ARGUABLY the biggest pain involved with clay spreading is the second operation – smudging, or levelling clay, employing a smudge bar.
Normally it’s a home-made three metre (10 foot) frame of welded railway iron pulled behind a tractor to smooth out the clay ‘lumps’.
If you’ve got an inexperienced operator, it can be a hit-and-miss operation.
Which is another pain.
And, of course, it’s a time-consuming exercise.
But for a small number of WA farmers, smudging is no longer required after spreading clay – they are owners of a New South Wales-made KB Grader Board, manufactured by KB Engineering, Deniliquin.
It’s 12.2m (40ft) in width and provides a true grade to level the clay.
The working width alone will get the attention of farmers, as it did with South Stirlings farmer John Howard, who heard about it being used by several Esperance farmers.
Mr Howard’s tractor driver Scott Ganza is in no doubt in the decision to buy a KB Grader Board was a good one.
“We did 80 hectares with the grader board in four to five hours,” Mr Howard said.
“That compared with our smudge bar, which is about three feet (1m) in working width, doing 10ha in the same time.
“It did a brilliant job and was a big time saver.”
Mr Howard estimates he has cut the amount of hours smudging by two thirds.
“It’s very simple to operate and it takes about two minutes to manually fold for transport,” he said.
The KG Grader Board is folded in one length with road grader blades bolted on.
It also has been designed with a hydraulically-controlled adjustable tilt on the blade to suit working conditions and horsepower (recommended 134-250 kilowatts, 180-330 horspower).
A cleverly-designed pivot system enables the manual fold-unfold and in working position, transport wheels are hydraulically raised while ground wheels are lowered.
“You can basically use the board to skim, straight grade or adjust the height of spread with the ground working wheels acting as height adjusters by tilting the blade backwards,” Mr Ganza said.
“The adjustment on the wheels is easy to operate and quick.”
According the KB Engineering’s marketing manager Bob Healey, the KB Grader Board also can be used for land levelling and firming seed beds before sowing and any general work required to provide a smooth finish.
More information: Bob Healey 0407 078 831.
