Fair critique. A couple of answers to your questions: I have operated a double lid
grapple but have never owned one or used it except in demonstration with debris in a dealer lot. Same for bucket
grapple. Never used a stump
grapple. I own forks but have no jaw attached.
Regarding your point about whether a wider
grapple would be better for wide loads is that I guess the question comes down to loading it properly. I load trees and lift without the jaw closed so it is balanced before I close the lid for travel. Sometimes I need to move the load a foot or two but I've gotten pretty good at predicting the center of gravity. I don't see that a wider
grapple would make much difference there. In fact it might allow you to inadvertently carry an imbalanced load which could be dangerous when you move.
It is commonly believed that dual lids offer more secure clamping of asymmetrical loads. I've never had any issue clamping asymmetrical loads with my single lid so I wonder where that "common knowledge" comes from. I've posted a few photos of asymmetrical loads that I routinely clamp with no issue at all below. Dual lids are clearly better for picking up loose construction debris but that just isn't how most CUTs are used. Dual lids are more practical on 72" and wider grapples as a single lid would have to be very big to cover roughly half that length.
The whole single or dual lid issue is contentious largely because there is simply no reliable or objective data for use of grapples on CUTs. It is a pretty recent development. Fifteen years ago there were almost no CUTs with grapples. Only WRLong and a few other places recognized that grapples, until then really a skidsteer implement or utility tractor implement, could be useful on CUTs. The initial grapples put on CUTs were skidsteer grapples and gradually slightly smaller versions of the same. Skidsteer grapples have good reason to have dual lids as they are often wide and used to collect construction debris. They also used heavy duty root rakes or clamshells which are not as generally useful for common CUT tasks. Lighter duty grapples better suited for general use on CUTs are a more recent development. I don't think even WRLong added their open bottom
grapple until maybe ten years ago.
EA didn't focus on CUTs until just a few years ago. Point is that there was nobody sitting down and working out what would work best on CUTs and then designing such a device, testing it and revising. As best I can tell there have simply been incremental changes in traditional skidsteer
grapple types that have slowly morphed into sizes and types more suited for CUTs. No engineer wrote out a list of requirements. No marketing types funded research. No comparative testing. No beta testing by consumers. We have dual and single lid grapples simply because skidsteers had them first. I should point out that in fairness,
EA has done more work to develop smaller grapples for CUTs than just about any other manufacturer but it is still mostly a matter of tweaking old skidsteer designs. The subcompact
EA grapple is as close to a breakthrough product as anyone had come up with in this area at least since I've been involved with TBN.
I know that there is lots of repetition in this thread. Grapples aren't all that complicated so it is hard to imagine 1600 posts that are all original. The thread is largely a marketing tool for
EA and there is certainly a lot of repetition there. That's their business and perfectly understandable but that doesn't seem to preclude more open discussion of
grapple selection issues. If I rag on them occasionally it isn't because I don't respect their grapples as I recommend them highly. Rather it is because IMO they seem to use this thread to sell grapples rather than to discuss them and TBN is a discussion forum. I appreciate that for a salesman interested in increasing sales, you take the lead from your customer and sell him what he wants. I know
EA is responsible and isn't selling 72" heavy duty grapples to guys with BXs but at the same time they don't add much data or comparative testing of products to help make evidence based
grapple selection easier. They are in a great position to have a dual versus single lid shootout or a 32" 37" 42" opening shootout or a 48, 60, 72 comparison. They do great videos but they seem to have stopped doing the really educational ones (like when Ted used to do videos showing exactly how to set up a boxblade or plow etc with Peanut demonstrating). It would be helpful to all if those sorts of activities were done as part of CUT
grapple development by
EA. So long as there is an absence of such data though I think it is fair for anyone with grappling experience to chime in when the typical "what
grapple should I buy" question comes up. And, I'll offer a different opinions if
EA keeps advising that people should just select one of theirs without offering advice or rationale beyond "whatever you want". Bottom line, there are lots of issues in
grapple selection and this is a discussion forum not just a marketing tool. Sorry if I sound zealous at times. I like folks to get the right implement not just one chosen uncritically or without understanding the issues.
