Travels with Terry

Winter sand/salt spreader storage

The Western Ice Breaker Sand/Salt Spreader ($6,000) is mounted in the bed of the 2002 Ford F-350 dump truck for winter ice and snow removal. When the spreader is not in use during the wintertime, it can be temporarily loaded, unloaded and stored by one person so that the dump truck can be used for other golf maintenance projects such as hauling stuff, towing the chipper and loading wood chips. Two 4x4x10-inch lumber are used to support the pulley assembly and one 4x4x8-inch lumber below to support the crank assembly that are mounted on the Sandstor topdressing silo frame, which has two Dutton Lainsson Co. model D12000A crank assemblies, 2,000-pound-rated pulleys and cables and the chains have threaded 2-inch hooks mounted to the factory-installed eye bolts on all four corners. The spreader is stored elsewhere during the growing season when the topdressing silo is in use. Jose Rodriguez, equipment technician, conceived, designed and built the lift working closely with Brett Scales, golf course superintendent, at the Navesink Country Club in Middletown, N.J. It took about 12 hours for installation and it cost about $250 for parts.

Smart battery chargers

Mary E. Yarick, professor and program coordinator for turf equipment management at Florida Gateway College in Lake City, Fla., has an idea for charging the 12-volt batteries on turf equipment that does not get used often and/or during the off-season when equipment is not being used and remains in a discharged state resulting in sulfated plates and eventual failure. A Schumacher SE-1-12S battery charger is available through R & R Products and costs about $30. It is designed for equipment in storage with a 1.5-amp trickle charge and automatic operation and comes with a mounting plate (which slides underneath the battery), hardware and short 115-volt power cord. Another option is to install a CTEK Multi US 3300 battery charger that ranges in price from $50 to $250. The unit puts the batteries through an eight-step reconditioning process that revives dead or borderline batteries by maintaining them through cleaning, testing, discharge and recharge and fast and slow charging. CTEK also has connector options to allow the charger to be used on more than one machine. The mounting of either charger takes less than an hour.