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YTS and ABR Compaction Drag
Topic Started: Jan 5 2010, 08:58 PM (3,028 Views)
Glide
ADK Nordic
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I spoke to ABR and they felt the compaction drag they make is better than the YTS. Have any of our readers used the ABR Drag? It's hard to tell from their pic if there are multiple baldes like a YTS Drag or if it is one going across the drag. What I like about the YTS is it moves snow around from blade to blade as it's being pulled which fills in low areas nicely. ABR also offers an ice blade attachment which makes me wonder if it will give a GInzo a run for the money in the right conditions. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Another point is the 55" wide drag is $1100 and a 84" Ginzo with 55" point to point cutting is $3200.
Glide
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arly
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When we built our drag last winter, Doug at YTS said he was coming out with a new version of his drag. Has anyone seen it?? But heal so said he wasn't going to make it wider, which was our contention, because every time we turned it sharp, it wouldn't cover over the sled tracks. So we built ours 5ft 6in wide and loved it being that width. We also made it shorter for maneuvering our twisty trails and made it slide only on HDPE and UHMW plastics. When it was done, the silly thing worked better that we ever had imagined it would.
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Attachments: new_drag__RT__photo_front__DL_.jpg (227.67 KB)
Edited by arly, Jan 6 2010, 08:09 AM.
http://keweenawnordic.org/ [/url] keweenawnordicskiclub.blogspot.com [/url]
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Glide
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ARLY
Whoever your metal fabricator is, they are very good. Super nice job on this compaction drag. Probably the best I've seen. They must have also done the roller in the shed. Looks a lot like a YTS roller but with a Tidd Tech front section. Any chance you folks will make these drags commercially. Shorter in length and wider to cover my tracks...perfect. Thanks for the pic.
Glide
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Glide
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ARLY,
Could you ad how your compaction drag performs compared to a Ginzo or G2? Will it shear icy crust or just put superficial scratches in the surface?
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arly
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Hummmm we have a ginzu but I'd afraid we rarely need to chew up ice with it. The ginzu seems to make larger junks of snow while the drag seems to drag up, or cut a finer material but at a shallower depth per pass which does require LOTS of power. We have made a pass or two with a drag to soften up the surface. Then shorty after that with the ginzu to make a reasonable looking track and comb pattern in the ground up surface.
Edited by arly, Aug 20 2010, 10:13 PM.
http://keweenawnordic.org/ [/url] keweenawnordicskiclub.blogspot.com [/url]
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semntrails
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Arly, did you buy the teeth bars or cut them? We're looking to make another drag and depending on price I'd be tempted to buy the teeth if I could find them vs cutting them.

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arly
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The teeth are plama cut from T-1, or it was some hardened steel the shop had so they'd have good wear characteristics. We had a locale shop cut them for us since these are somewhat wider than YTS are.
http://keweenawnordic.org/ [/url] keweenawnordicskiclub.blogspot.com [/url]
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semntrails
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Douglas, I can't compare the YTS/ABR drag the Ginzu but we do have a home made leveling/packing drag that we use regularily the design on our drag is slightly different but the concept is the same (ours has no moving parts per see). I like both for different reasons. If I could only have one and money wasn't a concern I'd get the Ginzu it is really versatile, only it's not the answer to all the problems you might face grooming, if a budget was a concern I could get by with just our home made drag, it costs ~$50-100 in material and a day or less to build. I like having both available for different tasks. I like the home made one because I spent 2-3 years learning how to make good trails with that before we had a Ginzu. Given the choice of the home made vs an older Tidd Tech, I'd go home made.

We use our drag to shave the crust, to pack fluffy snow and early late season when we don't want to risk damage to the Ginzu - it's solid when I was first learning to groom on tight twisty trails I'd bounce it off trees at 20-30mph, more recently we knocked it against large frozen blocks of ice and pulled it who knows how far with only one side of the hitch attached after one of the bolts holding the hitch on broke or fell out - no worse for the wear yet. It does a very good job of leveling ripples in the trail, and leaving a skiable surface behind. On crusty snow it is easy to leave a nice trail behind it, in softer snow while packing it takes more time and work to leave a smooth trail 8-12' wide (our drag is only 4' wide).

The Ginzu is solid but it wouldn't hold up to the abuse the home made drag takes. When shaving the surface you have to do several passes, it tends to create marble to super ball size chunks of ice the first time or two around. In non-ice conditions it cuts through the snow nicely and leaves a great trail behind it. Having the power adjustment of the knives and track setter makes it so easy to adjust to a lot of trail conditions along the way. If you pull a small roll of snow in front of it you can fill divits but if you get to big of a roll you'll get stuck. The Ginzu can't level out ripples very well.
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semntrails
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Thanks Arly, we have two drags now, one with plasma cut teeth and one with torch cut teeth - both work and have held up well, was just hoping for a commercial short cut.
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arly
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Douglas Diehl
Jan 5 2010, 09:49 PM
ARLY
Whoever your metal fabricator is, they are very good. Super nice job on this compaction drag. Probably the best I've seen. They must have also done the roller in the shed. Looks a lot like a YTS roller but with a Tidd Tech front section. Any chance you folks will make these drags commercially. Shorter in length and wider to cover my tracks...perfect. Thanks for the pic.
Douglas, Thank you for your kind comments. This was built at a locale HS shop with my assistance. I spent 15 years welding in the energy business and can't appreciate a "home made" look, so we tried hard to make it look professional. And please note that all we did was make improvements on YTS design. Everyone here has added "shoes" to the front there drags and plastic to the rear pans. We just designed it to be wider, ride exclusively on plastic, cutting teeth go up and down via actuator and other improvements. None the less we made a few minor mistake during its production, but when we got it in the field, it operated like a dream.

Late last winter the thread of its testing and production with many photos is here

http://s8.zetaboards.com/snowgroomingtalk/topic/8044376/2/#new

Edited by arly, Oct 30 2014, 10:06 PM.
http://keweenawnordic.org/ [/url] keweenawnordicskiclub.blogspot.com [/url]
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