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QUESTION:That's what I was thinking, too - but snow throwers and blowers are
designed to break the snow up, and rake it toward the center of the
machine. Blowers pass it to an impeller which tosses the snow out the
chute. and throwers get the snow moving at high speed up and around
the drum and pass it to a set of turning vanes to steer it to one
side... Either way, leaves and needles are going to clog up the works
in about ten seconds.
A walk-behind single-stage snow *thrower* might work with the
impeller removed and a big brush attached, but only if you reverse the
motor so it pushes the debris forward. And for every action there is
an equal and opposite reaction - it's going to be fighting with you
every foot of the way.
On top of that, there's no easy way to adjust for brush clearance as
it wears, you have to allow for several inches of change or throw out
the brushes way too often.
You need one of those powered wire-brush drums that mounts to the
front of a Bobcat skid-steer or a small Kubota-style tractor. Now the
bare brush drum for /that/ Tom might be able to make, but the mounting
and drive mechanism is going to be your problem.
ANSWER: Sweepster made them to fit onto most older garden tractors as well. The
one I have for my Cub Cadet is driven by a right angle gearbox from the
front PTO that drives a LARGE sprocket on the brush to gear down the
speed. The most difficult part to get would be the sweeper drum itself.
The rest is standard hardware.
There are also sweeper heads available for some weed whackers, they do a
reasonable job as long as you don't mind the DUST.
A front tine rototiller with brushes installed and pulled backwards behind
your tractor? You could leave the wheels on and use the skeg arm to attach
it to the tractor and have an adjustment up to the handlebats to set the
amount of contact for the brushes. You would probably need some way to set
it at an angle so it sweeps to one side.
Or if ya want to walk behind it. Use the same type brushes with a bagger
behind for the tree junk to fly into and adjust how fast it travels over the
driveway by how ya hold the handles. Sorta like one of the old gas powered
reel mowers.
My favorite way to get rid of that stuff is with a blower and my chipper.
The chipper has a chute that drops down so you can blow stuff into it or
rake it into it. I put some side boards on the intake chute to make a
bigger target. It is a 10HP chipper/shredder and has a bagger attachment.
It always amazes me how I can put a good sized truckload of tree junk into a
garbage bage or two. I usually just set it to blow someplace I want the
chips to be like the garden and blow all the tree junk to it.
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