Grappling fun - A Picture Thread....

[fruitcakesa]

Well, my grappling has ground to a halt; I was digging out a boulder with the forks and trying to grapple onto it when this happened:
I know that the whole rig is made of mild steel, none of the fancy$$$ AR stuff. Thus the low price tag.
I wasn't really working it any harder than usual but it possibly was a cumulative weakening and failure over time due due the lower grade materials.
I will take it over to my welder friend and get his advice on possible repair.

 

[dragoneggs]

Ouch! Hope it is fixable to a workable state. That looks pretty bad. I'm surprised you had a catastrophic failure before something just got bent.

 

[Jstpssng]

Well, my grappling has ground to a halt; I was digging out a boulder with the forks and trying to grapple onto it when this happened:
I know that the whole rig is made of mild steel, none of the fancy$$$ AR stuff. Thus the low price tag.
I wasn't really working it any harder than usual but it possibly was a cumulative weakening and failure over time due due the lower grade materials.
I will take it over to my welder friend and get his advice on possible repair.

That doesn't look too bad though. It seems like you may want to have the pivot point done differently also.

There's a saying around here; if it's iron it's going to break.

Looking at it again it shouldn't be too bad at all... to do it right they would cut the broken piece out and replace it. If I was doing it I would weld a heavy pieve of angle over the break put a bushing in where it attaches to the cylinder, and weld it back together.

 

[fruitcakesa]

Ouch! Hope it is fixable to a workable state. That looks pretty bad. I'm surprised you had a catastrophic failure before something just got bent.

Yes, it was kind of a slow motion failure. I had just finished lifting/pushing the boulder out of its hole when the Thumb just closed by itself.
I hit the control lever to reopen it and nothing happened. Took a look and found the damage.

 

[Gordon Gould]

Well, my grappling has ground to a halt; I was digging out a boulder with the forks and trying to grapple onto it when this happened:
I know that the whole rig is made of mild steel, none of the fancy$$$ AR stuff. Thus the low price tag.
I wasn't really working it any harder than usual but it possibly was a cumulative weakening and failure over time due due the lower grade materials.
I will take it over to my welder friend and get his advice on possible repair.

Ouch is right. But your welder friend should be able to fix you up. Mild steel should be fine there with a good joint design. AR is for Abrasion Resistance for the most part. The problem I see is all the force is concentrated on those two smallish welds. I would think that it would be best to make that joint so the force is spread over a bigger area by adding some gusseting as jstpssg alluded to.

gg

 

[IslandTractor]

Well, my grappling has ground to a halt; I was digging out a boulder with the forks and trying to grapple onto it when this happened:
I know that the whole rig is made of mild steel, none of the fancy$$$ AR stuff. Thus the low price tag.
I wasn't really working it any harder than usual but it possibly was a cumulative weakening and failure over time due due the lower grade materials.
I will take it over to my welder friend and get his advice on possible repair.

It looks like it broke because the thumb was used to push something rather than just close. Is that what happened? Mild steel should be fine for a grapple arm and I have a hard time imagining that the hydraulic cylinder could generate enough force to rip the welds apart. Pushing with the grapple arm open however might do that if you have a heavy tractor, momentum or a heavy load.

 

[fruitcakesa]

It looks like it broke because the thumb was used to push something rather than just close. Is that what happened? Mild steel should be fine for a grapple arm and I have a hard time imagining that the hydraulic cylinder could generate enough force to rip the welds apart. Pushing with the grapple arm open however might do that if you have a heavy tractor, momentum or a heavy load.

While I never intentionally used the grapple to push with, I suppose it is possible.

 

[IslandTractor]

While I never intentionally used the grapple to push with, I suppose it is possible.

Well, if that is the case then the silver lining is that the grapple should be fine after some welding. It looks to have been constructed with 1/4 inch square tube which is what good grapples are made of (the 1/8" tube saves a few bucks but damage like this is far more common). I'd weld it back together and then just be careful about ever pushing with the grapple arm open and in contact with anything.

 

[fruitcakesa]

Well, if that is the case then the silver lining is that the grapple should be fine after some welding. It looks to have been constructed with 1/4 inch square tube which is what good grapples are made of (the 1/8" tube saves a few bucks but damage like this is far more common). I'd weld it back together and then just be careful about ever pushing with the grapple arm open and in contact with anything.

It is 1/4" and it's fixed, likely better than new. Steve, the welder, showed me the voids in the original welds. He grou

 

[dragoneggs]

Great to hear and see! Seems it wasn't so twisted as I thought so the fix wasn't so hard?