Bucket Hooks Hooks on buckets

[Rowski]

Thanks for all the info. Another question. What type of hook is more popular(tow hook, grab hook, choker hook)?

 

[Hawgee]

What gets used more? Slip and grab hooks on the bucket. Grab hook on back of the hoe bucket. Around here, the difference between the tow or the slip hook is the guy using rope or cable. The tow hook provides for a bigger radius and less cutting or tearing on the pull.
<font color=red> "Always stay out of the bite of the line." </font color=red>

"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

 

[EBS]

Bird,
Any way to get a picture of the chain hooks mounted with u-bolts on your loader bucket? Sounds like a good idea.
Ed

 

[W5FL]

Bird,

I haven't decided about chain hooks yet. Fed a 3/8 chain down through the quick bucket connet brackets and picked up a 2000# welder off a trailer that it had been bolted to, carried it 150 feet and set it in the back of a 3/4 ton Chevy truck today. Now do you think my Dad's John Deere can unload it? Yeah it can, because it is ballasted well and can pick up over 2200# too. That is what I tell people, there are some things that only a big loader (for compact tractors that is) can handle, and that was one of them today.

 

[TomG]

What I see around here is mostly grab hooks, maybe it's just local style. I guess the advantage of grab hooks is that all you need is a length of chain to grapple or lift something. With slip hooks or looping chain around the bucket as I do, chain plus grab hooks, a load binder, or something to fix the chain is needed. Sometimes my chain with grab hooks on it isn't real handy.

On the other hand, if I want to grapple something very tight, I usually end up using a load binder anyway. It's a lot of trouble trying to pull chain tight enough around something and then getting the right link in the hook. Since I use a binder a lot of the time anyway, slip hooks probably would work well for me. However, I would have to keep in mind that with slip hooks, overhanging loads could topple and just pull the chain around with it.

Hooks, or not, the one thing I don't do is pull anything from the bucket. For pulling, I have a 1" clevis that fits neatly in one hole on my draw bar. The clevis loop is big enough so chain with grab hooks runs through it, which makes hooking on to something a snap.

 

[Bird]

EBS, sorry, I don't have a digital camera or pictures of my hooks, but of course the u-bolts were inserted into the holes from the top of the bucket and I have a 3/8" grab hook connected with one chain link on each one so they lay back on the bucket when not in use and when pulled forward they lay right on the top edge of the bucket.

And Wen, I don't have a quick connect bucket, so the hooks are very handy. And for a B2710 to pick up a complete 454 engine high enough to clear the side rails on the trailer and move it into position to mount on an engine stand to be torn down and rebuilt was a job I went at very slowly and carefully, but no problem.

Bird

 

[_RaT_]

I like the setup where you have a grab hook welded or bolted in the the middle of the bucket, and then a set of slip hooks at each end of the bucket. You can choose to use only the slip hooks and not engage the grab hook, use the grab hook alone or use all 3 and lock a balanced load with the grab hook. Sometimes I let the load figure out its own balance and thus no grab hook used. Sometimes I must pickup something like a post hole digger and need to keep the chain from sliding through the slip hooks and lock it with the grab hook. More times then not though the grab hook is used by itself to pull t-posts, pipe, and telephone posts using just the center grab hook and a short piece of chain. Rat...

 

[gordon]

That's the best of both worlds I have a grab hook in the center welded to plate steel thats welded to the bucket. I also have 6" channel iron welded to the top of my bucket for added strengh. I think the Kubota people who designed my bucket lived on the beach.
If I do need a slip hook in the center I keep a hook with a foot of chain on it in the tractor that way I can attach it to center if I'm using cable.
Gordon

 

[MChalkley]

And don't forget to keep a couple "chain shorteners" handy!

Mark

 

[W5FL]

What size chain do you normally carry. I use a 20 ft long piece of 3/8 chain, and a couple of 10 ft pieces of 1/4 inch and a few more short pieces of 1/4 inch chain - but don't trust it for heavy lifting.