Tractors and wood! Show your pics

[Mikejeakins]

As Gordon already mentioned, it's a Frost Bite. The Igland GR 20 is very similar. A have another brand: the Sundown GR40.

The style is known as a Forestry Grapple. It works great for long logs, some large rocks, and fairly well for cleaning up brush and limbs. It's a three point grab (two under, one over the log). This works quite well for long logs, since you still get three points of contact in a good geometry for gripping, even with odd shaped logs. The narrow profile makes it much easier to maneuver in tight spots in the woods (at least when you are not carrying a log). It's light weight, so you don't lose much lifting capacity. My Sundown GR 40 weighs about the same as the 66" bucket it replaces.

I had tried a friend's grapple that was the more common style: His was a "single lid", and it would only grab very uniform logs well. If there were bends or significant taper in the log, it would pinch one end top and bottom, but the other end was loose, allowing that end to swing around a bit. (You could fix that by going to a dual lid set-up, which is kind of like having two independent "thumbs" on top, but that tends to add expense and weight). My friends grapple was also much heaver than the Forestry Grapple. His grapple will run rings around mine for other uses, but for work with long logs in the woods, a forestry grapple is hard to beat.

The Sundown GR 40 cost me about $1500 several years ago, including the skid steer quick attach plate. That price does not include the hydraulics on the tractor to run it. I already had rear hydraulic remotes, so I ran hoses up from the rear to the loader frame with quick disconnects on each end to run the grapple. This means using one of the levers on my right fender to open and close the grapple. If I had it to do over again, I'd consider springing for some kind of 3rd function mounted on my loader joystick. I don't have the bolt-on extensions that Gordon has. I've considered them, but my tractor is small and doesn't lift a whole lot, so I'm not sure if I'd gain much from them.

The Gr 40 is well built and seems to be holding up well, however, I'll admit that the Frost Bite is better constructed. I'll probably never wear mine out, especially since it's designed for a larger tractor than mine, and I'm not using it commercially. However, had I known about the Frost Bite when I bought this, I would have seriously considered it, especially if the price was at least close to the Sundown unit.

View attachment 587614
Tractor in Logging Mode

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Storm Damage Clean Up

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1400# American Elm Sawlog

Is that a Uni-forest winch on the back?

 

[Jstpssng]

Nice price on a tree. That one tree would take me 6 hours to get out and stil be worth it, but dont think there's a white oak within 100 miles of me let alone a whole forest but if I did have those trees, I's be getting a new tractor that could get that tree out in 2 hours.

They are growing closer than you might think; this far north though you're most apt to see them near riverbanks.
That doesn't help you though, unless you own land on the Kennebec or Penobscot.

I'm curious, i have seen umpteen pictures on this forum of people with tire chains on their vehicles/tractors/etc.....and talking about trying to keep chains tight/slapping issues etc......we used rubber tarp straps on ours inner/outer and never had a bit of trouble

They don't last very long when you get out in the bushes. The first time that I used them was on a 2 wd pickup, to get up a woods road. By the time we got where we were going the tensioners were long gone; after that I learned to get the chains tight enough so that they don't come off.

Earlier in this thread somebody mentioned that does lead to increased tire and chain wear though.

 

[Oldpath05]

That痴 about how long it took me because the tractor wouldn稚 pull it and then I got the tractor stuck so I had to go get the rollback to get the tractor and log out.

Beep beep beep, back the story up, it's against thread rules to talk about getting wood out and fail to mention the tractor getting stuck story, I want a recap of how what where why...............

 

[4570Man]

See post 7166 in this thread.

 

[Oldpath05]

What do you do when you want to pull a few logs out of where there's LOT'S of stubs that are hard on tires? Well, what you "don't do", is use a tractor that has "hi-dollar" radials on it!

Here's a couple picts.,

This tractor has cheapo bias ply tires on it and it does a pretty good job in the woods,

SR

And what I dont do is use a tractor without limb slap head protection in a brush pile like that. Also you have a head light out.

 

[Oldpath05]

See post 7166 in this thread. View attachment 587702

Ok now I'm up to speed thats a nice picture of a stuck tractor, looks like the L3240. Whats a RollBack? whats that thing on back and where's the pto winch?

 

[Sawyer Rob]

And what I dont do is use a tractor without limb slap head protection in a brush pile like that. Also you have a head light out.

We don't worry too much about the headlight, and all of those logs were already laying there, all I did was to pull them out and take them to my BSM...

Not much chance of getting hit by anything on that job...

SR

 

[4570Man]

Ok now I'm up to speed thats a nice picture of a stuck tractor, looks like the L3240. Whats a RollBack? whats that thing on back and where's the pto winch?

I don’t have a pto winch although it would have made that job easier. That’s my grandpas L3800. The rollback is the truck I hauled this logs on.

 

[gettingold]

New member new toy

 

[Green Acres Homestead]

I am still looking for the problem. If the water is too deep to stand in, set some planks across the water and go cut it. If the concern is oil from a chainsaw getting into the water, use a hand saw. The tree is not that big.

I would like to add you can get bidegrable oil for the chain oil. It's cooking oil based and poses very little environmental problems.