Rock Bucket--which one?

[Charles Billings]

I am considering buying a rock bucket for my NH TC45 to deal with the rocks and stones in my garden, and am looking for advice and experience on selecting one. My local NH dealer is selling Vernig Rock Buckets for about $1000. They come in several sizes, and look very well built. On the internet I have also found rock buckets by CJJ Inc ($????)., Quick Pick-N-Sift (with teeth about $1250), Bradco ($1850), and High Rock (66" with teeth is $741). I am wondering if having teeth is a big advantage over just having the tines out front. It would seem to provide added streghth, but are there advantages to tines and no teeth? Other than rock removal, are there other good uses for the rock buckets?

 

[LoneCowboy]

I have a Bradco 66" on my TC45
It works very well, but you can't really go thru "hard" dirt and get out rocks. Has to be soft dirt (typically we rake up the rocks with the landscape rake, then pick them up with the rock bucket)
It's almost a little too big for the TC45, it's WAY out there (clearly designed for SS's), but it works.

I don't know about teeth.

I haven't found a use yet for it beyond picking up rocks.

 

[jinman]

I am considering buying a rock bucket for my NH TC45 to deal with the rocks and stones in my garden, and am looking for advice and experience on selecting one. My local NH dealer is selling Vernig Rock Buckets for about $1000. They come in several sizes, and look very well built. On the internet I have also found rock buckets by CJJ Inc ($????)., Quick Pick-N-Sift (with teeth about $1250), Bradco ($1850), and High Rock (66" with teeth is $741). I am wondering if having teeth is a big advantage over just having the tines out front. It would seem to provide added streghth, but are there advantages to tines and no teeth? Other than rock removal, are there other good uses for the rock buckets?

Charles, how big of a garden do you have? A $1000 to $1500 rock bucket is awfully expensive for picking up rocks in a single garden. If you have a constant use of it, that's different, but it just seems misplaced to spend that much money on a "one trick pony." I love my rock bucket with round tines and a grapple added. I use mine alot for rocks and also for brush and other grapple tasks. It makes it one of my favorite and most used tools. My bucket is 60 wide and weighs about 750 lb with the grapple. I would not go bigger under any circumstances.

Here's a link to my thread: Get a Grip

 

[Charles Billings]

Jinman, I agree that $1000-$1500 is a lot to pay for a bucket to pick rocks from a small garden (5000 sq ft). But, I have been sifting rock and soil by hand through 1/2 inch galvanzed screen in order to have enough soil for a decent garden. I see the need to add soil for the next several years before I have enough that I can actually till. Just spoke with the folks at Wildkat Attachments and their smaller rock bucket is about $550. Adding the grapple did enter my mind, but then the cost escalates, which would include adding remotes on my tractor. I haven't yet made a decision, but could conceive of buying the bucket and adding a grapple in the future. My backhoe with thumb is fairly clumsy, but it does serve as a grapple.

 

[LoneCowboy]

rock buckets only pick up rocks about 2 to 3 inches in diameter.
It won't get real small (like your 1/2" screen) rocks.

Might be cheaper to take the top 6 inches or so of dirt out and bring in some screened, amended top soil

just a thought.

 

[jinman]

Charles, is it possible there are some rental places in your area with a Rock Screener like the ones in the link. If you could rent one, it would seem to be ideal. You can also build a portable rock screen with wood slats fairly easy. You could clean/clear you rocks by dumping them with the FEL and then removing the piles of rocks and returning the screened soil to your garden. I've seen just such a screen built by a TBNer several years ago, so you might search and find it.

 

[Egon]

I would go with home built screen too.

Expanded metal or crusher screen would be several options.

check out "Grizzly screens" on line.

 

[CurlyDave]

I have a rock bucket from these guys, which I have been very happy with. Skid Steer loader attachments

The one they sent me has time spacing like the rock bucket the picture, but is designed more like their heavy duty root grapple, with steel side plates. I have the grapples for it, and if I remove the side plates, it is also very useful as a root/brush grapple. Sure, it is heavier than necessary, but my tractor handles it, and it really isn't possible to load up enough brush to make very much weight in a grapple anyway, so there is never a weight problem.

I addition to screening out small & medium rocks is very good at picking up single large rocks and placing them where I want them. The see-through times make getting a grip on a rock much easier than a solid bucket and a grapple.

 

[spruce Deere]

I have installed new gardens in rocky soil and after ripping the ground both directions, the rock bucket gets most of the big rocks, But can't gather the rocks under 3 inch. A rock screen might be a better way for total rock removal with a lot of FEL work. The last garden I put in, the gardeners didn't mind a few smaller rocks left after they saw all of the roots, sticks and the few stumps gathered by the bradco 66 inch rock bucket gone.

 

[Charlesaf3]

Markham made me a rock bucket quite inexpensively - you might check them out.

 

[Charles Billings]

Hi & thanks for all the replies and information. Buying a product with all your input is such a different experience from buying a car, or most other products. I think that the DIY people get the most out of this, but there is such great value on Tractorbynet for everyone who has a tractor.

I did build a soil screen, not nearly as elegant as the one shown by Egon, but am able to screen a loader-full at a time. And, when I said I was doing all the sifting by hand, I didn't mention that everything was delivered and removed from the screen by my TC45. All the sifting was hand done with a hoe and a rake, and removing by hand any rocks up to 18" before they could bust up the screen.

The garden is looking great so far, this year. Over a number of years we can have a really super-productive garden.

As my 65 year old back protests, I yield more and more to the pocketbook approach of buying tractor attachments that take the load off that part of the anatomy, and to those purchases that make things more efficient. However, looking at it with Jinman's, my wife's, and even my own $ eye, I probably can't justify my purchase based solely on a cost per vegetable basis. I guess my best defense is saying that I am improving my property for the future, getting some current payback, but still trying to be prudent about what I do spend. In the end I want to enjoy and enhance this beautiful piece of earth that I have, and to do that I need to remove rocks to another place on this 10 acre parcel in the center of the Green Mountains of Vermont.

I like the idea that I can enhance this bucket's use in the future, with a grapple, and will need to get more help then from this forum to figure out how to supply my TC45 with front remotes.

I think you get the idea--I am getting closer to making a decision to buy a rock bucket, but I hope this discussion doesn't stop here.

 

[Cat_Driver]

You can purchase a root grapple that does both jobs, use as a grapple to collect brush, they the tines are close enough to make it a rock screener.

Contact these people I bought a grapple from them they asked them to send me 12 more tines so I could weld them in 1" apart. Had I thought of it sooner I would have just ordered it that way.

Hee is their link. great people to work with .

New 72" Root Grapple Skid Steer Attachment Equipment - eBay (item 120436634383 end time Jun-25-09 06:54:58 PDT)

 

[Charles Billings]

Car Driver, I have narrowed my search to the same firm that sells on eBay as High Rock, your post above. I think their rock bucket with teeth will avoid the tine bending that others have reported without teeth. And, I find their pricing to be unbeatable. This thread clued me in to High Rock's own website, wildkatattachments.com. I am hoping that I can add a grapple later, and thank Jinman for that suggestion; I am going to ask if that can be done before I buy. Right now, affording the rock bucket is my goal, and we do have many uses for that.