Shane Leavy from Clondra, Co Longford, sent us in photos of his homemade tractor weight block. It was after a couple of scares lifting heavy bales with his front loader that he looked into buying a factory-built weight, but after shopping around he found that the cost was too high for his liking.

To overcome this, he decided to build his own one. He had already bought blue plastic barrels to make cattle feeders, so he decided that one of these would make the ideal mould for a weight.

He had some welding experience that allowed him to make up a T-shaped box frame. A solid plate was used to make up the link for the top link and a solid 32mm round bar was used for the back-end tractor arm attachments.

Some lengths of scrap metal were also welded to the frame to further strengthen the weight. Shane mixed 3:2:1 sand/gravel/cement and filled the mould tamping regularly and it was left to set for three days. The barrels moulds were then cut away neatly and were reused as a feed trough.

A black masonry paint was used on the weight blocks and all exposed steel connections were primed and galvanised. Once the weight was given more time to set properly, it was brought to a local co-op. It weighed 500kg exactly, according to Shane. He says that he found it a very safe addition, especially as he is often handling tonne-bags of stone and sand in his work as stonemason. The total cost amounted to €80 for materials, which Shane felt was a good saving – and maybe even a life saver.