20hp sickle bar hedge clipper

It's a big job. It is 200 ft long with a finish height of 10ft and width of 8ft. A one day job now takes about thirty minutes.

The cutter is a IH 130 balanced head mower. It will cut at any angle. It has no problem with 1" branches. The come-a-long keeps the bar flat while horizontal.

Supposed to have four levers but I only have three. There is a local hydraulic shop that has a used lever in stock. He wants $50. He can keep it for that price. I offered $10.

I want to use one position to run a hydraulic powered 110v generator (visible in photos) and the opposite direction to run an airbrake air compressor. The return flows for both will go directly to the reservoir and not pass through the valve.

Where do you get rocks like those? My mom would love them.

My sister-in-law is BS. She thinks the hedge is dead. She wasn't there when I was ten years old and we cut the entire hedge down to four feet. Just stumps really.

Those blocks came from a railroad bridge abutment near Boston. The courses were laid in parallel rows 18 inches high. I turned the blocks 90 degrees and have a finisned wall on both sides. The original face is now the top or bottom. As I recall, it took fifteen 10-wheel dump truck loads. I have a few more walls I have put up.

I have been collecting granite since I got my first truck at sixteen. I have thousands of tons from hundreds of sites.

My small forklift has limited hydraulic power. Fortunately, I had the smallest displacement Char-lynn gearroter sitting on my shelf. I think it has 60 foot pounds of torque. I only stalled it twice. Strokes per minute on the knife are around 180 with the forklift motor near idle.

I have a Bridgeport so I was able to center the bores of the motor's SAE #2 flange and the bearing cage of the larger pulley on the small section of I-beam. The 3.5" x 8" ag cylinder has plenty of power to lift the bar. If it was any smaller, it would be way too fast.

If you want more pictures, let me know.

If you have your own personal junkyard, you may want to change things to reduce costs. I only had to buy six hydraulic fittings, a new v-belt, half a Lovejoy coupling, and some grade 8 bolts. If I had to buy everything for the hedge clipper, I wouldn't be surprised if the total cost approached $2000. For that price, I could stand a few more thorn stabs.