I agree with the others that grapples are cool and extremely usefull but if you decide to buy one, do your research on what style will work best for YOU and your situation, not what works best for others and their situations. Buy it for what purpose you want to do with it. Forums like this are a great resource for information on stuff like this because everyone has different opinions and uses for different grapples. Lots of members here have great info and way more experience with grapples than I ever will, but heres my experiences of when I was in the situation you are in now. I did my research, got advice from different forums and still made the wrong choice. It seemed that the majority of the responses I got was to get a bucket style (L bottom)
grapple because they are a more universal type of
grapple and can perform the similar tasks as a clam style plus more because of the added capacity of the bucket. That is true, however, I did find out that what the bucket style (L bottom)
grapple does do well, is NOT what I wanted it to do well in the first place, clamp smaller objects tightly. I got caught up in all the things that bucket style grapples can do and that took away from the main purpose of why I wanted/needed a
grapple in the first place. I was thinking more along the lines of a clam style because I was wanting to clamp tightly onto objects like smaller logs and such. I found a decent deal on a bucket style that seemed to good to pass up, and I am not happy with it because it doesn't do well what I want it to do. So it gets frustrating when I use it. I can't slip it into a pile of logs and scoop up just one specific log. Don't get me wrong, it will do it but not as easy as I would like. It does pick up brush very well. I found that out with the wind storm we had last summer where I had several trees come down on my property. I looked hard at the pallet fork add on
grapple like the Cotech because I think it would have worked well for my intended purpose but decided against it because I wanted a dedicated
grapple, I even looked at forestry grapples like the Igland GR20, Sundowner GR40 and the Frostbite which are a dedicated log
grapple built for my intended purpose, but decided against them for whatever reason. The
grapple I did get was a killer deal and it wouldn't be hard to modify it so it would do what I want it to do, so it will eventualy get modified to work better of my needs. I will turn it into a clam style which will IMHO work better for what I need. I bought it at an auction and for what I paid for it, I could'nt have even bought the material to build it.
Nobody's fault but my own. I knew what I wanted but I didn't follow my gut feeling.
Hope this helps
it was picking the rear of the loader up as I took it away. Oak tree stump
