Ohio Steel 12.5cft Dump Cart

[Jazzberry]

Went cart shopping yesterday and saw the 17' TSC cart for $199. The Polar like Dmitris was built a lot better and it was an easy decision to pay an extra hundred for the 18' Polar. I cut the doodad hitch off and put a ball tongue on it. I am going to park it next to my door and put a tarp over it for convenience this winter. Figured I best explain it since it looks a little funny that I got a dump cart for my dump Ranger lol

 

[ADK_XJ]

View attachment 162218 Went cart shopping yesterday and saw the 17' TSC cart for $199. The Polar like Dmitris was built a lot better and it was an easy decision to pay an extra hundred for the 18' Polar. I cut the doodad hitch off and put a ball tongue on it. I am going to park it next to my door and put a tarp over it for convenience this winter. Figured I best explain it since it looks a little funny that I got a dump cart for my dump Ranger lol

Nice! Looks like a good one. I hear those dump cart Rangers are where it's at for wood hauling. If I hadn't found my used Yamaha Kodiak so quickly last spring, I had a buddy in the US Forestry Service pushing me to just buy a Ranger.

 

[Jazzberry]

Thanks I highly recommend Rangers too. Its been really great. I need to get a snow plow hooked up before long on it.

 

[ADK_XJ]

Well, nearly 4 years later I’m returning to this thread...I finally did some significant damage to the Ohio Steel dump cart I bought back in 2015. On a bitterly cold day I was dumping a big load of green oak and heard a loud crack. Sure enough I put a good 8-10” crack in the lip of the cart down to the pan.

It’s wamred up enough this week that I might try to tackle a repair: any suggestions from other owners?

I’m tempted to use a fiber cement bondo like product for auto repair and reinforce with some steel bar and rivets.

 

[kennyp2339]

Don’t try to fill the crack, you need a patch for that. I’ll pm you

 

[Ashful]

I just replaced mine with this. Holds a full cord, actually it serves as my wood rack all winter on the patio, and it pulls double duty as a mulch dump wagon in spring.

 

[ADK_XJ]

I just replaced mine with this. Holds a full cord, actually it serves as my wood rack all winter on the patio, and it pulls double duty as a mulch dump wagon in spring.

View attachment 240345

View attachment 240346

That's bad ass...but would require me to buy (build?) something like that and have a tractor to pull it around with. Where did you get it?

For now, I'm stuck with my ol' Yamaha Kodiak ATV and trying to fix-up this dump wagon. The patch route seems to be the way to go...

 

[SpaceBus]

I just replaced mine with this. Holds a full cord, actually it serves as my wood rack all winter on the patio, and it pulls double duty as a mulch dump wagon in spring.

View attachment 240345

View attachment 240346

That is slick. Did you make it or buy it?

I'm also a novice to driving with trailers and I would run into all kinds of stuff with that articulated trailer!

 

[Ashful]

Yeah, this one is a real mother to back up, with the second point of articulation. I can damn near do a slalom course with a trailer in reverse (like that Ohio Steel job), and it took me a little while to wrap my mind around backing up this wagon, but it is do-able with a little practice.

This wagon is purchased as a kit, and you assemble it. The mounting points for the cylinder are even there from the manufacturer, to add a cylinder of your own for the hydraulic dump. I used it as a non-dump wagon for a year, hauling wood, then added the hydraulics when I made another garden in my yard and had to move and spread 110 yards of garden mulch in two weekends last spring. That dump feature saved me an enormous amount of grief, and I look forward to using it every year, although I doubt I’ll ever top 60-70 yards of mulch in a single year, again.

I love this wagon, so I wouldn’t hesitate recommending it to anyone. Before this, I used to haul 1/4 cord at a time from my wood lot to my house, in one of those Ohio Steel poly tub utility trailers, and re-stack it in racks at the house. But with this wagon, I just haul a full cord up to the house and park it. The wagon IS my wood rack. That cuts the time down to move 1 cord of wood up to my house (every 3 weeks) from half a day to an hour.

It’s also great for hayrides in the woods and fields with the kids in October. My only challenge is that I only have one, as I want to use it for hayrides in October and moving mulch in March or April, but I want it for firewood from beginning of October thru at least end of April.

