Hi. I'm Ted from Everyday Attachments, and we're here today with the Phoenix brand of rotary tiller. This is made by the Sicma Corporation in Italy. This is what I've found to be the finest tiller in the world, that I know of. This is a 20 series. This is going to be for a large tractor of 60 horse power and up. It comes in different widths. It starts at an 80 inch, I believe. It goes up to 120 inches, which is ten feet. This is a 90-inch. This has a really large rotor assembly with a huge torque tube, giving you the full for less flexibility all the way across with the long widths that it makes. Even the side bearing over here, which is not on the drive side, which runs in oil. This side does run in oil, and I'm going to show you that in a minute as we spin it around. It has a really thick bar all the way across the front where these clevis units can be adjusted to fit your tractor. This will work with a category two or a category one. You simply put your hitch on either side, depending on what size balls you have in your tractor.
Typically, this size of tiller will be used with a category two tractor. But you can switch this top-link pin to the category one side also. This also is on a U-bolt on the back of this; it will slide back and forth to give you some offset. So if you had a row crop tractor that was set really wide, you could still offset it about a foot and let it be able to clear out your tracks. So, what gives you a lot of wear time on your tines is how wide the blade from the front to the back. These are really thick, really wide, and with six of them you get a lot of really good tilling action with just one pass and you're going to get a lot of wear with a tine like that. Now, I've tried other tillers that have an L-shape tine which would come straight out and straight over, and they just don't till as well as this S-
shaped tine. This is my favorite tiller. It's a 540rpm shaft, comes with a huge E-Cardan shaft with a big slip-clutch on it. So, if it was to catch a big rock, or a stump, or root, or whatever, within the field. It would stop the rotor for a minute, slip the clutch, instead of sheering a bolt. Then, you can go back to work with the clutch without having to change the bolt. So, some of the other advantages of this...
Turn me around over here to the side, Peanut.
If you see right where it says oil? This is the case here. This has regular gear oil, or like 90 weight in it, where that bearing is running in oil, instead of just a greased bearing.
Come on around.
Because of the width and how heavy the rear till gate is, and the way this works, because it's so wide, it needs to have two independent tilgates on it. Tilgates do a lot on the back of a tiller. They really can, between the speed of your tractor, the type of ground you have and these adjustments on these tilgates determine how much you're pulverizing the ground. You don't really want to mix it too much, because if you get totally like sand, especially with our red clay around here, you're going to end up, when it rains, with some really hard dirt. So, you want to leave it just a little bit chunky, but leave a good till job. So these tilgates and the speed of your tractor are what are going to control the consistency of what you end up with. It has a really large gear box on it, supported from both sides...
Come on around this way Kev.
This is a fully powder coated unit. This one is red. Most of the ones we get from the supplier come in orange. It has three big gears right here, which are running in oil. There's a sight glass right here that would let you know if there's oil in there. As long as it shows oil in there you're good.
You've got four different slide adjustments that's half-inch steel. So, this tiller is a full commercial built for long term use. And hat proves it by showing that they're running that other bearing in oil instead of just a sealed bearing there. You've got a nice kick stand here because you've got a big heavy unit that basically on wheel there, with a rotor assembly. Without that, it could make it very difficult or dangerous to hook up because it could rotate forward. But we've sold the sicma brand for over 20 years, and it's definitely, for a tiller, it's my favorite that goes on the back of a tractor. Especially when you get to this size of a tiller, give us a call or email and let us know what tractor you have. We'll probably ask you what type of dirt you have and make sure that we get the right size tiller for your tractor and for your needs. Just remember, give us a call or email at Everything Attachments and we'll get you fixed with the right unit.
Video 2
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.
Video 2
Hi. I'm Ted from Everything Attachments.
We're here today with the Phoenix brand of rotary tiller. This is made by the Sicma Corporation in Italy. This is one of the finest tillers that I've been able to be around, and I've seen a lot of them. We've sold these for a lot of years. This is distributed through the Unifarm Corporation that brings them directly into North Carolina. And what makes this tiller the best, in my opinion, are a lot of different things that just add up to a tiller that gives you more adjusting features, easier to service features, and just high quality items, like the brand of drive-shaft they use, the thickness and the width of tines. What gives you your wearing distance on here is from front to back being thick. Six blades per tine instead of four give you extra wearing time. The whole rotor assembly, this is called the torque tube, it's really thick to reduce flex. The whole assembly unbolts here on the side and over there so you can remove it to replace the blades or any type of service you need to do to it.
