Grappling fun - A Picture Thread....

rswyan · Apr 20, 2016

Soooo ... I checked the tire pressures, greased the loader up, and went ahead and put the big ballast block on and decided to try a little rock pickin'.

This is the first one I tried ... couldn't lift it very far:

But one I got a little better pick point and rolled it back ... no problemo

:

rswyan · Apr 20, 2016

Then did these:

No. 2:

No. 3:

Dad and I found the one above in the front yard ... there was about a softball-sized piece of it showing. We dug it out by hand and pulled it out of the hole with a chain and his old IH 444.

No. 4

rswyan · Apr 20, 2016

Somewhere along the way I tried this one ... couldn't lift it. Probably due to where it was laying. I have a basket made out of nylon webbing ... might try that to drage it up on the driveway where I can get a better shot at it:

There's still a few more left in the circle ... but I have to co-ordinate with The Woman and make sure sure I don't trample her peonies and dahlias ...

IslandTractor · Apr 20, 2016

That's actually a pretty good sized rock. Granite is 175lbs/ft3. I'd guess your rock is closer to 1000 than 750lbs. I'm not surprised you couldn't lift it higher. The LA402 loader only lifts 900lbs to full height after all. The physics work in your favor with the short bottom tines so the rock is close to the pivot pins. I doubt even with your standard bucket on that you could lift that rock much higher and you'd be a fool to do so anyways. I'd say that if you can lift that rock even a couple of feet off the ground to move it then functionally that's all you'd ever really want to do. I'm sticking with my 425lb guesstimate but if I'd seen that photo first I would have lowered it by 25-50lbs.

Snowback · Apr 20, 2016

rswyan said:
There's still a few more left in the circle ... but I have to co-ordinate with The Woman and make sure sure I don't trample her peonies and dahlias ...

There are days I wish we had some more rocks/stones down here near the gulf coast... Useful for landscaping, blocking off access points, etc... Then I bring out the cutter in rough terrain, or start digging holes and I change my mind again.

I cringe when I think about how folks down here pay big bucks to buy rocks when I spent most of my childhood picking rocks out of fields, off trails, and out of yards. (Yes I've spent money too...)

rswyan · Apr 20, 2016

IslandTractor said:
That's actually a pretty good sized rock.

Which one ?

IslandTractor said:
Granite is 175lbs/ft3. I'd guess your rock is closer to 1000 than 750lbs.

I wouldn't be be surprised ...

IslandTractor said:
I'm not surprised you couldn't lift it higher. The LA402 loader only lifts 900lbs to full height after all. The physics work in your favor with the short bottom tines so the rock is close to the pivot pins.

Yup ...

IslandTractor said:
I doubt even with your standard bucket on that you could lift that rock much higher and you'd be a fool to do so anyways. I'd say that if you can lift that rock even a couple of feet off the ground to move it then functionally that's all you'd ever really want to do.

Yeah ... generally I tend to keep things as low as I possibly can ... if 6 or 12 inches will do it, that works for me.

With rocks that's no problem ... but with long logs sometimes I have to raise them higher to clear obstructions.