[Digger Dan]

Daunted by the task of sieving a lot of poor quality garden soil to try and get something a bit more friable I decided that a little power assistance was needed!

The picture below is of the end result. Designed to fit on top of a wheel barrow and to sift where ever you can get a power lead to!

Made from timber with the sifting box running on kitchen drawer rails. It is powered by a cheap Tesco jigsaw and is 'self-cleaning' with larger bits vibrating off the end of the barrow.



If you would like to see it on operation you can check out Youtube!!!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej-TdUBhQWE



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Digger Dan

[forest flame]

well done digger dan
i watched it on u tube how did you come up with the idea its brilliant

[kindredspirit]

That's one of the best things I've seen for a long, long time.

I take my hat off to you.

[Sarah Evans]

Superb, a creative mind you have. The new Mr Dyson in our midst.

[Grovey]

This really looks good Digger Dan, well done. Any chance you could post some dimensions & details, mesh type etc. so i can make one ?

[Foxylock]

Fair play Digger Dan, don't forget the patent !

[verge]

Brilliant ...... I'm in.
I took the liberty of embedding the video in your post Digger to make it easier for investors to see it .

[Digger Dan]

Thanks everyone for the kind comments but I can't claim to be the first to come up with a powered soil sieve.

In coming up with my design I researched the net and came across a number of home made and commercial powered sieves. One that looked interesting was named 'Son of Sid'.

You can check it out at http://www.nifty-stuff.com/sieve-screen-shaker-for-soil-and-compost.php.

However I wanted something light and portable. I didn't want to have to bring the rough soil to the sieve so I designed a wheelbarrow mounted unit.

Another feature I didn't like about 'Son of Sid' was that you had to manually tip out debris. In my design the sift box is at a slight angle with an open back allowing debris to be shaken off. As can be seen from the video it works well (maybe too well as I do shovel the fallout back in for 2nd pass).

The unit design 'evolved' as I went along so I didn't have any dimensioned plans to work from.

The one tip I'd give is use a jigsaw with variable speed. I've mine set to a low speed but I did need to trial the setting to get the best sieving/clearing action while at the same time not shaking the box to bits!

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Digger Dan

[Grovey]

Thanks for the further info Digger Dan, I will definitely make one of these for myself as I have hige problems with stony soil.