As I’ve written before, one of the most offensive parts of my ugly backyard is the giant ring of stone and sand I have that has, overtime, become part of the dirt and ground of the yard. My goal for the area is to remove all the stone and sand, leaving mostly sifted dirt which I will then mix with topsoil with the eventual hope of growing new grass.
My hardest task has been removing the stone from the dirt. To do this I needed to have some way to collect the stone and leave the dirt. I quickly settled upon making a screen out of some left over 2x4s and a roll of 1/4 inch garden screen I had picked up just for the job.
Building the Soil Sifter
A simple dirt sifting screen can be made with some extra lumber and a piece of steel screen. This version uses screw in steel plates to hold the screen securely and make screen replacement a snap!
Using a reciprocating saw I cut two 24″ sections of 2x4s and 2 20″ sections of 2x4s, laid them out in a rectangular patten and simply screwed them together at the corner. I chose that size mostly because it was about as big as I could make the rectangle and still be able to put a single section of steel screen over it. The roll was 24″ wide, so it worked out well. Then I measured and cut out a section of screen from the roll and just had to figure out some way to attach the screen to the square. Obviously you can choose a different type of screen for smaller or larger particles or stones.
Now I fully admit that I had to attach the screen several different times before I came across a method that works well. At first I simply took the staple gun and put construction staples into the screen edge of the screen every inch or so. That worked at first, but then I accidentally ran my shovel right through the screen, leaving a big gash in it.
“No problem,” I thought. “I’ll just take this piece of screen off and put on a new one!”
It took me almost an hour to sit down with a flat head screwdriver and pry out each staple so I could take off the old screen. My next bright idea was to simply use wood screws with washers around the edges of the screen. Unfortunately this didn’t work very well at all and just resulted in the screen basically ripping around each of the screws.
Wheels on my sifter!
As they say the third time’s the charm, and that was true in this case. I realized I needed some sort of clamping pressure around the edges of the screen to keep it from pulling way, so I ended up getting some cheap steel reinforcing deck plates and screwed them around the edges of the sifter. This has held up very well so far and if I ever do need to replace the screen I only have about 16 screws to take out with the electric drill.
Sifter Stones from Dirt
At first I just used the sifter as a kind of depository that I had to pick up and shake. I’d place it across my little wheelbarrow, shovel a few load of stone and dirt on it, put my shovel down and then lift the sifter, shaking it back and forth in front of me, letting the dirt fall into the wheelbarrow, leaving the stones and twigs and debris in the sifter. I would then dump the sifter debris in an old bucket and start again.
My back was kill me the next day because I was lifting the sifter filled with sand, dirt and stones on my own.
Adding Wheels
So I went back to the drawing board with my sifter. I needed some way to emulate the sifting motion without actually picking up the screen filled with dirt and rocks. I thought about attaching lawnmower tires, but the cheapest tires I could find where too large for what I needed and cost nearly $8.00 a piece.
The wheels from a cheap skateboard saved my back with my dirt sifter.
While I was mulling over other options in my head I happened to end up shopping for baby accessories at a local toy store and found a mini skateboard. Skateboard wheels are small and incredibly tough and have their own ball bearings built in, so they fit the bill perfectly. It also helped that the skateboard was on sale for $5.00!
A quick addition of wheels made my sifter mobile! All I needed now was something to roll them on, so I laid out a relatively simple track made out of those same leftover 2x4s. Using wood screws I put the whole thing together in about 20 minutes so now I can place this little rack over a wheelbarrow or saw horses or whatever I need to sift my dirt into. For my purposes these wooden rails would fit perfectly over a set of sawhorses I set up and then I’d just sift the dirt right to the ground, dumping the rocks and stones from the sifter into the wheelbarrow.
The Stone Sifting Process
For the past two weeks I’ve been steadily (but slowly) working around the ugly stone ring in my backyard. The general process goes something like this:
- I dig out four or five shovels full of dirt and stone and deposit them into the sifter.
- I quickly roll the sifter back and forth on the wooden frame that is perched on top of the sawhorses. I can actually do this with one hand if I get lazy. It only takes a minute or two at most to sift out a full load.
