There is often confusion regarding the appropriateness of "light duty" grapples on CUTs. This is caused by several things including 1) grapples are labelled for skidsteer use, not tractors, 2) there are literally no engineering standards so light, medium and heavy duty designations are simply left up to some guy in the marketing dept, 3) the people manufacturing and selling the grapples typically have never or rarely used one on a CUT and certainly have not done destructive testing to determine real world limits. Nelson Long of WR Long is one of the few manufacturers who has extensive experience with grapples on CUTs. Most of the other manufacturers of light duty grapples (except for
EA) are just copycat welding shops with zero engineering talent or practical experience with CUTs. They built decent grapples of traditional design but they are almost all focused on skidsteers so their knowledge of CUT capacities and sizing is highly suspect.
The simple point that it is virtually impossible for a CUT under 50hp or a loader of less than at least 3000 lb lift capacity to break or damage any light duty
grapple if used properly. Center the load, don't ram, don't push with the upper arm, and it is almost impossible to damage a
grapple with a CUT. On the other hand, put a heavy duty
grapple on a 25hp tractor and ram the open
grapple arm into a boulder or big tree and you will damage that
grapple.
Any
grapple with 3/8" mild steel tines can stand up to 3000lbs lift with plenty of reserve strength. A
grapple with less than 1/4" thick square tubing is more vulnerable to crush damage but only if the upper arm is used to push. Most light duty grapples use 1/4" tubing but a few short sighted manufacturers have used 1/8" tubing (ask specifically and stay away). No
grapple is meant to ram especially off center. The FEL is more likely to suffer than the
grapple from such action, CUT FELs are not bulldozers.
A few manufacturers use high strength steel. Anbo and a couple of other clamshell style grapples built for skidsteers are built with high strength steel and they are very expensive although they have recently introduced lighter duty models for CUTs. To my knowledge, only
Everything Attachments has used high strength steel in a light duty open bottom style
grapple but the compromise
EA made was to use 5/16" rather than 3/8" steel to save weight.
EA seems to have tested their
grapple extensively with a 22hp tractor but the 35hp limit they quote is pretty clearly a seat of the pants guesstimate. Also, tractor HP is a very rough guide and Kubota tractors almost all have lighter weight and weaker FELs than average for any given HP. A 35hp Kioti or Mahindra would put more strain on a
grapple than a 38hp Kubota based on weight and FEL lift capacity.
If I were looking for a
grapple for a
L3800, I would ignore manufacturers arbitrary HP limits. I would be happy with a WRLong 48OBG but I'd probably buy the less expensive 50"
EA. WRLong makes great stuff but they will only sell through a middleman dealer so their prices are not as competitive.
