RonMar
Elite Member
Been working on this for a week or so off and on(been thinking about it a lot longer) and finaly got it mounted onto the fork bucket to play with today. As you can see it is light duty, made from 3/16 wall pipe with a 2"X3/4" solid core running most of the straight length of the pipe. The pipe(and most everything else) was some scrap I had laying around and bent with a cheepie 12 ton harbor freight pipe bender. The open distance between forks and grapple tips is about 39".
I built this fork bucket about 2 years ago and it has been a real big help in cleaning up the mess I call my property. The biggest frustration with using it however has been keeping the pile of stuff on the forks. A lot of the time as I back away from where I just lifted a full load, a small root or vine or a stray branch will unload half of what I just scooped and picked. Or while on the way to the pile a dragging branch will hang up and unload the bucket halfway there. I don't need a grapple to rip boulders out of the ground so This should work fine for what I need it for while not taking away from my lift capacity too much. Each grapple arms has it's own cylinder and both are plummed in parallel so that it will clamp down on uneven loads like a stump root wad.
I replaced the 2 spool prince valve I had on the loader with a 3 spool to power the grapple via 1/4" lines with QC's out on the bucket. This third circuit via the same hoses will also be available to power other things such as a small cement mixer out in the FEL bucket that I plan on building later this summer. I went the whole valve route vis a switchable diverter as the original 2 spool didn't have float so I bought the 3 spool with this option.
I built this fork bucket about 2 years ago and it has been a real big help in cleaning up the mess I call my property. The biggest frustration with using it however has been keeping the pile of stuff on the forks. A lot of the time as I back away from where I just lifted a full load, a small root or vine or a stray branch will unload half of what I just scooped and picked. Or while on the way to the pile a dragging branch will hang up and unload the bucket halfway there. I don't need a grapple to rip boulders out of the ground so This should work fine for what I need it for while not taking away from my lift capacity too much. Each grapple arms has it's own cylinder and both are plummed in parallel so that it will clamp down on uneven loads like a stump root wad.
I replaced the 2 spool prince valve I had on the loader with a 3 spool to power the grapple via 1/4" lines with QC's out on the bucket. This third circuit via the same hoses will also be available to power other things such as a small cement mixer out in the FEL bucket that I plan on building later this summer. I went the whole valve route vis a switchable diverter as the original 2 spool didn't have float so I bought the 3 spool with this option.