Workshop Wednesday-Brine Sprayer

 After a number of years saying we were gonna experiment with salt brine for ice control, we are finally doing it. This means we need a way to apply brine and also we need a way to make brine. The making part will come in a future post because we can always buy a tote full of brine for experimenting. We need the means of application and our first goal is to make a machine that will do sidewalks, stairs and door entrances.
 We had this Raven lawn mower that we had to buy back from a customer. Its basically a generator on wheels with electric drive and electric motors on the cutting deck. The problem was getting replacement parts to satisfy the customer. If it breaks again for us we'll just cobble something together to nurse it along. Maybe if our experimenting goes good we can look at a different rig but for now this is it.

 Another goal for this project is to do it on the cheap. We'll be using as much stuff as possible thats just laying around the shop. Lucky for us there's crap everywhere so sourcing parts is easy. The hose reel is from a pressure washer that was scrapped out. 

 Salt brine and electronics don't go well together. After the rear fender section was removed, I used rubber bed mat to enclose as much as possible to keep the brine off. The rest will get oiled down.

 This tank and pump had issues and wasn't being used. I made enough repairs to suit our needs here. The tank and framework its mounted on fold back to gain access to the engine/generator.

 The plan is to be driving down the sidewalk and spraying brine. When we get to a door entrance we can pull the hose from the reel and spray those areas. The reel is obvious here and the single spray "boom" nozzle for the walks is below it.

 There is a switch to power on the pump and this valve to switch between wand and boom. Some of these valves, nozzles and such are all spares from our regular turf sprayers. This week we'll be meeting with an "expert" from our salt and chemical supplier. I think we already have a pretty good idea about how to put the brine down and just need some details on adding other chlorides to our mix and at what rates. The brine maker is about half done at this point and we should be making a batch next week.

Later.