For you corn guys, this post might not make any sense to you...

Around here, the JD 1610 chisel [sweep] plow, with 18 inch sweeps, is something that most people have in their equipment line-up.  It is one of the best plows JD ever made; and in my opinion, the 1610 is much better than its' younger relative, the JD 610.  The JD 610's had a lot of trouble with the rockshaft....a LOT of trouble...I have owned (2) JD 610's: one had big-time rockshaft trouble, and the other one did not.

I use a 41' (40' with a shank taken off) JD 1610 w/18 inch sweeps in front of my drills.  My 40 ft of JD drills works great behind this plow (pulled altogether with a 4wd tractor); and I always get a beautiful stand of wheat.

One of my neighbors is retiring, and has offered to sell me his 39 ft JD 1610.  I was considering buying it from him, just to have on-hand to pull w/another tractor (a JD 8410 mfwd).  It would be nice to have it, just for clean-up jobs while the 4wd tractor is pulling the plow/drill setup.

I called my local JD salesman the other day, and he told me what these plows were selling for.  He also said that the rockshaft for the JD 1610 is no longer available from John Deere. Huh??  I realize that this plow is not "new" and up to date; but in this part of the world, the 1610's are a staple (they're thick).

So, my question:  Would a machine shop be able to fabricate a rockshaft for me in the unlikely event that a 1610 rockshaft were to break on me?  I have had several widths of 1610 plows for many years, and have ~never had any rockshaft trouble; but just as sure as I get another 1610, something will happen...  Do you reckon a machine shop would/could fab.  a rockshaft for [close to] the same money as John Deere is getting for their [now discontinued] rockshaft?  TIA for the replies.

I looked up the pictures just now on JDParts and looks to me like it should not be too much trouble to fabricate for someone somewhat handy with a welder and a straight edge. Some years ago we ran a number of identical JD offset disks. They were bad about eating up rock shafts if not greased regularly. With 6 of those plows and 10-12 different guys running them, needles to say they did not always get greased. We rebuilt them our selves.

Did you get much rain this week? Radar showed rain up that way a couple of times this week? We could use some on wheat in turn rows etc and on our haygrazer.  Cotton water all shut down, peanut water maybe 1 more quick round. 

Will start spraying cotton on Monday. Gin ran yesterday and today. 

Dutch, the rain has been around, but it has been very spotted.  For instance, just last night a couple of fields (where we were sowing wheat) got about 2 inches of rain, and other fields didn't get a drop.  I wanted to move the plow & drills today, but it was just too soupy....it is very difficult to fold the drills into transport when it is that wet, and besides I am just not in that big a hurry yet..the gravity wagon, while in an old one-way corner, is sitting in about 3 inches of water.  I would much rather have this "problem" though than to be dry sowing !!

I'm gonna give it a day or so to dry up, then move down the road.

Before last night, it was the same deal....very spotted rainfall.  All in all, though, the rains have been fairly timely. 

So you're gonna start defoliating early next week?  Hope that goes good for y'all.  Have a safe harvest.

 Pull the rockshaft apart now & get a length of DOM tubing that will bearley fit inside, then plug weld it & weld the ends. Dom will still allow some MINOR flex, but the extra strength will prevent failure.

 I have done that on differant pieces that I knew were a little light. 

It would be no problem to fab one. I think there is a broken one from a 1600 laying outside my friends shop. All it really amounts to is a piece of 3 1/2" round bar with two pieces of 3x5? tubing and some 1" flat welded to it. You could almost surely reuse the tube and flat from the old one if it broke. Badger....there is no "inside" to put tubing...the main member is solid round barstock. Ours are about 25 years old and have never given us any trouble. I've seen some 1600's broke, but they were tube instead of solid. The picture is not quite accurate.  Key # 10 is actually welded to the rockshaft on the actual part.

Todd, I'd sure like to see some pics of that cultivator/drill setup, if you have some handy.

Thanks for the replies...good info..When I said "machine shop" in my original post, I was simply at a loss for words.  I wouldn't actually use a machine shop, but rather a good welder, or most likely just do it myself.  Thanks, TXCutter, I didnt know RollACone did that, but should have..

Plowboy is correct, there is no doubling-up on the rockshaft since it is solid to begin with.  On some 610's, JD actually tried using the hollow shaft (again), much like they tried on the 1600.  Needless to say, it was a big flop and JD eventually came out with an "update".  One of my buddies still has (3) 610 [junker] rockshafts sitting outside his shop in the scrap pile.

Boetboer:  At the very bottom of this reply are a couple of pics of my wheat sowing setup.  It is certainly nothing fancy, but it does a great job at getting wheat up.  The tractor is a JD 8760 (it now has about 4200 hrs on it), the plow is a JD 1610, and the drills are JD 9300 hoe drills w/AcraPlant tips.  The drills have a transport system which allows a person to raise them up, and pull them long-ways down the road (long instead of wide).  The drills hold about 3 bushels per foot (40 feet wide, for a total of about 120 bushels).  I know that the commodity carts hold a lot more seed than this, but I can still get a fair amount of acres planted before having to re-fill.  We usually sow around 36 lbs per acre. (+ or -, depending on what time of the season we are sowing.  If it gets really late, we will bump up the rate a little bit)
I took these pics today.  I guess you can tell how muddy it is in the field right now!  I did not put the covers on the drills (you know--"only a 20% chance of showers"--ended up getting over 2 inches (and a LOT of hail) at this place), and I was afraid that the seed cups were going to bridge-over/stop up, so I went out there and turned the seed cup driveshaft with a wrench and emptied the seed cups.  On these JD drills, the seed cups will get rained on, sometimes, and the grain will harden-up in the cups.  If a person does not grind that seed out of there, one might have to empty the drills completely in order to un-stop the cups.  I didn't want to chance it, so I made the muddy excursion out to the drills and ground out the seed cups.

(BTW: a while back, I had 30 ft of the same kind of JD drills.  I filled them up, completely, one late evening so I could get an early start the next morning.  Well, sure enough, it rained BIG TIME that night and I did not go to the drills for a few days.  A few days later when I did go back to sow wheat, the seed had hardened-up in the seed cups.  It was so bad that I could not grind the seed out.  Also, the moisture had "traveled" up the seed cup, into the drill box and each cup had a hardened "plug" of wheat at the top (inside) of the cup.  Needless to say, I had to scoop the drills out (by hand w/ a gallon bucket) in order to get that slug of wheat out of the very top of each cup.  It was a huge pain. I threw each gallon back into the truck so I could later put it right back via the 12v auger (no gravity wagons at that time). If I had just gone over there and turned the seed cup driveshaft, all of 'that' could have been avoided.  Oh well--you live & learn !!  If I had it to do over again I would stick a hydraulic auger in the drills and get a lot out using that method..)