 

[ADK_XJ]

Yeah, this one is a real mother to back up, with the second point of articulation. I can damn near do a slalom course with a trailer in reverse (like that Ohio Steel job), and it took me a little while to wrap my mind around backing up this wagon, but it is do-able with a little practice.

This wagon is purchased as a kit, and you assemble it. The mounting points for the cylinder are even there from the manufacturer, to add a cylinder of your own for the hydraulic dump. I used it as a non-dump wagon for a year, hauling wood, then added the hydraulics when I made another garden in my yard and had to move and spread 110 yards of garden mulch in two weekends last spring. That dump feature saved me an enormous amount of grief, and I look forward to using it every year, although I doubt I’ll ever top 60-70 yards of mulch in a single year, again.

I love this wagon, so I wouldn’t hesitate recommending it to anyone. Before this, I used to haul 1/4 cord at a time from my wood lot to my house, in one of those Ohio Steel poly tub utility trailers, and re-stack it in racks at the house. But with this wagon, I just haul a full cord up to the house and park it. The wagon IS my wood rack. That cuts the time down to move 1 cord of wood up to my house (every 3 weeks) from half a day to an hour.

It’s also great for hayrides in the woods and fields with the kids in October. My only challenge is that I only have one, as I want to use it for hayrides in October and moving mulch in March or April, but I want it for firewood from beginning of October thru at least end of April.

Cool. Do you mind sharing the source of the kit? Do they have other (smaller?) ones?

 

[Ashful]

Cool. Do you mind sharing the source of the kit? Do they have other (smaller?) ones?

No problem, it was Country Manufacturing Inc. http://www.countrymfg.com/2_ton_wagon.htm

They have a whole range of products, but I honestly haven’t looked at their site in 2 years. I like this one because of the weight rating, it’s really hard to find a small wagon that not only has the volumetric capacity for a full cord of wood, but the weight handling to safely support it. My yard is a little hilly, and with a 4000 lb. wagon on the back of my 2000 lb. tractor, things could get real dangerous if there were a catastrophic trailer failure on a hill.

 

[SpaceBus]

No problem, it was Country Manufacturing Inc. http://www.countrymfg.com/2_ton_wagon.htm

They have a whole range of products, but I honestly haven’t looked at their site in 2 years. I like this one because of the weight rating, it’s really hard to find a small wagon that not only has the volumetric capacity for a full cord of wood, but the weight handling to safely support it. My yard is a little hilly, and with a 4000 lb. wagon on the back of my 2000 lb. tractor, things could get real dangerous if there were a catastrophic trailer failure on a hill.

That's a reasonable price as well.

 

[Ashful]

That's a reasonable price as well.

You think? Maybe I wasn’t really appreciating all that’s there, but I felt it was awful expensive, for what it was. But I needed it and there weren’t other options short of building my own, and I don’t have the spare time to build my own, so I went with it. I received one part that didn’t fit, and they promptly replaced it, no other issues. Quality is pretty good. The drawbar connection is taking a real beating from backing it up hill into the house with a full load, though.

 

[ADK_XJ]

You think? Maybe I wasn’t really appreciating all that’s there, but I felt it was awful expensive, for what it was. But I needed it and there weren’t other options short of building my own, and I don’t have the spare time to build my own, so I went with it. I received one part that didn’t fit, and they promptly replaced it, no other issues. Quality is pretty good. The drawbar connection is taking a real beating from backing it up hill into the house with a full load, though.

They certainly seem well made but, having only a 400CC quad, the idea of buying a $1000-2000 trailer that I can't even really pull without a bigger machine is counter-intuitive. At $300 the Ohio Steel also seems to fit in a sweet spot for maneuvering through an old, overgrown sugar bush with a towering load of firewood and I love the simple load-out configurations you do with a couple quick cuts of plywood and 1x3s.

Reader's Digest version: if I can't get the one I have repaired sufficiently to haul wood, I'll probably make it my dedicated tool and chainsaw cart and buy another one for wood and maple sap/syrup hauling.

 

[Ashful]

True’dat. You can pile a heap load of wood on those little Ohio Steel POS’s, provided it’s not bitter cold. Here is how I used to treat mine, 1/4 cord at a time: