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Years ago my son and I were watching TV and saw people sandbagging by hand to fight the floods in the upper Midwest. The poor guy holding the bag kept getting his hands hit with the shovel from the guy loading the bag. I jumped on the internet to search for sandbagging machines. In those days before Google or Yahoo, searching was not an easy task. I did find five machines that were big and expensive.I set about to design a machine that could be portable, and affordable. I wanted it to be carried by two men like a stretcher and then have those handles become the legs. Well after I figured the weight of the sand, those leg/handles would not have been strong enough. |
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I took the basic adaptation of a gravity-flow grain wagon and added a meter chute. My thought was to have one bag measure of sand dropped into the sack with each stroke of a handle. Several CAD models were made and evaluated. Prototypes were made and tested.I designed it to fit into the back of a standard small pickup truck and be able to be filled with a standard "BobCat" skid-steer bucket. I also figured it would be used out in the rain, so there drain holes and an optional rain fly. |
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Years ago I had designed a similar system to meter Styrofoam beads into a packaging machine using air cylinders. It worked well, but sand is much different then Styrofoam beads. The chute failed! People know that it is hard for me to give up on an idea unless I have a better one.
Since I borrowed the grain hopper idea from the “Farm” that is were I went to get the next idea. An auger screw works well for corn, AND to get the salt out of the salt trucks |
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I modeled up the auger screw and figured out the necessary hardware for it. The prototypes were not without some problems |
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T & E doesn’t just stand for Trial and Error, but for Test and Evaluate. The revised auger is a success! |
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I've contracted the best weld shop in the area to begin production. TnL Welding in Sidney, Ohio. |
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If you are interested in purchasing one or more of these units, please email me. rburmeister@watchtv.net |