Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 24, 2011 0:33:14 GMT -5
I've been using a Hoss wheel-hoe cultivator for a month now. Some of this critique is specific to that cultivator, and some would apply to any hand pushed cultivator:
I got the following attachments to go with it: Cultivator teeth, weeding sweeps, plow/furrower, double-wheel.
I noticed right off that the keyway for the attachments does not match the shape of the attachments, which causes the attachments to wobble in the frame. A related problem which is really the same issue, is that the top side of the keyway that the bolts snug up against is rounded, which makes it hard to seat the washer/nut, and causes the attachments to wobble and to work loose.
I greatly dislike the double wheel modification... It was advertized as cutting the time for weeding in half by weeding both sides of the row at the same time. My experience is that it is much faster to weed up one side of a row and down the other than it is to go slow enough and careful enough to weed both sides of the row at the same time. I wobble a bit when I use my seeder. Plants grow wobbly even when I plant by pulling a string tight. Each wheel of the cultivator wobbles in unpredictable directions with each uneven place in the field and with each plant residue from the previous year. The blades wobble depending on what's in the soil. I wobble with each step. With all the wobbles I took out many desired plants, even being very careful and deliberate. It was stressful and cumbersome even with the weeding sweeps set at their maximum distance apart. With a single wheel I can zip up one side of the row and down the other easy-as-can-be while keeping enough distance from the plants that I don't have to worry about weeding out desired plants. 18" row spacings are nice because I can run the wheel-hoe up the center of the row slick as anything, and I only have to make one pass. With the modification mentioned below, the blades are easily adjustable for closer row spacings. The cultivator teeth can be set wider apart than the weeding sweeps so I find them more to my liking when using the double wheel design, but then dirt is thrown onto the seedlings in the middle. The second wheel ads considerable weight to the cultivator, making it noticeably heavier and harder to turn at the end of rows.
The wheel-hoe does not do well in rocky soil, or in wet clay, or in compacted soil. It works really well in sandy soil, or in sandy soil with small rocks.
The cultivator teeth deal better with rocks, hard soil, and heavy roots than the weeding sweeps do. The cultivator teeth work well for pulling up rhizomous grass roots from previously tilled soil. The cultivator teeth are cheaply made so they don't really sit well in the key-way so they wobble more than any of the other attachments, and require frequent nut tightening. The cultivator teeth arrived as flat-cut steel: Not sharpened. I sharpened them which improves their usefulness. The steel is a soft steel which doesn't hold an edge very well.
A single cultivator tooth works well for light trenching, like installing a PVC pipe irrigation system just under the top of the soil.
The furrower/plow attachment is made of weak lightweight steel, and bent like a pretzel when I tried to use it in soil with heavy rocks.
Plant materials from the soil tend to collect on the blades so periodically they have to be cleaned, or the motion reversed to dislodge them.
The first upgrade I did was to replace the nuts that came with the wheel-hoe attachments with winged-nuts so that I can change implements in the field without tools.
I broke a screw by tightening it too much. The next upgrade I plan to do is to replace the screws with higher grade steel.
I would prefer the leading edge of the weeding sweeps to be sharpened all the way, rather than being dull on the attaching end. I've upgraded the sweeps by sharpening them.
In previously tilled soil without a lot of plant litter or rocks, the wheel hoe is almost as fast as a rototiller, and much less of a physical workout. I can lift the "single" wheel-hoe with my pinky finger on the spur-of-the-moment and easily do a few minutes weeding whenever I'm in the mood. To weed with the rototiller requires a major pre-meditated effort: to have fuel on hand, and ramps to get it into and out of the truck, and then the physical effort of manhandling a 500# rototiller.
I can use the wheel-hoe to cut off the weed seedlings in the top 1/2" of soil even when the deeper soil is too damp to use a rototiller.
And finally, I have found this wheel-hoe to be a joy to use. I can do weeding in a few minutes that would take me all day to do with a hand-hoe. My productivity is about 1/4 acre weeding per hour, or both sides of an 85 foot long row per minute.
Update June 2nd, 2011: I dislike the pistol grip handles. They are uncomfortable to use. They are too big for my large hands. One of the screws that holds the handles together stopped working after about a month. The wheel-hoe also comes with plow handles. I expect to order a pair of those and test them.
Update June 2nd, 2012: The height adjustment on the handles have been a problem for me all along... The handle is wood, and it is impossible to tighten the bottom bolt enough to hold the handle in place, so it quickly moves forward to it's most upright position regardless of where I set it... I intend to make a modification: Make a metal casing for the handle to fit in, drill out that dumb little rectangular adjustment hole to fit a large bolt, and permanently set the handle where I want it to be adjusted to. I'd recommend for future models that the factory do something similar but include a splined/toothed adjusting mechanism for the handle. I gave up on the winged nuts. Couldn't tighten them enough by hand to keep the attachments connected. I've resigned myself to keeping a heavy duty socket close by. I used epoxy to permanently attach the wooden bar that attaches the two handles together. I'm still really liking this tool. Weeding has been going really well this spring.
