EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
My life changed forever when I got my grapple. It's the best thing ever invented for land clearing. If I was to do it over again, I would get one like this picture. I thought I needed fancy teeth on it, and that the ideal was for dirt to be able to drop through the teeth when picking stuff up, but in reality, dirt still sticks to the debris and between the teeth when hauling stuff. The trick is to pick it up clean because very little falls through. I've also found that with my 80 hp tractor, some of my teeth get bent from time to time. I used to straighten them back up, but now I don't even bother. It works the same and it's kind of pointless.
Having two arms on top is huge. I don't think I've ever seen them closed evening on a load, and having two of them allows me to hold more debris down while driving to the burn pile compared to just one arm.
The big change I would want is having a solid bottom. After taking down some trees, digging up their root balls and filling in the holes again, I always need more dirt to make it level again. I can carry a little bit on the grapple, but it's not much. I feel that if I could carry a decent amount, it would make clearing land, filling holes and smoothing everything out go a lot faster.
The other issue with the open teeth design of the grapple is when you get stuck. I have it mounted on my backhoe, and when it gets stuck, it's pretty easy to lower the front bucket to get the tires out of the mud, then pull out of the mess with the hoe stick. The bucket acts like a sled and carries the front weight of the tractor above the mud. Having the grapple on when this happens means I have to get a sheet of plywood to put under there that gets ruined. In once situation last year, that didn't even work and I had to go get the dozer, which turned into a huge mess. If I had been able to lower the grapple down on top of the bud and been able to get the tires out of it when it happens, I'm convinced it would have come out easily, instead of creating a much bigger project.
Eddie
Having two arms on top is huge. I don't think I've ever seen them closed evening on a load, and having two of them allows me to hold more debris down while driving to the burn pile compared to just one arm.
The big change I would want is having a solid bottom. After taking down some trees, digging up their root balls and filling in the holes again, I always need more dirt to make it level again. I can carry a little bit on the grapple, but it's not much. I feel that if I could carry a decent amount, it would make clearing land, filling holes and smoothing everything out go a lot faster.
The other issue with the open teeth design of the grapple is when you get stuck. I have it mounted on my backhoe, and when it gets stuck, it's pretty easy to lower the front bucket to get the tires out of the mud, then pull out of the mess with the hoe stick. The bucket acts like a sled and carries the front weight of the tractor above the mud. Having the grapple on when this happens means I have to get a sheet of plywood to put under there that gets ruined. In once situation last year, that didn't even work and I had to go get the dozer, which turned into a huge mess. If I had been able to lower the grapple down on top of the bud and been able to get the tires out of it when it happens, I'm convinced it would have come out easily, instead of creating a much bigger project.
Eddie
