pain getting the griddle off the bottom of the cart. The SM and a cutting board
When I was standing in the pool looking at this I realized how much space I had above the bottom of the cart. Yes, I built the pull-out drawer for the griddle but installed it higher. Now I don't have to take it off and put it back when it gets used. Just turn the cart 90 degrees and I'm cooking.. All 4 wheels are swivel casters so this is super easy
The griddle is a bit lower than I'd like but for the convenience of having it there permanently, it's a small price to pay. Got my counter space back, got two cooker consolidated in one small area, and life is good. I also got these wrapped up before we got smashed with this heat wave. I couldn't imagine being out in the garage trying to weld stuff right now. Oh well, gotta run. Things to do, beers to drink, and a dinner to cook at some point. My last night of bachelorhood so I'm thinking seafood of some sort.
Robert
Blurry pic but you can see 2) 1/2" steel dowels sticking down.
Slight modification to the frame of the tractor. The 1/2" steel dowels drop into these holes. That's all it takes to put it on the tractor. Drop the dowels into the holes.
I did have to rewire a new socket to run the sprayer. The tractor came equipped with an accessory port but it was only rated for 3 amps but the pump is pulling 8 amps. No huge problem and this thing works like a dream. Watering time is now down to 1 hour. Far fewer trips back to the house to refill and over 2x the volume of spray. Been running it a month now and all is flawless. I'm happy because she is happy
Next was a project for two of my cookers. Had the hybrid Santa Maria grill and the griddle on the granite counter, one on each side of my built-in gasser. This left me with no counter space. I sold the 54" T-Pit so had some room on the patio and decided to build a cart to put the two cookers on. The SM would sit on top and I'd just store the griddle on the bottom. Take it off when I wanted to use it, then put it back on when done. Turned out that getting the griddle off the bottom shelf of the cart was more cumbersome than I thought it was gonna be. Standing there in the pool with margarita at the ready, I was looking at the cart, which was 15 feet away, and came up with the idea of adding a roll-out shelf on the bottom to make getting the griddle on and off a lot easier. Will finish that story in a minute. Here is the "Transformer Cart" as I've dubbed it
Here is the front
The side
Found a couple sets of heavy duty full extension drawer guides from building the cabinets for the house. Was fun getting these to work with steel but got it done and built a roll-out work table.
Now back to the patio when I figure out it's a pain getting the griddle off the bottom of the cart. The SM and a cutting board
When I was standing in the pool looking at this I realized how much space I had above the bottom of the cart. Yes, I built the pull-out drawer for the griddle but installed it higher. Now I don't have to take it off and put it back when it gets used. Just turn the cart 90 degrees and I'm cooking.. All 4 wheels are swivel casters so this is super easy
The griddle is a bit lower than I'd like but for the convenience of having it there permanently, it's a small price to pay. Got my counter space back, got two cooker consolidated in one small area, and life is good. I also got these wrapped up before we got smashed with this heat wave. I couldn't imagine being out in the garage trying to weld stuff right now. Oh well, gotta run. Things to do, beers to drink, and a dinner to cook at some point. My last night of bachelorhood so I'm thinking seafood of some sort.
Robert
