Any tips or tricks for using a pull behind disk?

So I have an 8' or so hydraulic disk (John Deere KBA maybe?), and I put it on the tractor tonight to go out and play around where I did some plowing last fall.





The earth was cutting good, but dang if this thing doesn't leave some high and low ridges and just... Not want to track that straight.





Do I just have a worn out disk, or is this a common problem? Also, should I be taking half cuts, full cuts, double cuts... Cross cuts... What's the trick to getting the most out of discing.

In the one pic it looks like
your getting a center ridge,
that is because you are not
running level. The crank up
by the hitch is that
adjustment. Turn it so the
front goes deeper to eliminate
the ridge. You don't have to
go so deep either, that will
help with the ridging as well.
Since that disc doesn't self
level you need to adjust the
level based on depth as well <>as tractor hitch height. I
always disc at a slight angle,
one way the first time, then equal angle the
other way the second time.
Discs don't level as well as a
cultivator anyway, so a harrow
pulled behind helps emensely.
I have always heard that half
the hub to blade edge is the
proper depth for a disc, if
you want to go deeper get a
bigger disc. But that is an
old saying and many people run
them hub deep.

You need a heavy drag chained to the back end,slightly wider than the disk ,to smooth the soil.

Looks like front disc gangs need to be lowered. Try leveling the disk from front to back.

Discs don't do a super job of leveling most of the time. You can get it better by adjusting the disc level front to back. I always pull a spring tooth harrow behind the disc on my last pass to level things out.

that is the problem with a lot of disc's they leave ridges. you have a hydraulic cyl. on it so just raise it up some . don't have to be buried to the spools in soft ground. then it wont ridge so bad. plus lock your drawbar solid so it is not swinging and the disc will follow better.

In the first picture the blades on the front gang look worn out.

Disks kind of do that, they aren?t prefect levelers.

But, you need the front and rear gangs to throw the same amount of dirt.

As others mention, it looks like your front blades are smaller than your rear blades, so the bigger rear blades will cut and throw more dirt inward, making a ridge where
the extra dirt comes together.

Then with the disk not level, the rear blades will have more pressure on them when down so that also will make the rear blades press deeper and throw more dirt than
the front blades.

You have it doubled up on creating a ridge.

Paul

I pull a railroad rail behind mine to
level. Some folks use a log.

Brain fart - rail is on top for weight and an old blade from a road grader is dragging behind.

Several things I can see, first of all I think that you have a RWA disc not KBA. Second you have the wrong hydraulic cylinder on it. You need a 8 inch stroke with double acting pressure so as to get the wheels up out of the dirt so when you
are disking the dirt that the disk is throwing does not touch a wheel and leave a ridge. Next you can throw away the stones, bricks and firewood as the wheel frame should be all you will need for weight. Next comes the leveling screw on
the tongue needs to be adjusted so that the front gang is deeper and the back is shallowed up till it is level. Also you will need to use it till the blades all get scoured and clean and that none of them are partially loaded. All scrapers must
be properly adjusted to keep blades from loading. Without a furrow filler attachment you will always have the outside rear furrows but the next time over or a pull behind drag of any kind will level those out. Hope this helps. Tom

I agree with Tom you have either a model RW or RWA not a model KBA. These models were notorious for not leveling the soil.. Levelness of disk &amp; ground speed will affect the amount of ridging of soil. As others stated lower front of disk harrow with cranks &amp; try slowing ground speed.

Will, Did you get the message yet that you need to level it? :lol:

Get you a three section drag harrow and harrow it. That will give you more seat time.

Like others have said, you need to level it, that will help. On newer discs they have progressively smaller discs near the
end, that leaves less of a furrow.

Discing at a angle to the direction it was plowed will help fill the valleys left by the plow. And like was said a 3 section drag behind
helps too.

Thanks for all the information, guys! Hot dang, I never realized there was so much to discing.

So, it does seem like my front gangs are smaller than the back, and I for sure have never even tried to level it (didn't realize that was what the front springy thing was for). Not only that, but I do have a drag that is the same size as the disc I could use, and I also have some harrow sections I could put behind it too. A couple of the discs have some pretty heavy damage on it (done before it was given to me -- but the price was right!).

