JimC
Silver Member
I kept reading the posts about grapples and decided to build a small one for my BX2200.
I don’t plan to do a lot of heavy work with a grapple so I made it to suit my needs.
When I trim the trees on my place I have a lot of trimmings that I burn and trying to haul a lot of small branches and palm tree leaves is a chore, I was spending a lot of time picking up the stuff that fell off on the way. I will attach my homemade tooth bar when I use it to pick up limbs.
I told a friend about my plans to get some ideas from another BX2200 owner and he offered to buy the material if I would build them as he has several acres that he trims. So I made two grapples.
At first we were just going to raise and lower the grapple with ropes or levers but I remembered that I had a 12 volt linear actuator that I had rescued from a wheel chair lift from a old city bus that was beings demolished at my sons garage.
I have a gin pole mounted on my FEL so I mounted a bracket on the removable pole to hold one end of the linear actuator and now I can raise and lower the grapple using an ac motor reversing switch attached to the FEL control.
I do not plan to lift a lot of weight or work it hard, just to pick up limbs and moving rolls of fence wire, fence poles and pipe and 4x4s that I had laying around the fence.
The grapple will come off by removing two pins and the linear actuator by removing two more pins, the electrical wire and switch unplug from the power socket I use for my sprayer and the entire grapple with actuator weighs less than 25 lbs.
Total cost for me was the electricity to weld it; I don’t know how much my friend paid for the steel, 20 feet of 1 3/4 by 3/16 strap and 20 feet of 1/14 by 1/8 strap for cross bracing.
Some day I will add another hydraulic outlet and change over to a hydraulic cylinder.
jimc
I don’t plan to do a lot of heavy work with a grapple so I made it to suit my needs.
When I trim the trees on my place I have a lot of trimmings that I burn and trying to haul a lot of small branches and palm tree leaves is a chore, I was spending a lot of time picking up the stuff that fell off on the way. I will attach my homemade tooth bar when I use it to pick up limbs.
I told a friend about my plans to get some ideas from another BX2200 owner and he offered to buy the material if I would build them as he has several acres that he trims. So I made two grapples.
At first we were just going to raise and lower the grapple with ropes or levers but I remembered that I had a 12 volt linear actuator that I had rescued from a wheel chair lift from a old city bus that was beings demolished at my sons garage.
I have a gin pole mounted on my FEL so I mounted a bracket on the removable pole to hold one end of the linear actuator and now I can raise and lower the grapple using an ac motor reversing switch attached to the FEL control.
I do not plan to lift a lot of weight or work it hard, just to pick up limbs and moving rolls of fence wire, fence poles and pipe and 4x4s that I had laying around the fence.
The grapple will come off by removing two pins and the linear actuator by removing two more pins, the electrical wire and switch unplug from the power socket I use for my sprayer and the entire grapple with actuator weighs less than 25 lbs.
Total cost for me was the electricity to weld it; I don’t know how much my friend paid for the steel, 20 feet of 1 3/4 by 3/16 strap and 20 feet of 1/14 by 1/8 strap for cross bracing.
Some day I will add another hydraulic outlet and change over to a hydraulic cylinder.
jimc