- All the dirt falls into a nice pile of finely sifted dirt down below which I simply rake or shovel over the excavation area at end of each night.
My process for separating the stones and debris from the dirt.
- I pick the screen up and dump the stones and debris into the wheelbarrow at my side. When the wheelbarrow is full I take it over to another part of my yard where I have a fairly good-sized pile building up.
Only after I spent all this time and energy did I see that others have had a similar idea about sifting dirt. So far my back has thanked me about 1000 times over for not hoisting up that big frame filled with dirt and stone, so all my effort was worth it!
Once I’m done this project I’m still going to save my little screen machine for other home improvement jobs around the house such as composting and other jobs where I have to separate the dirt or soil from various types of debris.
Here’s a quick video of how the dirt sifter works once it’s been built:
why waste your time building a screener when you can buy a plastic one for $45?
Because yours cost $45, requires manually pushing dirt back and forth and it looks like it can only handle about 2 shovels of dirt at a time. :-)
The one I built cost less than $10, holds twice the dirt yours does and rolls on wheels so I don’t really have to lift or push anything. I can also swap out my screen size for different types of applications.
I’m not making fine compost, I’m separating thousands of pounds of stone from dirt.
Great invention! But where to buy the steel screen??
Thanks,
Shawn
You can find the screen in the landscaping/fencing section of most mega-hardware stores. The screens are often used as barriers in gardens to keep out animals or people. It’s relatively inexpensive, too!
Good luck!
-Tom
Eh, I chose not to buy a screener because I didn’t want to be stuck lifting 20 – 30 pounds of dirt and stone 100 times a day. If you want your manicure to look good with your hernia, then you should definitely buy one.
I’m in the process of making one myself, I like your idea but it brought to mind maybe using 2 bicycle wheels mounted in the middle on either side. That way you can rock it and shake it side to side. Only draw back is I will probably have to sit down to use it. Oh well nothings perfect, I just hate resting while I work
Rudy
I like your project myself. The first poster probably just a hit and run, so I wouldn’t expect a reply Ms. White. Now if only there were an industrial version of the stone screen sifter you made…We have lotttts of stone and rocks here on the hillside. Great blog by the way! Will bookmark it to read more in the next few days.
Haha! Thanks for the reply, Ms. White! I’m glad you were finally able to get a dirt screener of your own! The wheels do make the whole job of sifting dirt much, much easier… It’s still work, but at least it isn’t so hard on your back…
Good luck next spring!
Tom,
I was in a similar situation having a great need to sift rocky soil and came up with a similar design to yours but attached to an old hedge trimmer. I thought of wheels but I too did not want to spend allot of money so the idea of the toy store and skateboard is brilliant. Thank you for posting this invention of yours and helping me to improve mine.
John
Hello Tom,
Wow, this is a great invention. Could you tell me, please, how do you attached the wheels. There are no instructions for the handy-but-engineering-challenged! Also, it looks like your “track” is just wide enough that the wheels run inside of it – could you confirm. Thanks.
-Elise
The reason “Kevin” didn’t reply to any of the requests to defend his first comment is that he’s the guy selling the “Screeners” for $45.00. Check out his site and you’ll see his name in the contact info. Just thought you might like to know. P.S. I’m going to build Tom’s version as it will suit my needs much better and I already have most of the materials. Thanks for sharing the great idea.
Another idea is to suspend the sifter from a tripod so that it swings…this should save your back even more grief.
I built one today and utilized bedframe wheels, because I had them. It works great. I love my dirt.
I have $5.50 into it. I already had some leftover screen material from something else I had done many years ago, and the wheels I saved from a bed frame I threw out.
Thanks alot.
Norm
Yeah, I would have loved to build the whole thing on a swing mechanism of some sort! That was my original idea but I quickly abandoned it because I figured wheels would be a much simpler way of building an initial dirt sifter. If I had to do it again I would either find some way to swing it or find some way to hook up a little motor or something to automatically vibrate the screen. Pushing back and forth wasn’t too bad, but it was still a bit heavy when I got to the rockier soil…
Why waste $46 at originalwheelbarrowscreener.com when you can build one yourself?
