New Kubota L45 has arrived

[lhansman]

Hi Anthony

The pit in the photos is the James Dick pit just south of Caledon Village at the top of the Niagara Escarpment and it is still a working pit. The main crusher plant and all the stockpiles are well away from the area I was working in so I could pick through the rocks at my leisure without and heavy equipment zipping by.

Glad to hear you had a full house for the weekend. It was fabulous weather at my place too but I spent the whole weekend moving dirt. The first and second levels are virtually complete and I hope to finish levels 3 and four by the weekend and then I can finally start placing the boulders.

Hi Martian

You are correct about the forks being hydraulically operated. They are from a company called Horst and they are rated for 4,500 pounds and cost me around $2,000 CDN. I got so fed up with having to get off the machine and manually adjust the forks that I actually purchased these a year ago when I still had my B26. It is really nice to just be able to adjust the width with the push of a button.

I have also found they are great with rocks since everyone is a different shape and size and requires many adjustments of the forks. The other nice thing is when you set a rock down you can just open the forks and back away and the rock will usually stay put. I find this much beter then angling the forks and hoping the rock will fall off facing the way you want because invariably the rock winds up in a different position and then you have to reposition it.

I haven't had any problems with mine and I was moving some very large rocks last Friday with the L45. A number of them I could not lift but managed to push them up a high pile of dirt, get the forks under them and then drove the boulder to my trailer and put it in.

If you are dealing with a lot of irregularly shaped lifts, I highly recommend a set of hydraulic forks.

Lauren

 

[samofsweden]

Hi Lauren!
Very good looking job you did with the rocks!
The L-45 looks very nice.
Read that you use Gunnebo hooks, congrats
I live in Sweden!

Best regards,
Sam

 

[lhansman]

Thanks Sam. Sorry for the mispelling of Gunnebo!

Hi Martian

If you are interested here are a couple of photos of my Horst forks. I was mistaken - as you can see in the blurry photo of the label these forks are rated at 3,700 pounds. Good thing I didn't get that M59, eh?

Regards,

Lauren

 

[Martian]

Thanks Laruen. Haven't been around the computer for a couple days and just checking up. Thanks for the pictures. I would really like to get a pair, and will look into them, but it won't be for a while. With just getting a new tractor, I'll have to hold off on goodies for at least a little while. Hydraulic pallet forks have always been on my want list - your just the first person I've seen that has gotten them!

 

[lhansman]

Hi Martian

Once you have a set of Hydraulic forks, I don't think you'll ever go back to manual ones. I do a lot of side jobs so the main reason I upgraded from the B26 to the L45 is for productivity so for me they are worth the extra cost. Even on the B26 they were a big help although they are heavier which is why I kept my original forks in case I had something really heavy to move. Once I decided to purchase the L45 I decided that I didn't need the old forks so I let the new B26 owner have them.

The one recommendation I would make is get 42" and not 48" forks. The ones I have are 48" and they are a little to long I think. I wanted 42" but a mistake was made and 48" showed up so I took them but you can't lift much that far out so I would go with 42".

Regards,

Lauren

 

[mike69440]

Lauren,

The hydraulic forks you have are great.

I have a set of self designed 42" clamp on bucket forks that although are nicer than those you can purchace, still are a pain as the overhang, plus bucket weight limit my L39 to lifting only about 1800 to 1850 lbs lbs with the forks. I have tweaked the hydrulics about 5%, so the bucket will carry about 2500 lbs. The extra length of clamp on forks, plus the lack ov visibility make the case for dedecated forks.

 

[samofsweden]

Thanks Sam. Sorry for the mispelling of Gunnebo!

Regards,

Lauren

No Worries Lauren!

Nice looking stone job you do!
:thumbsup:
/Sam

 

[lhansman]

Hi Mike69440

I have seen the clamp on forks but I purchased mine when I still had the B26 and with its limited lifting ability I wanted to keepthe weight as close to the loader as possible. I was so concerned about weight that I even kept my original manual forks in case I was at the limit but once I decided to get the L45 I decided to let the old forks go with the B26.

I have been lurking on your posts on all the work you have been doing on your property and am quite impressed with all the work you have done. Doing this current project at my place I have wished more than once for an excavator like yours!

The Laurin cab arrived yesterday so here are a few shots of it and the current state of my terracing project.

Regards,

Lauren

 

[mike69440]

Hi Mike69440

I have seen the clamp on forks but I purchased mine when I still had the B26 and with its limited lifting ability I wanted to keepthe weight as close to the loader as possible. I was so concerned about weight that I even kept my original manual forks in case I was at the limit but once I decided to get the L45 I decided to let the old forks go with the B26.

I have been lurking on your posts on all the work you have been doing on your property and am quite impressed with all the work you have done. Doing this current project at my place I have wished more than once for an excavator like yours!

The Laurin cab arrived yesterday so here are a few shots of it and the current state of my terracing project.

Regards,

Lauren

Good to see your machine working hard.

Grease the bucket hinge points every 3-4 hours. The rest of the loader greasing every 10 hrs is ok.

That is about a days digging with a small excavator, but you would still have a lot of dirt piles to move. The L45 does the job. An excavator is great at excavating, but no so good at moving the spoils.

What also slows me down is that in spots where I am digging I am just scraping away at ledge. Some of the ledge I can peel back, other parts are solid rock.

When the property was cleared, approximately 80 27 yard loads of stumps, rocks and topsoil were dumped over the edge of the grade of the cleared area.

I am now digging up that partially broken down mess, and sorting the topsoil from the stumps, roots and rock.

The steps I go through to turn rough cleared land to pasture are.

1. Rake up vegetation, small trees, etc.

2. Scrape up and pile topsoil. Sort out stumps and rocks.

3. Dig pond and use spoils to grade the land so that it can be used by tractors, people, and livestock.

4. Pull out rocks, both by machine and by hand and grade filled area for application of topsoil.

5. Take piled topsoil or any deposits of topsoil found and spread over graded areas.

6. Rake and pick out sticks, roots and rock.

7 Seed and keep off.

 

[lhansman]

For those of you that are interested here are a couple of updated photos of the terraced rock wall I have been working on. I finally got around to placing rocks last weekend as you can see. To give you a sense of scale the rock wall is about six feet high and about 50 feet long with a ninety degree curve in the middle. It has been very warm in my part of the world so I still haven't had the cab installed yet. I'm now thinking of waiting another month or so and then having it done and that way I won't bother having the A/C installed until next year which will give me plenty of time to save up as I spent a little more on rocks than I had planned and I need more for the second level.

I hope all of your summer projects are going well.

Regards,

Lauren