Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction Tractor for maintaining small places

I wrap my chain around the box blade and one in a trail mix plastic container next to my right foot..... works most of the time

It works pretty good carrying them in the loader bucket...........till you forget they are there and they end up under a pile of dirt. Pretty much why I quit doing that. Lack of memory meets urgency of getting something done.

The way I like to build the chain boxes is have a flat notched place for the two grab hooks to hook on the edge. Then the chain goes in the expanded metal box. Expanded metal lets the moisture and mud get away from the chain, and the place for the hooks to reside keeps knots and tangles away and makes the ends easy to grab and drag the chain out of the box.

I usually have the weight box on so carry a chain in there.


Some really good ideas Snrub!

When I think I might need a chain, I throw them on the floor boards.

Come on over......I have a quick hitch and some implements that need some work. Would love to use the quick hitch but.......

Statistics.

Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Despite current prevention efforts, approximately 9,400 children younger than 18 years continue to receive emergency care for lawn mower-related injuries each year in the United States.
METHODS:
In this study, we analyzed data from a consecutive series of children treated for lawn mower-related injuries during a 53-consecutive-month period in the emergency department of a large, academic children's hospital. The objective of this study was to describe the epidemiology of lawn mower-related injuries to these children and to investigate the beliefs of parents regarding lawn mower use.
RESULTS:
There were 85 children treated for lawn mower-related injuries during the study period. The mean age was 7.6 years (SD, 4.3 years; median, 5 years), and 65% were boys. Thirty-four patients (40.0%) were admitted to the hospital, including 3 (3.5%) to the pediatric intensive care unit, and 30 (35.3%) required surgical intervention in the operating room. There were 25 children with lacerations (29.4%), 22 with fractures (25.9%), 18 with amputations (21.2%), and 10 with burns (11.8%). The most common body region injured was the lower extremity, accounting for 57.6% (49 of 85) of injuries, including 33 injuries (38.8%) to the foot/toe and 16 injuries (18.8%) to the leg. The hand/finger and head/neck regions each accounted for another 18.8% of injuries. The leading mechanism of injury was run-over/back-over (22.4%), followed by other blade contact (17.6%), thrown object (12.9%), burn (10.6%), and a fall off the mower (7.0%). Lacerations accounted for 68.8% (11 of 16) of injuries to the head/neck compared with 20.3% (14 of 69) to other body regions (p < 0.001; relative risk [RR], 3.39; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.99 < RR < 6.01). Twelve injuries (36.4% [12 of 33]) to the foot/toe were amputations compared with 6 (11.5% [6 of 52]) to other body regions (p = 0.01; RR, 3.15; 95% CI, 1.31 < RR < 7.58). Burns accounted for 20.9% (9 of 43) of injuries among children 5 years of age or younger compared with 2.4% (1 of 42) of injuries to children older than 5 years of age (p = 0.02; RR, 8.79; 95% CI, 1.16 < RR < 66.39). On average, parents believed that a child should be a minimum of 13 years of age to operate a ride-on mower with supervision. Eighty-six percent of parents indicated that they had made changes in safety practices after the injury event.
CONCLUSION:
Despite current prevention efforts, serious injuries associated with lawn mowers continue to occur to children. Parental education should promote compliance with the American Academy of Pediatrics policy recommendation that children should be at least 16 years old before operating a ride-on mower. Automatic protection provided by safer product design is the strategy with the highest likelihood of success in preventing these injuries. The voluntary lawn mower safety standard American National Standards Institute/Outdoor Power Equipment Institute B71.1-2003 should be revised to include more rigorous performance provisions regarding prevention of penetration of feet and toes under the mower and into the path of the blades, shielding of hot mower parts from access by young children, and equipping all ride-on lawn mowers with a no-mow-in-reverse default feature, with location of the no-mow-in-reverse override switch behind the seating position of the ride-on mower operator.

Found here:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16361919

I wish someone could tell me, how a seat switch on a lawnmower has had such a negative impact on their life. But it always comes down not to the seat switch, but some paranoid extrapolation of what "they" will do next if they are allowed to continue this horrendous assault on our rights. Which is what I alluded too earlier. It isn't about the switch. A lawnmower blade spins at approx. 19000fpm, and the belts and sheaves atop the deck which are driving them are screaming right along also. Why on earth do you need to be able to step off on the top of the deck, or just off to the side with your toes in harm's way, with the blades still spinning?

Isn't a seat safety switch a good idea, really? Put aside the politics for a moment, and just examine the topic at hand. A seat switch. Anyone?