I got the following attachments to go with it: Cultivator teeth, weeding sweeps, plow/furrower, double-wheel.
I noticed right off that the keyway for the attachments does not match the shape of the attachments, which causes the attachments to wobble in the frame. A related problem which is really the same issue, is that the top side of the keyway that the bolts snug up against is rounded, which makes it hard to seat the washer/nut, and causes the attachments to wobble and to work loose.
I greatly dislike the double wheel modification... It was advertized as cutting the time for weeding in half by weeding both sides of the row at the same time. My experience is that it is much faster to weed up one side of a row and down the other than it is to go slow enough and careful enough to weed both sides of the row at the same time. I wobble a bit when I use my seeder. Plants grow wobbly even when I plant by pulling a string tight. Each wheel of the cultivator wobbles in unpredictable directions with each uneven place in the field and with each plant residue from the previous year. The blades wobble depending on what's in the soil. I wobble with each step. With all the wobbles I took out many desired plants, even being very careful and deliberate. It was stressful and cumbersome even with the weeding sweeps set at their maximum distance apart. With a single wheel I can zip up one side of the row and down the other easy-as-can-be while keeping enough distance from the plants that I don't have to worry about weeding out desired plants. 18" row spacings are nice because I can run the wheel-hoe up the center of the row slick as anything, and I only have to make one pass. With the modification mentioned below, the blades are easily adjustable for closer row spacings. The cultivator teeth can be set wider apart than the weeding sweeps so I find them more to my liking when using the double wheel design, but then dirt is thrown onto the seedlings in the middle. The second wheel ads considerable weight to the cultivator, making it noticeably heavier and harder to turn at the end of rows.
The wheel-hoe does not do well in rocky soil, or in wet clay, or in compacted soil. It works really well in sandy soil, or in sandy soil with small rocks.
The cultivator teeth deal better with rocks, hard soil, and heavy roots than the weeding sweeps do. The cultivator teeth work well for pulling up rhizomous grass roots from previously tilled soil. The cultivator teeth are cheaply made so they don't really sit well in the key-way so they wobble more than any of the other attachments, and require frequent nut tightening. The cultivator teeth arrived as flat-cut steel: Not sharpened. I sharpened them which improves their usefulness. The steel is a soft steel which doesn't hold an edge very well.
A single cultivator tooth works well for light trenching, like installing a PVC pipe irrigation system just under the top of the soil.
The furrower/plow attachment is made of weak lightweight steel, and bent like a pretzel when I tried to use it in soil with heavy rocks.
Plant materials from the soil tend to collect on the blades so periodically they have to be cleaned, or the motion reversed to dislodge them.
The first upgrade I did was to replace the nuts that came with the wheel-hoe attachments with winged-nuts so that I can change implements in the field without tools.
I broke a screw by tightening it too much. The next upgrade I plan to do is to replace the screws with higher grade steel.
I would prefer the leading edge of the weeding sweeps to be sharpened all the way, rather than being dull on the attaching end. I've upgraded the sweeps by sharpening them.
In previously tilled soil without a lot of plant litter or rocks, the wheel hoe is almost as fast as a rototiller, and much less of a physical workout. I can lift the "single" wheel-hoe with my pinky finger on the spur-of-the-moment and easily do a few minutes weeding whenever I'm in the mood. To weed with the rototiller requires a major pre-meditated effort: to have fuel on hand, and ramps to get it into and out of the truck, and then the physical effort of manhandling a 500# rototiller.
I can use the wheel-hoe to cut off the weed seedlings in the top 1/2" of soil even when the deeper soil is too damp to use a rototiller.
And finally, I have found this wheel-hoe to be a joy to use. I can do weeding in a few minutes that would take me all day to do with a hand-hoe. My productivity is about 1/4 acre weeding per hour, or both sides of an 85 foot long row per minute.
Update June 2nd, 2011: I dislike the pistol grip handles. They are uncomfortable to use. They are too big for my large hands. One of the screws that holds the handles together stopped working after about a month. The wheel-hoe also comes with plow handles. I expect to order a pair of those and test them.
Update June 2nd, 2012: The height adjustment on the handles have been a problem for me all along... The handle is wood, and it is impossible to tighten the bottom bolt enough to hold the handle in place, so it quickly moves forward to it's most upright position regardless of where I set it... I intend to make a modification: Make a metal casing for the handle to fit in, drill out that dumb little rectangular adjustment hole to fit a large bolt, and permanently set the handle where I want it to be adjusted to. I'd recommend for future models that the factory do something similar but include a splined/toothed adjusting mechanism for the handle. I gave up on the winged nuts. Couldn't tighten them enough by hand to keep the attachments connected. I've resigned myself to keeping a heavy duty socket close by. I used epoxy to permanently attach the wooden bar that attaches the two handles together. I'm still really liking this tool. Weeding has been going really well this spring.
. Why did you decide to order from 
