Hi. I'm Ted, from Everything Attachments. We're here today with the 10-
Series of the Sicma Tiller, made in Italy. It's sold under the Phoenix brand, distributed by Unifarm. I've sold these tillers for over 20 years in this brand, and gone through a lot of different brands; this is my favorite brand. It's not the cheapest, but it does have a lot of features on it that make it worth its money.
These clevis hitches here, which will come in the upright position; remember to put them in their lower position when you get them. The only other thing that won't be assembled when you get this tiller will be the upper A-frame, which just has the bolts, here on the side, and the driveshaft has to be put on your PTO here. Other than that, the main assembly and everything comes together when you receive it.
This has 6 blades per rotor. Has a really thick time so it gives you a lot of wearing room. Has a real large and thick torque tube in there, which is what takes all the torque all the way across this whole load. This is a gear-driven tiller. Gear versus chain; I'm not sure which is best because I've never had a failure out of either, out of a high-quality tiller. Seems all the bigger ones are gear-driven, the smaller ones are chain. People always ask which is the best. I've never had a problem out of either with this brand. This is a gear. I like it fine.
What's unique about the Sicma brand tiller; this whole torque tube comes out to be able to change the blades on it or replace the seal if you get a piece of wire in there that cuts one of your oil seals. With just a few bolts on each side, you can remove the whole piece.
Also, this is a slip clutch instead of a sheer bolt, here. When you hit a large rock, piece of wood, or something that was in your garden, or field, that you didn't know was there, instead of sheering the bolt and having to get off on a hot day and replace it, you're simply going to slip this clutch here and this will stop. Your clutch will be slipping when you remove the debris, or it goes over it, then it will continue back working without having to do any repair. This is a Eurocardan shaft; it's one of the finest shafts made in the industry. They use all top-notch stuff. Their gearbox is made in Italy, also, where the rest of this is made. Turn this around over to the side, Peanut.
It has a casted piece here on the end that is greaseable, and that's going to grease the side that's not your drive-side. It has a ½-inch thick runner here, which is going to give you a lot of life, because you're going to basically drag that through the ground. It also has 4 position holes here to adjust the height of how deep you're tilling.
It has a 1-piece tailgate that's very heavy-duty. It's adjustable here with the chain. You do several things with this tailgate. You're adjusting how coarse or how fine that you're leaving the ground that you're tilling. Between your groundspeed and your tailgate, are the two determining factors that's going to be how my ground looks when I'm through. In our red clay, we don't want to pulverize to dust, because when it rains, it'll turn into concrete. In a sandy area, you can continue to till it, get it nice and smooth, and it's not going to turn hard like our dirt does. For different areas, and you know where you are, will determine how you want your ground and how easy it is to plant. Turn this right over here to the side.
These do come with oil in them. You've got a sight glass right here on the side. As long as you see oil in it, you're good here. There's also a dipstick on the end of this. It should have oil in it when you get it. Remember to check it before you use it. This is all gear-drive inside this case here. Has a vent at the top. Has a kick-stand here. Roll this on around to the front again, Peanut.
Remember on your kickstand, that basically, this whole system is on a big wheel that would let it fall on you if it didn't have a kickstand. The other important thing is getting the driveshaft, your PTO shaft, length correct. What you want to do is make sure that your tiller is not leaning real far forward or real far backwards when you're deciding when to cut this. If you've got it one way or the other, being that a tiller sits very close to your tractor instead of real far away, like the gear box on a rotary cutter which is several feet further back, then you have plenty of telescopic room on your driveshaft, and you rarely need to cut it and you rarely overcut it because there's so much overlap. On a tiller because you're shaft is so short and you need, at least 6 inches minimum of overlap on your driveshaft, you don't want to cut it too short. Make sure that you go; you can look at our video on how to measure and cut your shaft. That'll give you an idea of how to measure it, how to cut it, and get it all right the first time. Remember to keep it rotated to have this straight up and down when you're measuring it.
If you need any help, assistance getting the right size tiller, or making a choice, just give us a call or an email at Everything Attachments. We'll be happy to help you.
