Need plans for bucket forks

[Ruark]

I have a lot of big, tangled piles of dead tree limbs on my place. The best way to pick these up would be with forks on my tractor's FEL. Not two prongs like you use for pallets, but 6 or 7 prongs. I could make one with my welder, if I can come up with a simple, cost-effective design. Any ideas, pictures? I could just weld some 2x2x1/4" tubing to a plate and bolt the plate to the FEL, but I'd kinda like to avoid drilling holes in my FEL. Maybe have some way of tightening it with a chain looping under the bucket and over to the top front edge.

 

[Just Bill]

Like maybe a grapple?
I wish I had a good set of plans for one of them too.

 

[Ruark]

A grapple would be nice, but I don't really need that much, and don't have the money or hydraulics for it. Just the forks. About 6 3-foot prongs would work.

 

[billhall]

Forks work great for this aplication and whats great about forks is that they can also be used as forks.....

 

[Tobias Dunlap]

I'm in the process of building a set of brush forks for my tractor. PM me and I'll send you my contact info.

 

[desertmike345]

I have only done this in my mind so far. If you could find a spare bucket, it could be made into anything you need with a plasma cutter or OA setup. Cut holes to make rock bucket, cut slots for a brush bucket, prongs, etc.

Mike

 

[Mark @ Everlast]

Ruark,

There's a good chance you will tear your bucket up. I am not sure what size tractor you have, but if its a smaller one, the buckets are thin and will bend and fold quite easily with weight applied beyond the lip of the bucket,particularly with the style you describe.

 

[gwdixon]

Don't use pipe. It is much too soft and will bend. Heating and bending it back works for a while but eventually metal fatigue causes the pipe to fail.

The absolute best fork for the job is a gang of hay spears. I thought Ag Supply had the spear only but just searched and couldn't find it.

Anyway, four or five of those should do the job if you can find the replacement tines. It would not be cheap but they would last a lot longer than pipe or channel iron. (Below are photos of a channel iron set that I slapped together.)

Mark is correct about using a light weight bucket. If the load is too heavy the bucket distorts.

 

[gwdixon]

Forgot the best photo. Getting the better half to chip in!:thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[Shield Arc]

gwdixon I really like your design!:thumbsup: I wish I would have gone with something like that when I built my brush forks, I just used what I had laying around. Now that I have the grapple I don't use it anymore.