[jwholden]

I have the soil cultivator, and can say that I'm currently 60% enamored with it and 40% undecided. I need more time using it to figure out the quirks before I up my percent approval, which I know I will.

What is the goal of the soil cultivator?

To keep some shmoe (ME) from hand raking a lawn. Labor intensive and tiring. I would rather use the soil cultivator for an 8 hour stretch than a grading rake. I darn sure would get a lot more accomplished.

The hidden benefit of the soil cultivator is you can add a few inches of good soil or compost and mix it all together and come out with an awsome finish grade. Toro pushes that you can make good soil out of bad, but if you have no organic matter the soil is going to remain poor.

There will be some hand raking, but hand raking fluffed soil to level a few high or low spots beats tilling soil with a walk behid tiller and hand raking afterward. It is also quicker.

Rocks over baseball size will get dragged by the machine. Stop the tines, pick up the rock and put it in a wheelbarrow, keep going. This is definitely not the machine for super rocky new construction sites.

Here are my most recent, and best, results with the soil cultivator.

[familyguy]

Well, I rented the bobcat mt..? iforget but the track steer. We were transplanting a 10ft alberta spruce we popped last fall with a CAT420D. I went to pick it up with the track steer and played see saw right up to about 3 feet off the ground. Solved that by having one of the guys jump on with me to balance it a bit better. (We won the see saw game) What a useful little bugger. It got us into a tight fit with a big tree. Too big to move by hand but too small a spot to get a full size machine in. So, I really like my first experience.

Thanks for the imput. I would love to get more prices from you guys on different models. If you'd be so inclined.

Thanks again.

[Lawn Lad]

For our lawn installations we will scarify the lawn area with the Eliminator to rough grade and break the surface of the soil (depending on thatch we may cut out the sod first). We used to rototill but I found it too time consuming and not effective enough. We would then grade out the lawn with the grader bar. Top dress and grade again and then hand rake. I've gotten pretty good with the grader bar. There is about 10 to fifteen minutes maximum on 3,000 sq ft of grass assuming the area is large enough for me to do some figure 8 turns and the such with the Dingo and grader bar.

Thanks JWholden for the picture and the feedback, I like the idea of topdressing lightly and then using the soil cultivator to mix the new soil with old. I'm assuming travel speed is similar to using a rototiller or hydraulic attachment on the Dingo (relatively slow).

We'll have to see when I demo one. I'd like to find a used one, it would make my decision easier.

[cutntrim]

JW: I've lined up a soil conditioner attachment for next week for my 553 Bobcat. If it works as well as your pic shows, that'll be good.

[jwholden]

That picture is after about 3 passes with the cultivator. I was trying different methods.

I have yet to get satisfactory results with less than two passes, but I've got a way to go with my technique.

Cutntrim, keep the end of the soil cultivator closest to you low to the ground. If you let it get more than an inch off the ground you get rows of debris on either side of the machine and end up scraping out a furrow.

[ecoscapes]

I have a toro dingo tx420 bought it used from a rental yard for about 9k with 550hrs on it and completely love it -- I couldn't believe how much it can do. Now I bought a back hoe attachment, I like it but have to tweek it a bit- and there is a larger learning curve then I thought with a backhoe. I also have rented a hydraulic breaker -- that is amazing -- 1000 times better then a air compressor run jack hammer! The harley rake is also and amazing attachment -- but the price sucks -- I'm thinking about fabricating one -- I fiqure about $1500 in parts when they retail at 7-8k. I am also working on adapting a power broom from a walk behind mower for it as well! If any one has and attachment that they have found really functional please reply -- I like to have an arsonal so I'm competive and not tired when I get home.