• Please be sure to read the rules and adhere to them. Some banned members have complained that they are not spammers. But they spammed us. Some even tried to redirect our members to other forums. Duh. Be smart. Read the rules and adhere to them and we will all get along just fine. Cheers. :beer: Link to the rules: https://www.forumsforums.com/threads/forum-rules-info.2974/

Snow Roller Packer Wanted New England

What are you grooming for? Skiers, snowmobiles, other? How wide are you planning?

I built a 10' wide roller from heavy duty 30" i.d. corrugated pvc culvert, some chain-link fence pieces, and some steel parts salvaged from a wrecked utility trailer. I've got less than $200 in materials into it including a new lunette.

I tow it up and down a downhill ski run that's fairly steep some places. The chain-link precedes the roller and preheats the snow. It's not super heavy, so it doesn't compress the snow down into ice. The corrugations are too big for skiing over, but they do a great job at catching any drifting snow and really help to accumulate snow. They also help to keep the roller from sliding into the cat on steep downhill passes.

It's made for great skiing on the new snow that falls over that base.
 
I groom about 5 miles private snowmobile trails and a drag strip. Do you have pics of homemade rig? 8 ft is my width I want
 
I'm sorry to say that at present I don't have photos available. I've got the groomer, but my computer died and I still haven't figured out how to get photos into and from this one. I'm sending you a pm, and maybe I can just email you a sketch w/ dimensions of the thing. If I can figure out the problem/s, I'd like to post pics here too.
 
There is a guy in Nevada who has a big one from the local ski resort for sale. It's maybe 12 feet long and looks pretty nice. It's also dirt cheap at $100, but probably not worth the transportation cost for you, I would imagine.
 
akmountaineer said:
There is a guy in Nevada who has a big one from the local ski resort for sale. It's maybe 12 feet long and looks pretty nice. It's also dirt cheap at $100, but probably not worth the transportation cost for you, I would imagine.
Click to expand...

I think lots of them are probably just mouldering in the weeds somewhere. They're pretty obsolete at downhill areas nowadays. Bottom line price is current scrap value.

The local place here has one, but they won't sell it. (?!?!?!) :hammer:
 
I built mine from a piece of an old loader frame, a piece of pipe & an old packer bar. I can lift the packer bar by pushing the roller down with hydralics
 

Attachments

  • photo.JPG
    photo.JPG
    149.4 KB · Views: 258
akmountaineer said:
There is a guy in Nevada who has a big one from the local ski resort for sale. It's maybe 12 feet long and looks pretty nice. It's also dirt cheap at $100, but probably not worth the transportation cost for you, I would imagine.
Click to expand...
I would be interested in the one in Nevada sounds like it would be the other half of my 2100. can you pm me some contact info
 
Saw that one in vermont last year. I bypassed the rear hydraulics for now. Have been using and electric actuator on my current drag and from my local uses simple and easy.

Will prob end up fabricating one up but thanks and keep on the look out.
 
I have a 7 or 8 ' roll you would have to fix the hitch if you are interested I will check it out 1/2 hr from you
 
Had the pleasure of meeting a local Forum Member and we worked out a deal on the roller. I like how it is vintage and period correct for my tucker.

As you can see it had another roller on it at some point and the design unhinged on one side so the rear roller was offset? Not sure how this worked?

Will be a good base. Will either modify to use the single roller or maybe add some cutters to the front? Thinking about just using this one as roller and modifying the pan drag I already have.

Next step is to get it home at some point.

Thanks to all as usual for the help.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0874.jpg
    IMG_0874.jpg
    86.9 KB · Views: 127
  • IMG_0875.jpg
    IMG_0875.jpg
    77.6 KB · Views: 133
  • IMG_0876.jpg
    IMG_0876.jpg
    73.5 KB · Views: 132
  • IMG_0877.jpg
    IMG_0877.jpg
    69.3 KB · Views: 129
  • IMG_0878.jpg
    IMG_0878.jpg
    54.8 KB · Views: 125
  • IMG_0879.jpg
    IMG_0879.jpg
    55.5 KB · Views: 127
  • IMG_0880.jpg
    IMG_0880.jpg
    52.9 KB · Views: 128
  • IMG_0881.jpg
    IMG_0881.jpg
    65.5 KB · Views: 132
It's an old Valley Engineering Powder Maker. It offsets so the drums scuff up "powder". Sort of a pre-tiller machine.

They roll nicely, but they don't work for packing wet snow, at least. The drum fills with snow/ice and can be a pain. At least that's been my experience.

My culvert roller has worked WAY better at building a base, IMHO.

edit: ps it may have had a hydraulically raised barge-board scraper ahead of the roller to level off bumps. Mine did.
 
I'd love to find one of those - we get a lot of freeze/thaw/freeze here and my trail some times winds up looking and feeling like a skating rink - it wouldn't work as a packer but it would sure improve an icy trail
 
undy said:
It's an old Valley Engineering Powder Maker. It offsets so the drums scuff up "powder". Sort of a pre-tiller machine.

They roll nicely, but they don't work for packing wet snow, at least. The drum fills with snow/ice and can be a pain. At least that's been my experience.

My culvert roller has worked WAY better at building a base, IMHO.

edit: ps it may have had a hydraulically raised barge-board scraper ahead of the roller to level off bumps. Mine did.
Click to expand...

Maybe adding a culvert roller to hook in where the bearing mounts are, to pack the snow down and let the screen roller finish it up with a powder scuff? Or would the rear roller still load up?
 
Lots of questions. Last night went out to groom up and it was concrete ice. Need to rig up something. It will at the minimum be a good base to modify or will look nice just sitting in my back yard!
 
DAVENET said:
Maybe adding a culvert roller to hook in where the bearing mounts are, to pack the snow down and let the screen roller finish it up with a powder scuff? Or would the rear roller still load up?
Click to expand...

I can only speak from my own limited experiences. I'm no pro at grooming. I'm a skier. Downhill. Five years ago, I started running a rope tow on my farm and learning by trial and error what works or doesn't.

It seems like the screen roller loads up in wet snow, no matter what. They work nicely on hard-pack or icy surfaces, but I don't even bother to run it in packable snow.

For packable snow, I just use the culvert roller, with or without a chain-link drag.

It seems to me that you really need to have both types, at least for what I'm doing.
 
that's been my experience too - 36 years of trying to maintain the perfect trail on a limited budget - lol - to keep a good trail, a lot of different equipment is needed to deal with different conditions, unless $'s are unlimited and you can by a "fit's all/do all" machine
 
Sleddogracer,

Thanks. I'm glad to hear that at least one conclusion I've reached is correct.

It's an interesting learning curve to start trying to figure out how to create a ski hill, after 45 years of only caring about how to ski down one.

Budget? What's a budget? Around here, if it wasn't darn-near free, I couldn't afford it. You mean you guys actually get money to spend on equipment???
 
the question "how much does it cost to run sleddogs?" has often been asked - the answer is "everything you've got", so that doesn't leave much for grooming equipment - lol
 
Reminds me of the "joke": What do you call a race car driver without a girlfriend? Homeless. :yum:

It'd be funny, if it weren't true…!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top