Riding mower front loader scoop for laying mulch.

[Ron 733]

I have worked on this project for nearly two years now. They say, build a better mouse trap and world will beat a path to your door. Well, I hope this is the answer. Laying mulch is a back breaking labor intensive job. Putting down 30 yards of mulch is a major undertaking which until now requires a massive amount of labor. There has never been any other way except pitch fork it into a wheelbarrow and dump it. Repeat the process a thousand times and your done. Using a tractor front loader is just not allowed by home owners. It just tears up their yard. But if you could do it with the riding mower you used to cut their grass this week how could they object? This scoop is designed to fit for now ( Husqvarna and Sears models) from 2006 and up. Hopefully later, many more. It has a 150 ib. capacity. Lifts over 12 inches above the ground and holds about five cubic feet of mulch. Is electrically operated up, down, open and closed in 5 seconds. As the bucket lifts it also move it back close to the mower. Reducing the weight overhang as much as possible. In the up position it is within 4 inches from the hood. With a full 12 inches of height you can drive right up on the mulch bed and put it about anywhere you want. Plastic wear guides are installed on the bottom of it so it never drags on the ground (driveway or concrete). Six scoops is one yard and it can lay down 5 to 7 yards an hour. The scoop is 44 wide, 16 deep and 15 inches tall. Depending on the distance from the pile to the beds. For those of you who are in the commercial landscaping business should have this figured out by now. At the average cost to lay mulch this makes a riding mower produce $150 to $200 an hour. So take a look and give me your thoughts.

 

[Pumper54]

Interesting, how is it attached to the mower, welded or bolted to the full frame or the front end? How does that much weight hanging off the front end effect the balance of the mower?

Tom

 

[Ron 733]

Interesting, how is it attached to the mower, welded or bolted to the full frame or the front end? How does that much weight hanging off the front end effect the balance of the mower?

Tom

Tom, thanks for your interest. In this photo you can see the side mounting plates. It is bolted on. The whole mounted frame is .250 plate steel. Bucket is .125 steel. Steel 3/4 inch spacers keep it off the frame. Two of the 3/8-16 bolts go through the engine stiffener plate also. Five bolts per side for a length of 20 inches. As you can see in the photo the entire frame is dead in front of the mower frame. Designed around the front wheel turning radius so to keep it as close as possible and the hood still goes up for engine maintenance. At the top of the scoop frame you will see a cross mounted tube with four 2 inch wide constant energy springs. They have 160 pounds of lift. They actually lift the bucket plus forty pounds. So it takes forty pounds of energy to force the scoop to the ground. But with 90 pounds of mulch in the scoop, only fifty pounds is required to lift it. Problem solved. This reduces stress loads on the mower frame to a minimum. Main lift linear actuator is rated for 2000 lbs. of lift. As for what models it will fit. Almost anything once I can get the frame dimensions for other garden tractors. They just don't give this kind of info out. I have tried. As for weight overhang my GTH2448 with 100 pounds of mulch just sits there. With me not on it. I would add 50 pounds ballast weight on the rear but just for traction. This is a well built heavy duty scoop. Designed for commercial use. Moving mulch at $150,00 an hour it will pay for itself in one day. But it's not an excavator. Garden mowers or lawn tractors are not designed strong enough to do it. It will only tear them up. A riding mower with the capability of moving 5 to 7 yards of mulch an hour while sitting down drinking ice tea should be worth a fortune to someone in the mulch laying business. When finished it will be powder coated gloss black. Per assembled less the mounting frame. Hopefully in the next 90 days or so. I own a manufacturing company in Virginia. It will be made there. I have seen a couple of other scoops on the market for sale. It's just my option but they are too small. Do not lift high enough and are way too weight forward. Plus they have very little ground clearance to do the job well.

 

[Pumper54]

Ron,

Thank you for the update, looks to be a very well thought out assembly, great workmanship and engineering. Keep posting pictures of it as you get further along with it. Would like to see a video of it in operation one day. I think you might have a winner there.

Tom

 

[Ron 733]

This was my first attempt. I learned my lesson about overhang, weight and balance real quick. My present design cuts the weight balance in half just by bring everything back 12 inches. The difference is like night and day. It did work and you could drive around but it was like steering a battleship!

 

[Pumper54]

Ron,
That rig is looking good. When I first looked at it I thought you were using a form of the tension springs like on garage doors, the ones that when someone that doesn't know what they are doing tries to work on them, end up calling a pro and 9-1-1. ;-) Looking at it now I think the springs you are using are the flat straps looking ones running between the upper and lower bars or am I still confused? (That happens a lot) Where did you find the springs that you are using?

Tom

 

[Ron 733]

Ron,
That rig is looking good. When I first looked at it I thought you were using a form of the tension springs like on garage doors, the ones that when someone that doesn't know what they are doing tries to work on them, end up calling a pro and 9-1-1. ;-) Looking at it now I think the springs you are using are the flat straps looking ones running between the upper and lower bars or am I still confused? (That happens a lot) Where did you find the springs that you are using?

Tom

Tom,

They are (rolled up) springs but not like the ones they use to use on garage doors. They are flat and coiled up then heat treated. So they want to stay coiled up. Pulling on the end to unroll it takes about forty pounds of pull. Any less tension and it rolls itself up with about forty pounds of pull. Rated for 4000 cycles.They are used in grocery store doors a lot. Power goes off they close. Sensor picks up someone in front of the doors actuator opens. Actuator shuts off, spring returns the door. Once the bucket is assembled to get two strong guys to lift the bar and pull it in the groove on top, carefully. There is a 160 lbs. pull at this point so you don't want to do something stupid like let go of one end. There are two reasons for doing it this way. 1) It only requires the actuator to produce 50 lbs of energy to go up and down. 2) The over all stress load on the frame is fairly constant. The actuator is rated for 40,000 cycles at full load. So at less than 10% load you would die of old age. Your mower would be sold at your estate auction before it's worn out. The scoop has two wear plates mounted to the bottom which are replaceable. Made of a plastic material 1/2 think which is oil impregnated. This is to prevent the steel scoop from being dragged back an forth over asphalt or concrete. The idea is to replace the wear plates and not grind off the bottom of the scoop or bucket. Like I said. I am planning for the long haul. I want customers to understand this is a money making machine. I have gone to great lengths to make it do the job well and with little chance of causing problems for a long time. When your done. Lift the tension bar off the upper mount. You pull out 5 quik-pins, pull out two pieces of 40 inch long tubing that hold the scoop to the main frame. Unplug two electrical connectors and drive off. I really believe there is a market for a scoop like this. There's a lot of room between a guy with a wheel barrow and the mulch blower trucks which cost $80,000.00. Time will tell. BTW, Vulcan Spring Co.

 

[Pumper54]

Ron,
So the operator will be able to drive up to mulch pile, drive the bucket into the pile, scoop up a load and then transport it to the beds and dump it? I like it, my problem (not with you attachment) is that I tend to over work what ever I am using at the time to include my back, it is giving me fits now. :-(

I wish you all the best in your programs ans if you ever need beta testers just ask, this place is full of people who would give the scoop a work out.

Tom

 

[Ron 733]

That is correct Tom. As long as the pile is about two feet high. It will just scoop up about 4 to 5 cubic feet at a time. If the pile is dumped and it's 5 feet high it can't lift through 500 pounds of mulch on top of what's in the scoop or bucket. Remember it's not a front end loader or a backhoe. It's a mulch scoop on a lawn mower. Here is a short video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18ERKhcWFOY&feature=youtu.be