Soil riddle

[Clive.]

Hello,
As well as a conventional round 1/2" riddle (with square apertures) we have a barrow riddle....this is a rectangular fitment that sits on the barrow top and is propped up at an angle such that soil is placed by shovel to run down the riddle slope with the dross running down to the floor and the riddled material dropping through into the barrow. It is no doubt years old and I admit that it only works with perfect soil conditions...hence we mainly use the hand held one. The barrow riddle has long 1/2" apertures rather than the 1/2" wire squares of the round hand held riddle.

My uncle used to have a riddle which was mounted flat upon a frame..under which a barrow would fit. The square riddle ran on rails with flanged wheels and thus could be moved back and fore like a conventional riddle...I can't recall it exactly but I think the riddle must have had a pivot to quickly tip off the dross rather than lifting it from its rails.???!!

Our conventional round riddle with thin wood side was a lucky purchase 6 or 7 years ago from a local independant garden centre, now part of a big chain. It replaced a previous worn out similar riddle.
At the time the garden centre had a wooden chest full of these riddles.. I wish I had bought a couple more.. because it was a chance to buy a brilliantly useable quality tool..which was once the norm', like a potato riddle construction...but sadly I have not seen this type of riddle on sale locally since.

All the best,
Clive.

[Johnboy]

Hi Clive,
My father went one step further and fitted a crank and electric motor to something similar to the aparatus you describe. It worked a treat for many years but it eventually shook itself to death and he never did make another one. I have an electric motor with a crank being part of my old well pump but have never had the time to to do anything with it.
If you are interested contact me.

[Clive.]

Hello Johnboy,

As I typed the description of Uncles rail mounted riddle...I wondered if the next step would be the fitment of a crank arm to drive it.??!!..I was correct
Uncle died a few years back..and I expect the "rail riddle" is no more. I had always wondered if it was a genuine horticultural/nursery device or if it had a coal yard origin.??

All the best,
Clive.

[vivie veg]

Hi Ian47,

Could you, perhaps, rig up a seive for the opening of your cement mixer? You could take it off for filling and put it on and tip the cement mixer to the emptying position to allow the seived material to drop through? Thereby leaving you cement mixer relatively intact.

[Ian47]

Vivianne - BRILLIANT, .... why didn't I think of that. Now where did I put that riddle..... Many thanks. Ian.

[vivie veg]

KEEP IT SIMPLE is my motto

But don't overload the cement mixer as they take a lot of starting with a full load and tend to blow the fuses (I know from experience!) I'm not sure whether petrol engine will cope better.

[Mr Potato Head]

... could this be adapted?

www.rotasieve.co.uk

[retropants]

wow, gotta get me one of those!!!

[Ian47]

Thanks KG. Yep, already got one and it works very well. Through trial and error I found the best way to use it is to stand a bottomless dustbin etc inside a wheelbarrow and put the Rotosieve on top. This gives a good depth of sifted soil otherwise you are constantly unbunging the soil from underneath. My trouble is I am greedy and I want to go one step further in soil preparation, hence the original mixer drum request.

[Johnboy]

A I said on a previous thread I have an ALKO Cement mixer with a sieve drum. This was used to mix up potting mixtures and what I forgot to mention was that I have four quite hefty round stones in the drum which assisted the sifting process.
I must say I do like Vivian's idea as second hand cement mixers are not very expensive and therefore no great loss if you manage to go slightly wrong in experimenting. I do not do any mixing now but every now and then I could do with the use of a cement mixer and as Viv explains it makes a mixer a dual purpose machine.

[Clive.]

With ref to the conventional round wooden sided 1/2" soil riddle that I refered to in a posting above....I saw one yesterday in our local independant hardware store. It had a "Span" brand label on it and was priced at £16.

Clive.