Another Rooting Bucket!

[Gfranklin]

Here is a picture of the bucket I just finished building. Randy's earlier post under "Shrub Removal Bucket" got me motivated. I had a friend shear the metal out for me. My tractor is 28 hp and my fathers 1070 is 38 hp I believe so I stepped up the plate thickness to 5/16" except for the large backplate which is 1/4". The two 6" channels were already on hand. I decided to add some stiffeners to the bucket edges and make it heavy duty since I wasn't sure how this thing would end up working so I made it heavy duty. I added a hook and later realized it may help out as a visual centerline reference when positioning the bucket.

 

[Spencer]

Very Nice, I would love to build one if I could ever get my pole barn finished. Lets see some action shots!

 

[Gfranklin]

This shows the JD method of quick attach. I had talked earlier about my concern with welding the pin on because it is turned down to 3/4" and welded on one side only. This bucket was aggressively used in both curl and dump and no problems here.

 

[Gfranklin]

This is a direct side on shot showing that the bottom and the back are not at 90 degrees. I did not have any plans except for Randy's picture so I originally made it 90 degrees. I then became aware that the bucket wouldn't curl to level at ground level so I torched it down to about 75 degrees. This worked as we'll see in the next pictures.

 

[Gfranklin]

Here the bucket is sitting on the ground and at maximum curl the bucket is sitting perfectly level. This is more coincidence than anything but seems like a good target parameter in hindsight.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Geepers...just don't catch anyone's ankle (or any other body part) with that toothed monster! (Nice job on the bucket)

 

[Gfranklin]

Here is maximum dump. Seems like 75 degrees works. One of the first projects was burying some roadkill and this dug a deep hole quickly. Covering up was done by switching buckets.

 

[Gfranklin]

A direct head on shot. All my angles and dimensions were guestimates.

 

[Gfranklin]

I took a torch and a grinder and knife-edged the steel between the teeth. This helped somewhat with root cutting and tree grabbing.

 

[Gfranklin]

Let me apologize for not having any action shots at the present. The camera got seperated from me at the worst time. The bucket is at my fathers and the family got him a digital camera for Christmas. I will get him to take some pictures for me as his homework project!

He got to use it for about 1.5 hours while I watched and I got in about 10 minutes. We knew the breakout force would be significantly affected because of the long bucket length. The botton plate is exactly 30" long and the teeth added at least 6 inches. Curl alone will rip out a one inch diameter tree and an 1.5" tree depending on soil, species etc. 3" and 4" diameter trees were pushed over by forking them about 4 feet off the ground and then going after the roots. My turn came on the last half of a 10" diameter stump. It took 3 to 4 different directions of attack and a certain amount of digging at the roots.

One of the techniques was to get a good purchase on a root and then dumping the bucket while driving forward. This usually just made the teeth slide backwards in the ground but sometimes it would snap a 2" diameter root as the bucket "rolled over".

What seemed most effective was a combination of roll and dump coupled with forward motion of the tractor. Traction dictated the effectiveness of this. The ground was wet but not necessarily muddy and traction was generally acceptable. We did leave lots of tire holes though.

We haven't got much time on it yet but I am generally pleased. The stump was wrestled right smartly with the FEL before giving up and abandoning it. This is what motivated me to make this bucket. Twenty minutes with this new bucket and the stump was out so it is definately a success.

There was absolutely no indications that anything was undersized. I saw no flexing or anything else out of the ordinary.

The only thing I might change is the overall length which is right at 36" including teeth. Any length left off here definately increases the breakout force and you'll never have enough of this. This length did dig a deep hole for the animal carcass though. I am thinking at least 8" off this but I haven't used it enough to be sure. I am thinking about torching out this 8" or so by cutting the bucket off clean at the backplate and welding it back on less the 8".

We cleared out about two dozen 3/4" dia trees, a dozen 1 to 2" dia trees and a half dozen 3-4" dia trees all in about an hour.

I would be glad to give any dimensions if interested.

Greg

 

[Gfranklin]

This should be the correct direct side-on shot showing the 75 degree angle between the bucket bottom and back.

 

[Spencer]

You are describing the exact techinque that I used with my forks to attack stumps. Here is some text of my previous post:

Now attack ONE root at a time. Bring your tractor in to the side of the stump and put one fork underneath one root about 2 feet out on the root. Have the fork at about a 45-degree angle and poke the fork down most of the way. Slowly drive forward as you are simultaneously curling the forks down. You may need to do this a couple of times on each root, each time repositioning the fork at a slightly different angle. Go all the way around the stump until you get all the roots you can see.

Here is the post that this text came from:
<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.tractorbynet.com/cgi-bin/compact/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=projects&Number=120670&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1>Unbelievable?</A>

Nice job Greg!

 

[Gfranklin]

DADBURN! Gotta find a set of forks! I remember reading this now but it went over my head at the time because we don't have forks and I didn't visualise the leveraging. I can now easily see how you were able to do it. I am guessing that your forks ability to penetrate many inches past the root give's a rather significant mechanical advantage. Did you ever need to take one fork off and go after it one toothed or was two forks no problem?

Greg

 

[Spencer]

Two forks seemed to be fine, I did put them quite close together at times but never took one off.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

What type of soil are you using the bucket in?

 

[Thomas]

Looks like your bucket may come in handy removing rocks also.

 

[Gfranklin]

The soil we were in was fairly decent, no significant rocks. My guess is it ranged from loam to clay loam. Digging the deep varmit hole was in river bottom type dirt, really nice. The stump was in tougher conditions but not this rocky clay I,m used to here in the NC Piedmont. There are some rocks we needed to deal with but didn't get the chance yet.

Greg

 

[RayBee]

That's a great example of good ole country engineering & execution./w3tcompact/icons/clever.gif Good luck with it, and am looking foward to seeing more pix /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif ...Raybee

 

[Spencer]

Gfranklin, did you use Kasco's design when you built your bucket or is it just a coincidence? I looked into buying one of their's but they list at just over a grand. I have attached a tiny photo of their model.

 

[Gfranklin]

Spence,

I did in fact look at Kasco's little picture and also at Randy's efforts. Mine was a direct attempt at immitating both of theirs (Thanks, Guys!). I thought about sidewall flexing so added a double lip. I liked the idea of gussets at the top and the hook was an afterthought. I haven't ruled out taking the torch to this one and shortening it in order to give me more breakout force if I think it will help. With my very limited experience so far, I wonder what this bucket would do if it was say 24" overall length. At least with stumps it would still probably get deep enough but you probably really lose the prying leverage that made your forks work so good for you. If I shorten it though, the breakout force will increase by the same ratio that you shorten it by but with the loss of leverage from the shorter overall length, it may not result in a net improvement in overall time spent root bustin'. I do look forward to exploring it's capabilities in spot digging based on how easy it made a deep hole in good soil. My problem now is it is not with me so it will be slow in getting performance updates but I will post them, with pics.

I did wonder what this bucket would cost from them though.

Greg