I have no issues with seat switches, but I would like to expand on the topic. I grew up on a farm and was taught to drive a tractor way before I was taught to drive a car. I was not the only child around the community plowing at 9/10 years old either. Same thing with handling guns or anything else dangerous. Kids need teaching and not just turned loose. We didn't have a riding mower when I was growing up. I did it all with a push mower, but you can bet I was taught not to stick my hands and feet near the blades. I was also taught to remove the sparkplug wire before cleaning out the underneath.

I really think knowledge is what's missing from our youth and I lay that at the parents feet. All the switches in the world can't totally dummy proof everything made.

But in answer to your question, A seat switch should be left alone and not be tinkered with.

I would not disable the seat safety switch but I would like to see the design evolve to where there is an override, maybe like a RIO switch. I am with RAH on the point there are times you want to stand up. For example, when I'm using the FEL, it would be nice to stand up to see if it is full without the tractor shutting down. A simple push button that disables the seat switch when you want to stand up and then resets itself when you sit down again?

My dad was very safety consensus. We knew to stay away from brush mowers that could throw rocks. I am all for smart safety. I learned carpentry safety from my dad. He still has all of his fingers.

The seat switch doesn't bother me to be activated when the blades are running. BUT, it should not shut the engine off when the blades are not turning, but it does. To prevent this, you have to set the brake and lock it. It's just a little bit annoying.

Our son had his own summer mowing business by the time he was 13 years old. He showed a keen interest, and I taught him the ins and outs and hazards of mowers from an early age, and by the time he was a teen he was more competent to operate a mower than the vast majority of grown men.

Thanks for the replies. And for the record, I don't like some of the safety switches either.

Hey...what about a lanyard you wear around your wrist, like on a PWC?? Might not work for a small lawnmower, but on a tractor it would let you stand, but still kill the engine if you fell off?

If it was like the lanyard on outboard motors, it probably would not be enforced like that rule is. A PWC or outboard will still run with the lanyard not attached to a person, but enforcement personnel look for that violation, just like seat belts on cars. It would be a little hard to enforce on a tractor.

I guess you could run a jumper wire through the seat interlock, and attach that jumper to a short lanyard attached to a belt loop. If you actually used the lanyard and then fell off, it would pull the jumper out of the seat switch and stop the engine.

If someone was determined to not have a safety switch of any kind, you're right, it could be disabled the same as a seat switch. I was thinking along the lines of offering some degree of protection for those who recognize the need, yet still want more flexibility of operation.

Maybe even a switch that allowed the operator to choose between seat or lanyard, for those times when less experienced operators would be using the equipment.

How about if you hold down a button on the tractor steering wheel while standing on the tractor. If you fall and let go of the button, it stops. But that button could still be disabled by someone taping it down, but I don't know why someone would do that.

This has been an interesting discussion.

BTW, there are a lot of safety switch discussions on tractorbynet.com.

I'll stick to my guns on this idea unless a better one presents itself. It requires a conscious act by the operator to disengage the safety but only in the short term. Just like a RIO switch. It provides the flexibility to the operator to stand without sacrificing the safety provided during normal operation. It would also be hard enough to defeat that maybe folks wouldn't try as long as the flexibility for the operator is still there, even if you have to push a button.

Not as fool proof as the current system though as I can see a scenario where you are standing up mowing while on override, hit a hole that throws you from the tractor and it would keep on going.

I'm not sure I follow you, Bill. If the operator disables the switch so he or she can stand for a moment, what happens if you're thrown off while standing? Won't the tractor keep right on going? And if the solution is a momentary pushbutton, will it not require constant pressure to keep the system engaged, meaning the operator must use one hand to hold the button leaving only one hand on the steering wheel? Wouldn't that in itself be less safe, seeing as how you're basically using the wheel to hold on to? What about tight turning situations where you're steering lock-to-lock, and going hand over hand to do so?

LOL. I just edited my post saying the same thing about being thrown off while standing.

The idea is like a RIO where you don't have to hold the switch once you start to go in reverse. Once you go forward again, the safety resets.

Same principle here. Press the button as you stand up so the override would be in place until you sit down.

The button would not be on the steering wheel.

A true story about rotary mowers (Bush Hog, I think a seven footer). A local grain elevator manager, a young guy probably about 30 at the time, was standing outside talking to someone while an employee was mowing the grounds around the bins. Not sure how close he was to the mower, but not very close at all. Far enough away he thought he was safe.

He felt something on his stomach like a mosquito or bug bite and slapped it. Tiny spot of blood there but he did not think anything about it. Within hours he was deathly sick and they came close to loosing him at the hospital. Was hospitalized for several days with severe infection.

The mower had thrown a tiny piece of baling wire and it penetrated into his intestine. An intestine leak from a piece of rusty wire is a bad thing, or so they tell me. Like a miniature gun shot.