Video 2
Hi, I'm Ted from Everything Attachments, and we're here today to show you the Phoenix brand of rotary tiller made by Sicma in Italy. This is one of the finest tillers made. I've sold most of them over the days. This one has a high quality E-Cardan drive-shaft on it, PTO shaft with the slip clutch. This could come with a sheer bolt. A lot of tillers do, but if you hit something in the ground it's going to sheer a bolt, and you're going to have to get off and repair it. This way, it just slips the clutches and will let you continue to work instead of having to repair it. It also protects your tractor and protects the tiller when you hit something. This has six blades per rotor with a very wide tine here so it gives you a lot of wearing room. This S-shaped tine does a really good job in the tilling job. I tried another tiller that had a very sharp bind L-shaped tine, and it took about two passes to come up with the same result as one pass with this tiller. I like the shape of the tine, and I like the six blades per rotor.
On this particular tiller, on the T5 and up, you're able to take out the bolts on each side around here and remove this complete assembly. This has really large toque tubes to keep all the flecks out of it. This is my favorite brand of tiller. It also is fully adjustable hitch, top and bottom, so you can offset this to clear one side of your tracks if you use it on a larger tractor, or if you've got a smaller tractor you can narrow these up and still makes a good fit.
This has a really good powder coated finish. They do come in other colors, but orange is what we get almost 90% of them in. Both of these gear boxes are supposed to come full of oil, but you should still check it.
This has a grease-able side over here for your main torque tube, underneath there, where your tines are. The other side is running in oil with a size 80 chain. This has three different settings for your slide here on how deep or the depth you want for your tines to be going.
Turn it around to the back here, Kev.
It has a heavy-duty tailgate on the back, and really it does more than just protect objects from coming out of it, because the rotor's not really moving that fast in there, like a bush hog or something would be. This chain is important on how you set that and how high you leave your tailgate so it makes the consistency of your dirt the way you want it. You don't want to pulverize your dirt, because if you do, if you turn it into pure dust, when it rains it's going to become very solid. The higher you raise this the more it will allow the dirt to come out without being fully pulverized and come out in smaller chunks. But you still want it to be small and where you can work it easy to do your planting.
Come on around this way.
Here you'll notice that it does have a vent, and that's where your air comes out when your oils expands, and it has a sight glass for your oil. As long as you can see oil in that sight glass, you're good to go. It has a nice kick stand on it here because the rotor assembly is basically a big wheel under there, and it would want to fall one way or the other if you didn't have a kickstand here, and that makes it real easy to hook up to.
The Sicma is my favorite of all of the tillers. We sell a couple other brands, but if you want the deluxe, best tiller, this is it. They come in a lot of different sizes, a lot of different series, but this is a T5-60 what we're looking at right now. This is the T5 series that comes all the way from 44 inches to 60 inches in about every 2-inch increments, and we have all of them for sale.
If you'll give us a call or email at Everything Attachments, we'll be happy to make sure you get the right one for your size of tractor. Just remember, if you want to get a larger tiller and you're a little bit worried about how much power your tractor has, if it's pulling too hard on your tractor, you can always remove just a couple tines, and if you get a bigger tractor then you can just put them back on and keep on going.
Just give us a call or email, and we'll make sure we recommend the right one for your tractor.
All right. We're getting ready to hook up to this 10-Series tiller; this is a 66-inch wide. Just to point out a couple of things before we get hooked to it: This is a clevis hitch here, where your lift arm's going to go. It's fully adjustable either way, so you can make it fit about any tractor, and you can also offset it. Our tractor's a little wider than 66 inches, so we'll offset this a little bit so we can clear out one side of the tracks. Another thing to remember when you're hooking up your tiller, when you get your tiller, this tractor can be hooked to a 35-horsepower, it can be hooked to a 60-horsepower tracker, and so the driveshaft will come plenty long enough to hook to about any size tractor.
On most tractors, including this one, it will probably need to be cut just a little bit. When you have to cut a shaft, you're going to pull it apart. You'll notice that the metal sticks out further than the plastic tube. That's so you can line it up before you push it together. If you cut both pieces the same length, you'll have a hard time lining this up. If you hook your 3-point hitch up and you lack 2 inches from being able to get on your PTO shaft, you'll need to cut 2 inches from your shield and 2 inches on your shaft, and that'll have to be done on both sides to come up with 2 inches. These chains are to hook to the tiller and hook to your tractor to keep the cover from turning while your PTO shaft is turning.
