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All articles about Workshop skills

Farm workshop tips and advice on common tasks such as cutting and welding, tackling rust on farm machinery and using grinders safely. See also top farm inventions and workshop-built kit from other farmers, including our video of a homemade silage station.

Advice and tips

WORKSHOP SKILLS

Top tips for upping the quality of workshop projects

Every year, the Farm Inventions Competition unearths a horde of impressive workshop builds that provide ingenious answers to some of agriculture’s recurring conundrums. Traditionally, farmers and contractors have sketched out…

WORKSHOP SKILLS

Managing welding fumes on farms – all you need to know

Farm businesses must now understand and mitigate the health and safety risks associated with fumes produced during welding and other metalwork tasks to protect the long-term health and wellbeing of…

WORKSHOP SKILLS

Workshop heaters: The options and the rules

Winter is a prime time for repairs, maintenance, modifying or making pieces of equipment that will make life easier when fieldwork picks up again. But the thought of spending long,…

WORKSHOP SKILLS

John Deere tractors: Common problems and how to fix them

Tractors have a habit of breaking down at the most inconvenient moment. Independent mechanic Lee Morley takes a look at John Deere models, offers a few tips to reduce the…

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Case studies

WORKSHOP SKILLS

Lincs grower’s bespoke harvester lifts 70k pumpkins a day

Each autumn, millions of pumpkins are plucked from their fields, carved into ghoulish lanterns and displayed with tealights flickering at their core. The process of getting these orange gourds from…

CEREAL DRILLS

Farmer combines Karat and Solitair for one-pass bean drill

It’s a Lemken drill, but not as you know it. The perfectly colour-matched Kinair, named after Craig and Claire Grant’s Kindrought Farm and the Solitair seeder on which it is…

WORKSHOP SKILLS

How a Wiltshire-based mechanic built his own hedgecutter

Luke Compton likes a workshop challenge, so when he needed a new hedgecutter he decided it would be far more satisfying to build rather than buy one. Complex geometry and…

WORKSHOP SKILLS

£10,000 Wing Jet workshop mod forms 30m Avadex applicator

Upsizing from 24m to 30m tramlines meant Buckinghamshire arable farmer Charlie Edgley had a raft of machinery to either upgrade or replace, one of which was his Avadex applicator. In…

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Community

WORKSHOP SKILLS

Workshop Legend: We visit master tractor fixer Martin Percy

Based on a farm close to Blandford Forum, Dorset Tractors’ Martin Percy has built a reputation for repairing and restoring machinery of all shapes, sizes and shades for customers across…

WORKSHOP SKILLS

Inventions Comp 2024: Neat ideas for livestock farms

From crafty modifications to high-tech implements and self-propelled machines, this year’s Farmers Weekly Farm Inventions Competition had it all. We round up the best of the entries for livestock farmers.…

WORKSHOP SKILLS

Inventions Comp 2024: Andrew Metson’s Vaderstad Carrier

By treating his 24-year-old 5m Vaderstad Carrier to a series of upgrades, Andrew Metson has created a multi-use cultivator that can double up as a cover crop drill. In its…

WORKSHOP SKILLS

Inventions Comp 2024: Martin Buck's 'Slabmaster' bandsaw

Keen to make the most of fallen trees on his hill farm near Crickhowell, Powys, Martin Buck built his own “Slabmaster” track bandsaw to turn them into useful timber. A…

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Insights

TRACTORS

What to look for when buying and fitting a tractor dashcam

Drive a tractor on the road for any length of time and you are bound to see some form of reckless manoeuvre from an impatient motorist. Most of the time,…

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News

WORKSHOP SKILLS

FW Inventions Comp opens for entries with £2.5k prize pot

It’s time for another season of Farmers Weekly’s long-running Farm Inventions Competition. With a back catalogue containing thousands of ingenious ideas, there’s nowhere better to read about workshop builds that have saved…

WORKSHOP SKILLS

Inventions Comp 2024: Slurry separator bags top prize

This year’s complex category winner is a self-powered slurry separator built over two years by Alan Gilkes for Cornish contractor AJ Heywood. The machine was designed to split the liquid…

WORKSHOP SKILLS

Bag a cash prize for your farm invention

If you’re a keen workshop tinkerer then why not enter Farmers Weekly's Farm Inventions Competition and be in with the chance of winning a cash prize. Our annual competition relies…

WORKSHOP SKILLS

Inventions Competition: Quad bike trailer makes light work

As our annual inventions competition hots up, we're giving you a sneak preview of some of the entries before we start judging. This nifty creation is the work of John…

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Test and reviews

WORKSHOP SKILLS

Video: On test – 20 workshop tools recommended by farmers

Off the back of the low-cost tool, gadget and knickknack review we carried out last year, scores of readers got in touch with nifty suggestions of their own. Oliver Mark…

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Video

WORKSHOP SKILLS

Winning Inventions Comp entry up for grabs in farm sale

After 53 years, several million small square bales and dozens of farm inventions, Cotswolds contractor and farm-scale engineer Frank Henderson is calling time on his career – and his bespoke…

CULTIVATION AND DRILLING

Video: Grower builds cover crop broadcaster for £3,000

A farm-built broadcaster costing less than £3,000 has given James Hopkinson the opportunity introduce cover cropping as part of a "regenerative" approach to the arable enterprises he manages. The tractor-mounted…

WORKSHOP SKILLS

Video: Time-saving feeding and bedding kit inventions

Clever feeding and bedding kit is helping livestock farmers shave hours off their daily routine. We've picked out some of the best ones from the many entries to our 2020…

WORKSHOP SKILLS

Conversion turns Discovery into off-road milk float

Charles Kinston’s off-road milk float took third place in the simple category of the Farmers Weekly Inventions Competition. Mr Kinston, a dairy farmer from Burton on Trent, is doing his…

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