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Show OPERATION OF A ROAD DRAG Mistake for Operator to Think That All He Has to Do Is to Drive Team Get Best Angle. Whonever the row! drag has been tried and pronounced a failure it Is safe to say that it was not used often enough or else it was used at the wrong time or in the wrong way. Some operators seem to think that all they have to do is to drive the team and the drag will automatically do the work, but this is n sad mistake. In the first place the manner of hitching the team to the drag greatly r Operating a Road Drag. affects its operation. If a short hitch is used the tendency is to raise the front edge of the drag, while a longer hitch makes it cut deeper and move more material. The correct length of hitch to use depends upon the height of the team, arrangement of harness, etc., and must be determined by trial. The amount of .skew or angle which the drag makes with the center line of the road also affects the results. The greater the skew (i. e the smaller small-er the angle between the drag and the center line of the road) the more earth will be moved toward the center. cen-ter. Usually this skew angle should be about 45 degrees, but here again the judgment and experience of the operator must' be brought into play. The driver can control the operation opera-tion to a large extent by shifting his position upon the drag. When he approaches ap-proaches a high spot in the road he can step toward the front, thus making mak-ing the blade cut deeper, while at a depression he can step toward the rear, in this way raising the cutting edge and dumping the earth which is being pushed ahead of th drag. By stepping toward the end of the drag J nearest the center of the road he can j increase the skew and so 'move more earth toward the center line, while stepping to the other end of the drag has the opposite effect. In road dragging drag-ging it Is especially true that "practice "prac-tice makes perfect" provided that common com-mon sense is used along with the practice. |