Thank you so very much for your design. We have a flooded basement and have started working on a portion of yard near our deck and house for some regrading and replanting of grass and discovered that the previous homeowner put down landscape fabric and tons of patio rock. I thought it would take me the entire summer to seperate the rock from the dirt but with your design I’m actually making progress. I built the screen portion but I haven’t been able to figure how to build the portion of wood where the wheels would go back and forth and how they attach. Regardless I’m extremely grateful.
thanks. We are raking grass and dirt from a infield baseball field that has not been taken care of. I’m going to try this. Thanks for the idea.
Lynda: Wow! That’s great to hear! I would love to post pictures of your home-made dirt sifter (or anyone else’s for that matter!)… Send em’ my way and if I get enough I might be able to put up a whole page of photos!
Donna: if it’s a baseball field for kids you could always use the kids as free labor. At least, that’s what my dad always told me when I was ten years old :-) Honestly, I got my home improvement bug from constantly watching and helping him fix and make things around the house..
[...] How To Build Your Own Dirt or Rock Sifter: I guess a lot of people are working on big lawn and gardening clean-out projects when they’re not watching TV. A dirt or stone sifter is actually a pretty handy tool to have around. I used it to remove most of the stone from a large pit in my backyard left over from an above ground pool. I’ve also used it recently for a little cleanup work in the flower beds where I had stone and mulch and all sort of debris in there. I simply put a few shovelfuls of stuff on the sifter and rolled it back and forth. My sifting made a nice fine mulch and allowed me to just dump the larger stones and sticks and twigs. Planting grass and dirt sifting for gardens are classic summer home improvement projects. For the record: I think planting sod is cheating! [...]
In the last year and a half I have watched you kids run your course. Now go in the woods, get a stick, a piece of steel and make your own shovel. In fact, gather rubber bands to make tires for your own cars. Or buy a proven product with national reviews that will last you a lifetime for $44.95 at OriginalWheelbarrowScreener.com. By the way, using my screener you only move the material once!
Kevin,
I have no doubt that your dirt and stone screener is better made and much more durable than my own little wooden box with a screen and wheels on it. But I am still worried about having to lift your screener with one or two shovels full of dirt of and stone. With the one I made out of mostly scrap wood I don’t have to lift to sift: I just roll it back and forth a bit and then, when all the good dirt has fallen through, I just lift up the remaining stone and roots and weeds and just dump them in a bucket or waste pile. With a home made dirt sifter I can also change the screen size if I want. I still have a small patch of sand in part of my yard and I may change out my screen to one with smaller holes so that I can screen out more impurities in the sand sometime this spring.
If anyone may be interested I have spent a lil more time and effort in creating the perfect rock washer/sifter for my personal projects. My design is more complex but for the 40 Tons of earth that I am siffting for the lovely rock within I have created a barrel washer for home use. I simply took a 55 Gal. steel drum (w/1″ holes drilled 2″ apart covering the surface of the barrel), welded a 10″ long, 1″ Thick solid steel spindal (Home made) to either end on center. Then built a steel A-frame with a 1″ ID barring on each side for the spindals to slide through. Once in place I placed locking spacers on either end of the spindals and the barring to keep it from sliding around on any inclines it may come accross. I then attached an old wagon wheel that was laying around the house as the means of turning this large brut. The wheel is 40″ in Diameter making the job of turning the 3-400 lbs of dirt rock very easy. Last but not least I gave it 2 wheels on one side like a BBQ Grill for easy hadeling throughout the yard. I also have a fully automated design that I plan on pattenting hopefully sometime within the year. I love questions so if anyone wants to know more please don’t hessitate to write me at joshua23_h@yahoo.com Good Luck everyone
I built an automatic compost sifter powered by a reciprocating saw – it’s early days yet and it may still fall apart or explode but at the moment it’s working fine – can be viewed at Nifty-stuff.com
i just found this tutorial and had been thinking about building one for a while. my yard had tons of gravel in the garden beds and this would be perfect. i just used some leftover 1X1′s for the frame so its a little off but does the job great. thanks for the tip on the hardware cloth mesh and brackets!