And good call on that one section plugging up. I kept having that one back rear spot plug up on me.

I was running in second gear wide open throttle, and it was a bit rough going. I have no problems slowing down so I don't get bucked so dang hard in the seat! Also making secondary passes at off angles or 90 degrees to the original cuts would work fine for me too.

Thanks for all the pointers and info, everyone!

You do NOT need a double acting cylinder at any time on that disk unless you are trying to carry the wheel for extra weight for penetration in hard ground. For normal plowed ground you want to have the wheels actually carring the weight so the disk is not trying to cut over 3" deep, 4" max and that disk with decent blades not wore out with out the wheels partily carring the disk it would want to cut6" or more deep and you dont need that for any crop that I know of. And not pulling strait (tracking) tires that are not matched in size will make it so one side wants to cut deeper than the other and side cutting deeper will pull harder to make the tracking off to side. Yes you do have to level it. And that model being a non adjustable angle disk will always even set correctly will ridge especially at higher speeds. And the back blades on the outside will always leave a furrow due to angle of blade and center of disk will leave a ridge if too fast of travel as it will throw the dirt to far and double up what it should be doing. Those disks being a rigid frame with non adjustable gang angle were never a good finnishing disk like the KBA that you thought it was. Ford pentration it is better than the KBA. I had the KBA in both the wheel carried and pull type with out the wheel carrier and that was always my last time over finnishing disdk as it could be set with the gangs fairly strait and it would still penetrate and not do the ridging in center or furrows at outside. I had a McCormick No. 37 disk that was a heavier disk and rigid frame like yours but with adjustable angle gangs and I never ran it with full angle on the guangs as that takes more power to pull and being ridgid it would always if toy were doing any turning ridge and leave more of a furrow, I also had a Burch and Kewanee disk both ridiged frame and non adjustable gang angle and they did not stay around too long. And get yourself some duals on rear of that tractor as it will realy help with the ride and also with traction and in helping with the raction will cut your fuel usage. And your tractor is made for a high pressure single action cylinder so you could NOT use a double acting cylinder with factory setup on hydrilics. Only thing is an 8" cylinder on any older implements as a 10" stroke could break the frame of the inplement. First diked 60 some years ago. Lots of experiance with many a disk.

I say just the opposite of at least one other.
Leave your drawbar swinging so you can easily turn. You won't even need to lift it on the ends.

Never leave a drawbar swinging on a wheel disk as that will make it so it will not track and you still do not have to lift to turn. We never lifterd for turning and started out with the first wheel disk trying to leave the drawbar swinging and found out verry quickly that was a big misteak. And for that size disk put a spring tooth harrow with a spike tooth harrow behind it. He has plenty of tractor for that power wise if he puts some dual rear tires on it.

Find a finish disk to go behind the one you have now.

Avoid turning sharp with all the weight off the transport axle. Put the wheels down some when turning.

Go behind the disk with rolling baskets. They work really nice for leveling the soil.

I pulled a pull type disk with no lift wheels and had to fight to steer the tractor and ride the brakes. Made the drawbar swing and it steered nice and easy no fighting. I don't see why having transport wheels would matter as long as it is being dragged ?

You can buy split spacers to go on that cylinder piston so when you drop it it won't go all the way in (retracted) You will probably need two or three.
Why not replace all the front discs with larger new? Shoup has them.

I use a 10 foot dragger and after thr first pass I attach a 6x6 12 foot behind the dsc abd it smooths really nice, I also do a half over run on the last pass. Good old Ohio clay.

The pull tupe, non transport does need a swinging drawbar but the transport type, wheel carried will wip just like a trailer not hooked up and loaded properly will wip around. Every clod in field for the tire to hit will pull it to that side and next clod will pull it to other side. It was about 64 when we got the first transport disk. before that always a drag tupe even after I quit farming.

With that outfit I dought he could afford the rolling baskets that would cost 3 times what the tractor and disk is worth.

More like 4 or 5 of those spacers and new blades would be nice but would not help with his ridging problem.

Might help if he was tossing as much dirt out as he is tossing in.

Diamond Harrows...attach to rear of Disc.


Bob....