JMS.MN or other JD Cone Disc Harrow person

I have a 12' JD heavy fixed frame harrow (plow to me) with 20-22" CONE discs. I am not familiar with the setup required for the cones and am somewhat confused. I use this as my primary field sod buster and follow with either/or both a regular disc harrow and a 8" sweeps with spring-finger cultivator.

The tractor gearing is a 16 sp (A-D, 1-4) synchro and B2 is where I usually run. The tractor will eventually go to redline temp on this during the heat of the day with the AC on and the implement tires off the ground.

Looking at the pin holes in the implements center frame member, for setting the angle of the gangs, it appears that it was built for them to run at a shallow angle.

Looking at the cones, that translates to the leading edge of the cone entering the sod at an angle (not straight into the sod) forcing the frontal area of uncut turf to flow across the back side of the cone and the rear of the cone just following where the front went.

It seems that if you increase the angle of the gang, you can cause the frontal half of the blade to be parallel to the line of travel of the tractor and acts as a knife slicing the turf directly. Doing this however, causes the rear to be at a significant angle and a lot of dirt is thrown out of the plowed row. This makes for a pretty rough field after discing (center of the swath and out to the sides).

Course this is a plow (to me), not a finishing harrow and maybe that is to be expected and according to Deere, this blade is an aggressive blade making for a lot of dirt movement.

I would appreciate any opinions as to what works best and why.

I selected you JMS based on comments you made to another person on another thread herein indicating that you had run and were familiar with the cone discs.

Thanks,

Mark

This tractor was restored when I bought it and it was thoroughly gone through; you's swear it was brand new except for the ID plates which were weathered. I have looked in the radiator and drained and examined some coolant and it seems to be very clean. Fluid is clear (tinted by the AF) and there is no scale.

Thanks,

Mark

Mark

Then there is a green decal with BWF on it...but the F could clearly be an A.

Now you know what I have.

When I said the angle, I didn't mean the individual discs. As you surmised, I am talking about the entire boom. But for cutting angle, where steel meets dirt I was questioning the angle, once you moved the boom.

If this were a normally shaped disc, a boom angle of 15-20 degrees would more than put the cutting edge pointed directly into the oncoming dirt. But with the cones it isn't, like I said, it is past dead center causing the oncoming dirt to hit the back side of the disc, unless you go to a real steep angle (with the boom) which has no holes in the center beam for pin insertion.

This is my first conical disc'd harrow and I just want to use it to it's fullest. Since this is my "plow" it has to do my heavy work.

Answering JWallo, It is the standard field cultivator, not the one way.

In how much work my tractor should be able to do, mine drawbar rates at 86. Other tractors mentioned 4240, 4430 and 4440, drawbar out at 95, 108, and 112. Not that big a difference for the work I read they do.

Like I'm looking in my "Classic JD" book at a 4440 pulling a 26' disc through wheat stubble. Shoot, that's less than 50% more hp pulling over twice the disc. Course there is some basic hp required to power the tractor and once that is overcome the efficiency of any additional HP is probably way up there.

I sorta figured what I just said when i bought the 4230 over a 4430 I could have bought but a couple of things made up my mind.

1. I run a reasonably small operation and don't really need the larger hp tractor.

2. The 4230 had 4000 hrs and the 4430 had well over 10,000. The former was tight, the latter showing it's hours. Price was $1000 less for the former, but that wasn't the primary reason.

Still open for comments. Jim, do you still have that owners manual and if so, would you mind seeing if they give you any plowing tips with the conical discs?

Thanks,

Mark

If you are plowing corn stalks in you are doing about the same thing I am. At the end of the haying season with the crop being sudan/sorghum (lightweight milo essentially), with just 6" of stem sticking out of the ground (ground clean otherwise), I go over it to kill the plants and preserve my nutrients and ground moisture which is my "groundbreaking". So it's really not like breaking prairie grass for the first time. After that I use another plow.

Since you bought yours new you apparently used it for a long time and may have received instructions from the salesman.

Mine has a rigid frame of about 3" square by 1/4" steel. Best guess it is a late '60's or early '70's vintage. I have a regular Deere disc harrow of the same width, with 18" regular discs and to put them side by side there is a whopping difference in the structure/weight/strength of the plow/vs the harrow. So comparatively speaking, I don't know if it's like your 210 or the heavier plow you mentioned.

I tend to agree with you on the 4230 being a bit light, considering the cab, AC load on the cooling system, 1000# of front end weights and all. Course at 44 years of age, I could have some crud in the system even though it checks to be clean, and a second V belt on the fan surely wouldn't hurt anything.

Thanks for your inputs.

Mark