Thanks for the wonderful tutorial!
For us Bonsai enthusiasts who do sift our soils and mediums, this is a wonderful alternative to expensive bonsai soil sifters; and the great thing is that it can be downsized to fit all of our needs.
want to make sifer about 3×5 to go back and forth with motor. preferably using sokme sort of quik push and pull like a train wheel.
For me this will save so much time and energy. Wonderfully configurated and seems easy enouph to asssemble. Brilliant!
Kevin, your “original” wheelbarrow sifter may be good for some jobs, however in Tom’s case it does the work all backwards! Tom NOT ONLY wanted to remove the stones from the soil, but ALSO to remove the stones from his yard, leaving the soil behind to grow his new lawn. Unfortunately, your system, however slick you make it sound, puts the soil in the wheelbarrow and drops the stones back on the ground. B.A.C.K.W.A.R.D.S.
I hope for all of your trouble here, you have received as many orders for your tool as all of the POSITIVE comments Tom has gotten from others who are excited to try his idea, themselves, for under $20.
Tom, I’ll be making a sifter this summer and I’ll be trying your design first. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Instead of going to the toy store for the wheels try the thrift store.
Ken, I would have to disagree with you about the original wheelbarrow sifter being backwards. You could always place it on a pair of sawhorses, sift, and then dump the rocks into the wheelbarrow. The original wheelbarrow sifter looks like a quality product, however, I do like Tom’s sifter better. By sifting back and forth, it seems you would break up the dirt better than just pushing it through a screen. I will be building one that fits my dump cart. Thanks for sharing, Tom!
I wonder… if you attached tiny strips or wood or metal to the runners every couple of inches, if it would act as vibration to make it even easier. I also have an extra wheelbarrow and I was thinking that I could make a sifter that I could drive one wheelbarrow under to catch the dirt, and the other to the side to dump the rocks in. Shovel on top, vibrate back and forth, dirt falls into wheelbarrow, step to the right side and push up one side of the screen to drop the rocks into my other wheelbarrow.
Dennis,
Hmm… so basically make little vibration speed bumps? Huh, I think that’s probably a pretty good idea as long as they’re small enough. One problem I had from time to time was a rock would fly out of the screen tray and onto the track and I would come to a dead halt because it would get jammed under a wheel. Maybe just some little grooves or notches would do the trick… I suppose you could even bang in some round furniture tacks to make bumps in a pinch… If I pull it out next spring I might give the speed bump idea a try and let you know what I find! Thanks!
Nylon wheels with ball bearings can be purchased cheaply through Play-It-Again sports stores or similar used equipment store that sells wheels for “Roller Blades”. Good over all concept Tom. A motor with an off-set pully and belt, would vibrate nicely. I also like the idea of attaching a reciprocating blade to the side and running the saw on oscillating mode.
I just made mine this weekend using yours as my model. I spruced it up a bit, though. I put metal cabinet handles on either end of the sifter to help pick it up and to help sift it. i used non-swivel caster wheels instead of skateboard wheels. i beefed up the frame using L-shaped decking plates on each of the four corners to give it strength, and I extended the length of the sifter to 36 inches.
it worked great. i didn’t use the wheels at first. it was so tough without the wheels to push it back and forth. once i put the wheels on, it was cake. now i have a HUGE pile of gravel/rock that I don’t know what to do with. but i have beautifully sifted dirt in my backyard.
p.s. – sifting was hard work! i finished my backyard in about 5 hours with the help of my brother. thanks for your article!!
Mike,
Glad you were able to get your dirt sifter working! Yes, it IS a lot of work, but it’s still better than trying to rake things out and separate the dirt and stone by hand or by lifting a sifter :-)
Good luck!
Thanks for all the ideas!! I rigged up a screen on the bucket of my little tractor… been working my tail off.. thinking there HAS to be a better way.. I like the screen and 2×4 idea. I could make a frame, dump the rock and dirt on it and dump in my utilty cart… update @ 11.. maybe put eye hooks on the frame.. raise the sifter off the cart with my bucket???
