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Farmer's Unusual Crop Grows On River Bottoms
Here's a farm enterprise you've probably never heard of - harvesting sand from the bottoms of rivers and ponds.
Robert Bradsher, Raleigh, N.C., built a "sand harvester" out of an old garbage dumpster and a Gleaner combine cab. He sells his "crop" to local golf courses.
"It does everything a commercial dredg
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Farmer's Unusual Crop Grows On River Bottoms AG WORLD Ag World 18-5-22 Here's a farm enterprise you've probably never heard of - harvesting sand from the bottoms of rivers and ponds.
Robert Bradsher, Raleigh, N.C., built a "sand harvester" out of an old garbage dumpster and a Gleaner combine cab. He sells his "crop" to local golf courses.
"It does everything a commercial dredge will do," says Bradsher, who built the "sand harvester" with help from his neighbors. "It can pump sand up to 1,000 ft. away. Most dredges can't move sand nearly that far. It could probably be used to pump liquid manure out of lagoons, but I've never tried it. I bought the garbage dumpster at an auction for about $400 and picked up the used cab at a salvage yard."
Bradsher mounted the cab inside one end of the 24-ft. long, 8-ft. wide, 40-in. high dumpster, which serves as a kind of barge-like boat, and used 6-in. channel iron to build a steel frame that he welded to the bottom of the dumpster. He fitted the frame with the axle and wheels off an old bus, and strapped a pair of military surplus pontoons onto the sides. A Detroit diesel 671 238 hp engine and transmission and a 6-in. sand pump, shaft-driven off the engine, mount inside the dumpster. The pump sucks sand and water through a flexible hose at one end of the dumpster and pumps it out through a hose at the other end. Water and sand are pumped to shore where the sand settles out and water drains back into the pond or river.
A pair of electric winches, mounted on front of the harvester, are used to move the rig back and forth. Bradsher hooks them to trees or other objects on shore. Two other winches move the suction hose left or right and one moves it up or down.
Truck tire inner tubes are used to float the outlet hose on top of the water. Bradsher mounted an old truck muffler on the engine to direct exhaust away from the cab and built a steel frame on top of the dumpster that can be covered by a plastic tarp for protection from the weather.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Robert L. Bradsher, 6500 Louisburg Road, Raleigh, N.C. 27604 (ph 919 872-5174).
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