Thing of it is, he never knew he was hit with the wire. Being outside he just thought it was a bug bite. Did not know anything was wrong till a few hours later he fell deathly sick. I found out about it a couple weeks later when he recounted the episode to me.

Stay far away from mowers that are running. I cringe when I see people mowing their lawns and kids playing within twenty feet of a rotary mower of any kind. Even a lawn mower.

The safety switches are getting a lot smarter. Combines have had a safety seat switch for probably the last 20 years that if the operator leaves the seat, the header shuts off within a few seconds. It is a good idea, as more than a few farmers have been drawn into a corn head or platform header while trying to unclog something while the machine was running (one of the situations where Darwinism probably should be allowed to run its course, sad as it is when a neighbor is lost).

The practical problem with this is if there are chains that need to be oiled or if a person needs to listen for a bad bearing, it is a two person job. One person to sit in the seat and another to perform the procedure. That is fine if you have two people, but lots of farmers are solo operators. The work-around was a heavy tool box set on the seat. Some farmers carried one in the cab for that purpose. Or some farmers just taped the switch shut or bypassed it.

But as I said, with the advent of computers running almost everything now, the computer is smart enough to know if the switch has been bypassed. The computer realizes if the switch is never open, likely it has been bypassed and at best throws a code or at worst will not let the header engage till the code is cleared.

I had the unfortunate experience in my younger days of being with my dad when we went over to see if we could help a neighbor whose combine we could see sitting stationary but running for 1/2 hour or so..... He had been trying to unplug the corn head while it was running. He lost both legs and an arm to the gathering chains. I still occasionally have nightmares about that evening. Tough duty for a 10 or 12 year old.

I have been a nut on safety ever since.

I am also. Have to be when you have employees.

People have a strange attitude toward safety, in my opinion. Or I should say they generally have very poor methods of accessing danger in a logical fashion.

One of the easiest things we could do as humans to decrease our chances of becoming injured or killed is simply drive less miles. Every time we get in a car (or motorcycle ) we expose ourselves to more danger than a lot of things people obsess over about safety. They might obsess about a pesticide residue on their lettuce but think nothing of jumping in the car and driving five miles to the convenience store to get a giant slurpee. Yet the car drive is likely multitudes greater chance of sustaining injuries or death than many of the daily things people obsess over about safety. How many miles do we drive unnecessarily? I do a LOT, like most people. Yet they obsess over things that have minuscule odds of ever affecting them, while doing nothing about the things they can easily control to make their lives safer.

Our evaluations of dangers or "risks" are sometimes very illogical.

What was it John Wayne said? Life is tough and tougher when you're stupid.


There are people I call double oughts. Just plain dumb.

I didn't see this happen, but heard about this girl who got her head stuck in her steering wheel while sitting in traffic and had to be rescued by the fire department. Whether that's true or not, I dunno, but it was hard to keep a straight face whenever I passed her in the hall.

There's no way to absolutely foolproof something, as there will always be a more determined class of fools eagerly awaiting graduation. For any safety device to work, there needs to be a willingness on the part of the operator to utilize the equipment properly. Manufacturers know this, and recognize that there will be attempts to bypass safety switches by those who claim they impede upon their ability to use the equipment, or trample their rights under the constitution, it's always something. You're never going to reach that group, no matter what you do. So you focus on reaching the vast majority who want to be safe, but still need to be able to utilize the tractor in as large a variety of conditions as possible. Yes, there will need to be compromises. If your gripe has to do with being unable to crawl out on the hood while pulling a bush hog and steering with your feet, well, maybe things happen for a reason. My advice would be sure your insurance policy will still pay off, after it's discovered you jumped out the seat switch.

A seat switch is usually a set of normally open contacts, which close when you sit down, completing the circuit and supplying power to enable the engine to run. Come off the seat and the switch opens and shuts off the power, stopping the engine. Easy. What if we added another switch with normally open contacts, wired in parallel with the seat switch? Either switch closed will provide a complete circuit to the engine run command, but it will take BOTH switches to come open to shut off the power. If we take that second switch and mount it like an old Ford tractor starter button, down on the floorboards, then we can step on it, AND rise off the seat. The seat switch will open, but the foot switch will close and maintain the run circuit. Fall off, and both switches will be open, killing the engine. No lanyards, no added measures need be taken by the operator, just as long as one of the switches is closed, the tractor will run. This should allow sitting operation, and standing operation, but still provide protection in the event you fall off.

IMO that should work well.

It would be interesting to see the stats on how many people fell off of farm tractors and were hurt pre- and post= seat safety shut offs. I am not talking about yard tractors, but rather those used for more than mowing a yard.