New idea… make the frame work pivotabale…. use my bucket to shake it?? Somebody is going to get hurt here.. and I am guessing it will be me.
It seems to me that in order to get the vibrating effect, one should simply put strips of the wire meshing on the tracks.
Tom would also like to please see yours :)
You would be amazed at what you can make with the drum of a clothes dryer, a wooden frame, 4 casters, a belt and an electric motor. Been there, done that.
TOM….I’VE BEEN USEING A SIFTER I MADE UP OVER 20 YEARS AGO. IT’S 2X2; HAS A SCREEN WITH 1/4″ SQUARS BUILT ON 2X6 BOARDS. I MEARLY PUT IN 4 OR 5 SHOVELS OF DIRT/ROCK….AND WEARING A PAIR OF HEAVY GLOVES JUST MOVE THE DIRT/ROCK AROUND. I HAVE ANOTHER ONE WITH 1/8th HOLES FOR FINER SIFTING. I WILL TAKE YOUR ADVISE THOUGH AND ADD 4 WHEELS AND A SERIES OF BUMPS TOO ROLL OVER. THANKS….MR. T.
Hey Tom,
This is such a great idea! My dad is Mr.T in the comments. We’re going to build a new one just like yours. I started using my dad’s old sifter, and got so pooped after sifting and lifting. I think I did a total of 8 piles before I gave up. Thanks again! I can’t wait to get my front yard done. I’ll send you pics!
Mary
Thanks for the great article. Mines cost 35 bucks to build. One thing I’ll mention I believe the skateboard wheels are too small. If I were to build another one, go with bigger wheels. Also make sure there is enough clearance for to move the sifter back and forth.
Wonderful plan – really got me started – the only thing I changed was on the bottom of the sifter I put in aluminum angle so I could rest a piece of that rigid steel shelving that I had (like you buy at Lowes or Home depot – that is constructed with rigid wire – usually painted white )
After that I put my ½” mesh screen over that. Two advantages – it will not come loose if you press on it – and it gives GREAT strength to the bottom for continued use.
Thanks again for your idea Charlie
Love the idea. What do you think of substituting a fulcrum for the wheels? Basically teeter tottering out the dirt.
I like your steel banding covering the rough edge of the screen. I made my first one out of 2X10s with a Rubbermaid garden trailer for the base. It’s portable and tiltable and mainly used with water.
You have saved us a lot of time and effort. We just tilled our 66 x 100 aq ft. garden; Pete looked at it with disbelief and shock over the effort it would take to clear out the grass clumps…he already came the sifter idea so I suggested we go into the house and search what others have done. We were so glad to read yours after reading several ideas yours of course was the best. We are thrift shops shoppers; we plan to gather up supplies to start this tomorrow. Once again, THANKS. :)
Kevin:
This is a great plan for sifting river rock. I have to sift a 40×40 area that once had an above-ground pool surrounded by 3′ of river rock. So, I am about to build one, but I’m thinking about modifying this, but I want your opinion. What about taking your design and suspending it from a multi-ladder in an inverted-V configuration (or a stepladder)? I think that if the suspension chains are attached to the far edges, it will keep the unit from tipping. You could also (somewhat) adjust the height so that you won’t have to shovel as high, and “shaking” it would be much easier. Your thoughts?
I was looking for something that would work behind my riding lawn mower, dig slightly and place the materials in a screen that would then sift the stones out. I have a 100 x 200 riding ring which my husband drags (to distribute manure so I don’t have to pick it all up) and each time more stones pop up. Haven’t found anything that’ll work so I guess I’ll try your idea. Was hoping to avoid the repeated shoveling as our stones appear to go all the way to China!
On a recent trip to Philippines I noticed a guy at a work site sifting dirt. He had a deeper box than yours and it was mounted on short, stubby legs that let him rock it back and forth. There’s nothing like visiting a 3rd world country to find elegant, low-tech solutions to common problems. I’m about to build a sifter and am torn between your wheel design which looks a little more efficient and the even simpler rocker method. BTW, it looks like Ramon (Feb. 19) had a similar idea.