Mrsmackpaul wrote:I have never seen anything like that Fred I do wonder how successful they were but I guess hydraulics came into there own and we will never know now
Still learning stuff everyday
Paul
I think that equipment was made by W E Bray for various tractors and I don't think many saw the light of day. The pic. is from the early 1950s when as you say hydraulics were improving and taking over.
The early hydraulics used large bore rams and low volume pumps, they worked at about 1,000 lbs. pressure and they were slow. By the early fifties most had sorted that out, adopted high volume pumps, lighter smaller bore rams and the working pressures were up to 2,000 lbs. or more.
Some of the old operators preferred the cable blade but one of the problems was that unless you had a front mounted winch driven directly from the engine you annoyingly lost drive to the winch, (blade), as soon as you disengaged the main clutch.
The rope rarely lasted more than three or four months specially if you had an inexperienced operator who dropped the blade too fast. If he was then too slow on the winch brake when the blade hit the floor the cable would run on and the slack cable could jamb up.
Another problem was the blades were always made very heavy to penetrate the ground so the tractor would nose-dive when you were backing up on soft ground.
Firm I worked for in the 60s had three Ex. Army D7s with cable blades.
The old cables were a b##### to handle with "tin soldiers" ready to stab you through the thickest of gloves.
The secret was to catch them in time, weld or braze the end of the new cable to the old one and use the Land rover to pull them through.
Fred