FEL Grapple from Scratch W/ Lots-O-Pics

[GuglioLS]

I know, I know - this is the 10 millionth Grapple project I hope it's a little different / Unique? in some way, so I will try to keep your attention with some entertainment.

During Rob's (3RRL) visit here with me in New Mexico. He said I needed to install a grapple on my FEL. So who am I to argue that? - Having no choice but to say yes, he took it upon himself to design a custom grapple to fit my Koyker 160 FEL bucket from a hand sketched drawing I made on a used crumpled napkin.

After a couple of design prototypes (I kept asking for the impossible) Here are the drawings Rob sent for my final stamp of approval: (Click on any of the thumbnail pictures for a full size image. They will automatically open in a new window, none are more than ~ 50 K in size.)




Notice he has designed in a stop on the end of the jaw to keep the jaws from going past TDC. I thought that was a clever idea. The Jaws look sleek with just the right about of curve, very functional and pleasing to the eye, what do you think?

Rob completed the exact detail of every part in auto-CAD. After he sends me the drawings in electronic format, I'll take them to my local CNC plasma cutter dude, and have them cut from 3/8" plate steel.

The tough part was I wanted the jaws to open wide enough so the jaw tips would be behind the vertical plane of the front cutting edge of the bucket, no surprise he was able pull it off!

Rob believes this is the final installment for 9 minutes of my time to fix the bad ground on his tractor (Of course I had to fly out to California, then drive 6 hours to get to his place). His gratitude keeps overflowing, even though he designed and built the gear box for my back blade, then flew out here as slave labor to help rebuild my Bull Dozer, then plan, survey and help cut in my new road. I guess he feels sorry for me because I have suffered the misfortune of not having a grapple for such a long time it's pathetic - what a guy, I sure am fortunate to have him as a friend.

Larry

 

[GuglioLS]

After Rob sent me the plans, I called the plasma cutter dude to get an estimate on cost, he told me the plasma cutter got struck by lightning and was fried. I offered to go down there take a look see and maybe fix it - might be good for a few $ off ?

In the mean time, here are a few of the parts I ordered and received from Surplus center for the hydraulics:



A cylinder, open center solenoid with sub-plate and connectors, some miscellaneous fittings and a few momentary rocker switches.

I have been looking all over creation for a joystick handle with a toggle switch when I finally stumbled across this:

Which one?
This one ? Or this one? -

That last handle is just too cool, you could wire one up for rocket launchers, and even have it make coffee for you. There would even be enough buttons left over for an ejection seat to bail you out of those extreme pucker factor situations.

I ordered the two button model without a trigger to keep it simple and low cost, with a 10mm X 1.5 thread pitch mount bushing.

Larry

 

[GuglioLS]

I took Rob's Auto Cad files down to the Plasma cutter, imported the file, verifed all dimensions, then arranged the pieces in the smallest size possible.

Here is the result:



They all fit in a 25"X48" footprint, this will keep material costs to a minimum.

While I was there, I did quite a bit of work for them, I looked at all the equipment that was damaged by the lightning strike last week. I found what was fried on the Plasma Therm Plasma cutter. I will pick up the parts and fix it for them. The computer that operates the X-Y-Z table for the cutter has a fried power supply. I moved the Hard drive over to a replacement computer and got all their old files restored. Then I filled out damage reports for them to file insurance claims for repairs and replacement of some other equipment. So I was in a good position to make a trade.


Larry

 

[GuglioLS]

OK - update on todays progress, I got their Plasma cutter back on-line. They were so happy, they knocked out the grapple parts first thing to test it all out.

Just look at the clean cut it makes in this 1/2" plate!: _____These are the Jaw tip braces cut from 1/4" plate:

_____________________________________________

Larry

 

[GuglioLS]

This is the Computer Controlled Plasma cutter, I uploaded Rob's CAD file onto the hard drive, then all the pieces were arranged to fit, Then set the burn through (start of cut) then tag the order they would be cut - holes first!

Upper right is my electronics tool box Holes being cut:

Larry

 

[GuglioLS]

Here you can see the outline of the grapple jaws starting to take shape.

Just look how crisp the edges are coming out:



Larry

 

[GuglioLS]

Three of four jaws complete. Now it's on to small brackets:

Larry

 

[GuglioLS]

All the small brackets are now complete, the last jaw is now being cut in the top of the photo.

All done !

It took roughly 20 minutes to burn through all that steel.

Larry

 

[Bill Barrett]

How many amp is that plasma cutter? Clean cut in 1/2" And what did the lightning fry?

 

[GuglioLS]

First pic is a close up of the smaller bracket parts. After all the cuts were complete, & while the metal was still hot, we tapped out all the parts and knocked off the slag. Middle pic is the negative. In the far right pic is the final stack of parts, notice how the jaws stack up and overlay each other perfectly? I forgot to line up all the small parts, but they came out just as perfect.


Larry