I want a grapple, NOW

[tatra805]

With the hydraulic remotes working i figured that a grapple was a must be. NOW.

So i quickly made up something that seems to work. Surely not the nicest or the best.

Not having plate material, nor the equipment to do something nice with it I went with my trusted 40x40x3 (mm that is) profiles and some tubing.

Cut some holes in the profile for the tube to fit and then welded the parts together.

The main bar is a 60x60x3 which will / can be used for other attachments and will be a permanent mount to the bucket.

Still need to fab some spikes as last parts of the teeth and weld on some grabbing teeth on the inner side of the arms.


Was loading manure yesterday using the manure forks and the grapple and it can now definitely bite more than i can swallow.
Great aid.

 

[RedMahindra]

Looks like a nice addition to the bucket! Good work!

 

[john_bud]

looks good. Not a heavy duty unit, so you may have to be careful. Have you thought about adding some pieces to the inside corners to beef it up? That wouldn't take long and will help make it last a long time.

jb

 

[tatra805]

John Bud,

OH YES. I bent the middle tube yesterday so it now is nicely set to the max lenght of the cylinder

By doing that it also rotated the main beam which was supported by the vertical edge of the bucket. Just cut through the wall of the beam

Stay tuned as have to tame this beast.

I was in a hurry to make something to connect to the remotes... and as usual ended up playing around with a semi finished part and destructively re-engineering it.

It was also a play with the hole saws i bought recently to get some nice radius connections in the square profile. Might play around with that a bit to make some reinforcement pieces.

 

[jinman]

Tatra, that's sure using your head for a quick job to build a very useful thumb. You don't normally need crushing pressure to stabilize brush or limbs in your bucket.

I was thinking the same as John Bud. Some triangular gussets welded in those corners would sure add strength and keep twisting stresses off your welds. I also think the crosspiece where the cylinder attaches would be better if it were square tubing instead of round. You could cut out a square hole in your attaching bracket to weld onto the square tubing. I believe that would make a stronger joint than welding to the round tubing. Even if the weld starts to fail, the square joint would be less likely to twist.

 

[JohnDeere4300]

That is a good job.

Thanks for the pics.

 

[john_bud]

John Bud,

OH YES. I bent the middle tube yesterday so it now is nicely set to the max lenght of the cylinder

By doing that it also rotated the main beam which was supported by the vertical edge of the bucket. Just cut through the wall of the beam

Stay tuned as have to tame this beast.

I was in a hurry to make something to connect to the remotes... and as usual ended up playing around with a semi finished part and destructively re-engineering it.

It was also a play with the hole saws i bought recently to get some nice radius connections in the square profile. Might play around with that a bit to make some reinforcement pieces.

"destructively re-engineer" That's a good one and it so nicely explains my normal mode of operations!

As you may have guessed, the ones with quick reply's have had a long and storied past of "destructive re-engineering" !!

jb

 

[pwh@sprynet.com]

Might want to add gussets...........

 

[tatra805]

Gussets hey, and gussets, and then some more... lets say, reinforce the inside corners etc


well ok, just give me a couple of days, say a week.

have some customer visits to do, we expect 1 foot of snow in the coming days, need to haul a load of hay before sunday and i have friends over for the weekend....

Get the picture? hands not following the mind at the moment....

But hey, after that.....

Gussets, reinforcements, round tubes and square profiles all you want .... and even more..

I promise!

 

[jinman]

Gussets hey, and gussets, and then some more... lets say, reinforce the inside corners etc


well ok, just give me a couple of days, say a week.

have some customer visits to do, we expect 1 foot of snow in the coming days, need to haul a load of hay before sunday and i have friends over for the weekend....

Get the picture? hands not following the mind at the moment....

But hey, after that.....

Gussets, reinforcements, round tubes and square profiles all you want .... and even more..

I promise!

You're doing great. Heck! I can't even get around to welding up my old bale fork that busted, and I'm retired.

 

[forester2]

Great idea; if you want to add some grippy teeth (engineering term) to the arms, you could just weld some short pieces of angle iron on the face. I like it.

 

[Maxamillion]

I like your design you have for your grapple. I search the web to find a grapple that I could make to use on my skid steer and I liked yours the best of the ones that I have found. I am interested in seeing pictures of your finished product once you have teeth on it.

When I get the grapple finished I will post picture of it. I am in the process of making brackets to mount the arms and hydraulic cylinders. I have the arms made just need the brackets so I can hook them up an see where I need to put the hydralic cylinder. Thanks, Don

 

[/pine]

I agree it looks like it will grab brush piles very well

to continue on about the gussets... if you scalloped the bottom the serrated edge would add some gripping...?

 

[tatra805]

Just a small update on this one...

the original construction made some trouble hitting the hydraulic lines and the grapple was laying most of the time.

Have to load straw bales soon so decided to make it a permanent mount on the bucket. Still removable but at least not bending and hitting things.

The middle suuport is fix and can be used for a lifting hook or others.

With the possibility to adjust the cyclinder position i can choose how much the grapple opens and closes. Eg a bale needs max opening and minimum clamping while you want to be able to crush eg treebranches.

While doing this i also adapted the fork to be positioned inside the bucket which allows me to scrape with the bucket edge as the fork now pivots. In the upright position it makes a nice screen eg for pushing brush into a burnpile or driving on public road without collecting cyclists.

Paintjob and gussets, yeah right, next year probably