This is a Eurocardan shaft. It's an Italian-made shaft, but it's considered to be pretty much the best. All of our tillers that we ship out come with a slip clutch. This has a metallic and fiber organic disk inside of here, it has two of them, has these springs, so when you get a piece of wood of something that was in your garden, a big rock or something caught between the tailgate or the frame and your tines, this clutch is going to let it slip. Then you would simply remove the item, and it goes back to work, and you won't have to do anything. It may just stop for a second, continue to work as it hits something really hard. If this was a shear protection bottle, every tiller has to have some type of protection so it doesn't tear your tractor up if it were to hit something really hard. So some of them have a smooth shaft. It would have a bolt that goes through there that would actually shear, and every time you hit something, you're going to have to change that bolt. So the slip clutch is definitely a good feature for that.
Now, when this tiller comes to you, it will be in a crate wrapped in plastic. This top piece for where your top link goes will not be attached. That will have to be assembled. That's about all the assembly that has to be done, is this has to be put on, the drive-shaft has to be put on. These particular joints here, they have U-bolt that goes across this square tube here. This is where your draw-bar arms are going to hook, and these can slide to offset it a little bit to each direction. They will come in the up position just because of the way it's positioned in the crate, so remember to move those down.
Remember to check the width of your drive-shaft of your tractor. This could be used on a much larger tractor than per se is recommended with the horsepower. It's just, it would be used at the same pace as it would be used on the tractor it's meant for. As long as you don't try to pull it through the ground too fast, it's not going to matter if this is on a 40-
horsepower tractor or a 60-horsepower tractor, as long as you don't rush it and make the clutch smoke. So when you're adjusting this shaft to your tractor, make sure that your tiller is sitting straight. This is basically a big wheel. The only thing keeping it from turning and letting you install this easily on your tractor is this kickstand here. So if you've got it leaning way forward and you're doing your measuring for your shaft, you're going to be off. Same way if you've got it leaning way back. So remember to get your tiller level before you try to do your measuring of your drive-
shaft.
Turn me around to the side over here Peanut.
It has really heavy duty bearing assemblies over here. This is a casted piece. It's grease-able right here. The slides are a half an inch thick. They have four different adjustments here.
Come on around to the back.
This tailgate is an important part of the end result of how your dirt ends up looking as you go through it with the tiller. If you leave your tailgate all the way down, it's going to give it time to pulverize the dirt more. Sometimes you don't want it fully pulverized, depending on the type of ground you have, like our red clay for instance. If we pulverize it and it rains real hard on it, we basically end up with concrete, so you don't want to keep going and going and going until you end up with dust. So we would leave this tailgate up a little bit and let it come out in small chunks, but workable, instead of just letting it turn into dust. So you can over till your ground.
This chain is adjustable right here, so that's what would adjust how much your tailgate is down. Over here, you've got a sight glass for your oil right here, and as long as you can see oil in there, you know you're good to go. Also, it should come with oil in it, but make sure that you check before you use it just so you don't damage anything. It has a vent right here as your oil heats up. Your full adjustable kickstand is right here, and you'll always use that when you remove it so it doesn't fall over on you.
I've sold this for a long time on the Sicma brand. It's a great tiller. It's just about indestructible. We rarely sell any replacement parts for it. The only thing we ever sell are maybe some clutch disks to replace in the PTO after they've been used a long time or tines after they've been used a long time. We keep all of this in stock at Everything Attachments. If you'll give us a call or an e-mail, we'll make sure that you get the right size tiller for your tractor. This is a gear driven tiller. All of the "10" series are. They come from a 58-inch, 66-inch, 74-inch, and then you can go into the heavier ones, or the lighter ones as you go smaller. So just give us a call or an e-mail. We'll make sure you get the right size for your tractor.
