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 BUS CONVERSION--David Anderson, a retired teacher and full-time farmer, deveolped the idea to convert used school buses into hay transports. Anderson said the buses are readily available and can be easily adapted to the Hay Bus concept. School buses find new routes in hay fieldsBy Jennifer M. Latzke For retired teacher David Anderson, farming has always been his creative outlet. Anderson, who was a physical education teacher for the Denver, Colo., school district for 33 years, spent his summers helping his wife's family put up hay on their farm near Burr Oak, Kan. Today he custom swaths and bales hay for farmers in the Burr Oak area, where he and his wife now live. It was the two experiences--teaching and farming--that led to his most recent creative project, the Hay Bus. Anderson knew that school districts are constantly replacing outdated school buses, many of which end up in junkyards for lack of buyers. He also had a need for an efficient system of picking up and transporting hay bales from the field to the storage area. In a stroke of genius, the Hay Bus was created. "It started with a chalk drawing on the floor of a shop," Anderson said. He and a neighbor then spent a year working on a prototype Hay Bus. "It was a lot of trial and error," he said. "We're still learning." A typical 60-passenger school bus was selected for transformation, and the designing began. Anderson said he chose a school bus as the basis of his hay transportation system because they are readily available, and because they can be easily adapted to this use. "With their Ford diesel engines and automatic transmissions, they're ideal for field conditions," he said. "You can get one straight from a school district, or one that has been traded to a dealer. They're usually 100 percent road-worthy." The first step is to remove the seats from the back of the bus, Anderson explained. These can find new lives in other functions, as shop furniture, or as replacements for working school buses. Some buses even come with handicaped accessible ramps, which can be resold to folks looking to retrofit their vans or other buses. He and a partner then cut the bus's ceiling off of the frame behind the second window. This allows for the flat transport platform to be added to the bus and lowers the center of gravity for the end unit. Anderson said this roof portion of the bus may be recycled into a modular storage shed, if the user wants. The school bus suspension is then improved with the addition of coil springs to compensate for the added weight of hay bales, and other equipment modifications, Anderson explained. A camera mounted on the rear of the unit helps the user back into a stack of bales safely. Anderson also added a computer and heaters to his Hay Bus, using the available bus circuitry that once controlled its flashing lights and other electrical items. "There's plenty of circuits available," he said. "We even reuse the lights from the back of the bus for signals." He also added an air compressor to the bus for help in the field. The hydraulics for the Hay Bus were designed by Universal Hydraulics of Hastings, Neb. The system can pick up a bale and hydraulically open and close its clamps using a 50/50 valve. This valve places the bale in the center of the table so that the stack will be evenly distributed. "We can stack four 4x4 bales, or six 3x3 or 3x4 bales," Anderson said. He is working on a second prototype that can stack round bales, which should be cheaper to build because there aren't as many hydraulics to contend with, he said. "This one has seven hydraulic zones," Anderson explained. Anderson reused oil piping for the framework of the Hay Bus. However, in future Hay Bus kits, he plans to use new steel pipe to reduce the weight. The prototype weighs 19,000 pounds empty. To aid in repairs, Anderson also designed a new hood for the bus that comes off in pieces. Anderson is working with a patent attorney, Jeff Thompson of Scandia, Kan., on the trademark name Hay Bus. For now, Anderson has a utility patent on the Hay Bus, which is the second step in the patent process. After patenting, Anderson is hoping to market kits for the Hay Bus to interested farmers wanting to build their own. He isn't interested in building them for others, though. Currently, Anderson is working with L&M Steel and Manufacturing in Colby, Kan., on a second prototype. The steel fabrication shop specializes in helping inventors make their ideas into working models. "This time, all of the cuts are being planned on the AutoCAD computer," Anderson said. A two-man team can use a plasma cutter to cut down the bus in one day. Additionally, L&M is helping Anderson with the cosmetics of the Hay Bus. "We have a lot of design tweaking to do yet," Anderson said. "We want to be more efficient before we make these kits. For example, instead of welding three or four pieces of metal together, we can find one piece and bend it to our specifications." With the help of L&M, Anderson estimates it should take six weeks to build a prototype to test the conversion process. Anderson said he hopes that conversion kits for the Hay Bus will lead to economic benefits to rural communities. But, there's a long way to go before that becomes a reality. For now, though, Anderson is content to tweak the engineering of his Hay Bus design and to continue to dream up new ways to improve his farming practices. Jennifer M. Latzke can be reached by phone at 620-227-1807, or by e-mail at jlatzke@hpj.com. 8/11/08 Date: 8/6/08 Advertisement
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