Our guys have gone back to the shop to cut the shaft here because it was too long. There is a way that you can adjust your shaft to the proper length before you even hookup, which will make it less trouble for you. Look at the shaft on your tiller right here, see where your clutch is going to go, and then what you're going to need to do is measure from the edge of your shaft to the center line of your pins here; and it looks like approximately 6 inches. Then take your tractor . . . this would be with your implements apart. Simply take your tractor, find the center line of your draw bars, measure to the end of your PTO shaft; it looks like you have about 16 inches or 18 inches, so get an exact measurement. If 24 inches is what you have from the end of the shaft to the edge of the shaft, then that's what you're going to need to cut your shaft to. Usually, a tiller will come longer than that; you have to cut it to the specific need, so that'll save you some time by pre-measuring it and getting it cut before you mount.
Adjusting the width and offset of your tiller: This tiller is a 10-Series; it comes in several different sizes: 66, 74. This tractor is sitting about 6 feet wide, so a 74 would've cleared the tracks dead in the center. A lot of the tractors, depending on the horsepower and the type of dirt you have, will not pull a tiller the full width of the tractor, especially when they've gone to these R4 tires on these smaller compact tractors. We've used one a little bit narrower than the tractor on purpose. This is a 66-
inch tiller, and what we've done with the Sicma tiller, you're able to offset your clevis hitches here. We've moved this one all the way into the center. We've moved this one out about 6 inches, and then the lift is to where we can always keep a clear path being tilled on one side by backing up without having to leave a hard spot in our garden.
Now that we've cut the shaft to fit, and put it back in and reinstalled it, we've got the two safety chains here; that's going to keep the cover from being able to turn while your PTO shaft is turning. Remember that when you're measuring your shaft, when it's going to be at the shortest place is when the PTO shaft is directly inline and when it's level. If you raise your tiller up real high to be able to get your shaft on, when you lower it back, you're going to do gear box or PTO damage. Make sure that when you're doing your measuring, you're keeping your shafts level and inline.
[inaudible: 04:07], and the first thing we've done is gone over it with a 2-
bottom turning plow; that's the first thing that needs to be done to all gardens. Then we've gone over these two rows with a disk harrow twice, and this is hard red clay. It's pretty soft; it's fine to plant in. It's going to leave a few small clods. That's not necessarily a bad thing; it'll keep your ground from getting harder after rain. We've not done anything to this side here. We're going to go over this side first with a tiller so you can see the difference between what a tiller does and what a disk harrow does, and then we'll probably go over the area we disk harrowed with the tiller too, just to make it better. You'll be able to see the difference in one pass with a tiller and 2 passes with a disk harrow right off the bat.
After just one pass with the tiller, you can see it's a lot looser; it's a lot more consistent soil. You could keep going over it with a disk harrow and get it like this, but a tiller is just a one-stop-shop deal, and you get everything like you want it; it makes it really great to plant with. We're going to do a bedder video in just a minute. Things like a bedder are really going to work a lot better in this looser ground after a tiller has gone over it than with a disk harrow, but a disk harrow does work fine.
We've left the rear gate fully open so you can see better. Somewhere in between fully opened and halfway open is going to make the difference in how fine the ground is. With the tailgate fully open like that, it's going to leave it a lot coarser than it will if you lower that tailgate, but we just wanted you to see what it's doing there.
You can see the difference. This has been gone over with a disk and a tiller. It's still not as fine as with the tiller, but it's because we had the tailgate fully opened, and let everything discharge really easily. We're going to go back through the center; we're going to lower the tailgate. This is over disked area already, and it's going to get even finer than this area over here. This is simply one pass with no disk harrow but with the tailgate down. The tailgate on the back of a tiller makes a big difference, and that will all depend on the soil you have and the dryness of your soil.
Now we've lowered the tailgate down. It's going to make it quite a bit finer than this side over there that had the tailgate up. Ground speed has a lot to do with it, also. If you pick a slower ground speed, it's going to be finer. If you pick a faster ground speed, it'll be coarser.
Phoenix 66" tiller from EA. 
