Patent Models: The Rose Disk Harrow

Henry Rose worked and reworked his disk harrow throughout the 1880s. He patented his first one in 1882 (No. 261,875).

A disk harrow is an attachment that pulverizes and smoothes the soil. Rose's self-cleaning disk harrow featured steel strips that a lever moved into place to scrape across the concave surface of the disks to clean off the sticky soil. It also featured a mechanism for keeping even pressure on the disks so they did not bounce, but kept an even depth in the soil as they rolled forward.

Patent drawing.

He claimed as new
1) a gang of disks composed of two independent sections that revolve on a non-rotating axis rod and a draft connection attached to the rod
2) a draft tongue and a cross-piece at the rear attached with joints that let the arms swing and partially rotate horizontally, all attached to the gangs of disks and rods
3) the draft frame for the combination above Model Harrow
4) brackets that allow the gangs to work together or separately
5) a section of disks constructed with a tubular axis, placed on a pipe and spaced by thim bles or sleeves of larger pipe, extending from one disk to another held together by screw nuts
6) a continuous axis of hollow shafts that act as hubs for the disk-gangs
7) tubular hubs
8) a sub-set of disks rigidly connected to the shaft so they act independently
9) a set of revolving disks fit with U-shaped scrapers that clean the concave surfaces of the disks by means of a foot pedal or lever and mechanism