Grapple For Bucket

[HomeBrew2]

... My wife wasn't too happy until she saw me sliding slash along the forest floor 250 feet to the burn pile and I showed her the next area that would require me to move it 500 feet or more. I pointed out how you could also pick up a log for bucking into rounds, grab bales of hay to feed, or whatever. It really does make sense in a lot of situations.

Though a grapple is about the sexiest piece of iron one could have on a tractor, you didn't list anything I can't do with brush forks. You could become a freaking genius in your ol' lady's eyes by whipping out a set of forks for around $100 with your shop and scrounging skills. The only things I have interest in that a grapple can do that brush forks can't is grabbing ahold of interlocked piles of dead or live brush. That would be cool. But, shop time is "down time" to me and spending money, for marginal personal benefit, that I could make 9% on otherwise doesn't make sense to me just to have a sexy attachment. Just my opinion.
Cheers!

 

[RedRocker]

Our buckets are rigid enough, they just don't adapt well to welding things along the top rail due to the hollow area. Highbeam, the ones I like have a U shaped pocket welded to a plate bolted to each side. You can drop the square tube down in the U part and pin it like a trailer hitch. Very easy to remove when not needed.

 

[3RRL]

Yes, that's what I was afraid of. The sheet metal on the top of our Kioti bucket is thin and seeme to form a void on the top. Those bolts could smash it up just by tightening them and even more when you squeeze something.

If a guy used square tube across the top, how would you tighten the nuts on the bolts? Or would you weld in spuds?

Rob, you get all the good toys!

Just trying to keep up with the "Highbeams"...I constantly read about all the goodies you have. Your wife must be crazy about you.
About the square tubing....I'm going to weld it onto the bucket and probably weld Tatro's bottom part on to that. He told me I could take the jaws off if I wanted to, leaving only the bottom part and hinge bracket? Should look pretty cool like that, kinda like a Triceratops or something? I'm not exactly sure at this moment until I "see" it. Then I'll make an assesment of the thing and whether to cut like I said earlier or leave it as is or bolt/weld...whatever. Going up this weekend and I hope it's already at my neighbor's house...The valves are on order also. MadReferee (and Nelson Long) helped me to make my mind up which way to go. I'll measure everything up and get all the hoses, connectors, make and mount brackets and valves next time.

 

[Highbeam]

Yes homebrew2, most of my piles are interlocked windrows and piles of smallish slash pushed together by an inexperienced dozer operator (me). If you were chopping up a log into firewood wouldn't you have to keep going back and forth to keep the log balanced on a set of forks?

What about grabbing a big ol stump? I would be afraid of bending the long forks needed to reach all the way under a stump.

There is certainly some geek factor or cool factor that carries some value with a grapple. I won't lie about that.

 

[3RRL]

Just got my Andy Tatro grapple and clamped it on for this picture. My bucket is pretty big so I'm thinking of going with 2 of them? I'll start a thread when I actually get to mounting it along with the valves and cylinders.



Aside from being fuctional, I really like the shape of the curved grapple teeth he makes.