FEL QA Tree Grubber I Built

[VinnieNC]

Here is a Tree Grubber that I built for my brother's tractor. He recently bought 25 acres and there are about 5 acres of small saplings/ pines/ scrubs that he wants to easily remove. I came up with this idea from TBN as well as pictures of commercially built units for skidsteers. The V plate is 3/4 inch plate, 4 inch opening at the wide end. The frame is mostly 5 inch channel. The next step is to sandblast it and get some paint on it. It took him an hour or so to get the hang of it, but he can zero in on one and up-root it fairly quickly, much better than a shovel and axe!

Sorry the pics came out in reverse order so you will have to start at the bottom of the pics and scroll UP to see it in action.

-Vinnie

 

[jinman]

Very nice. I bet if you added a viewport in the position shown in my attachment, your brother could stab every tree perfectly on the first try. I don't think it would significantly weaken the structure either.

 

[VinnieNC]

Thanks for the idea Jim! I'll mention it to my brother.

At first we had a front "sight" mounted at the top of the beam and he tried to line it up with the tree, but it doesn't take much of a twich on the steering to mis-align, so that didn't work too well. Next, I stood beside the trees and gave him directions and attempted to guide him to them, and that method was only about 75% successful.

After a few trees, he asked me to just stand back for a minute while he tried the current method. He raises the grubber and tilts it forward so that he can see the V plate. With the tractor steady moving forward in a creeper gear, he lines up the V with the tree and lowers the loader arms. Since he uses the same gear, and same rpm (idle) every time, he has learned to gauge it just right so that he can hit them on the first try about 90-95% of the time.

Here is a pic of what it looks like from the seat.

-Vinnie

 

[jinman]

Yep! That sure improves visibility. It seems like it would be quite easy to stab a tree, but it can be a challenge with the steering shift.

You've made a very useful tool for your brother. I hope he appreciates the work you've done. With all those little pine saplings, he will appreciate you more everytime he uses the grubber. I can see that being handy for grubbing up mesquite trees too. That looks like a very stong tool

I've often wondered about a clamp-on grub for my loader bucket. The plain bucket would bend, but with the toothbar, the extra support might be enough for a very narrow grub with a with a rear "foot" welded on to spread the pressure over the width of the bucket.

 

[flINTLOCK]

How much loader lift / curl capability would you need for a rig like that??

 

[PILOON]

Nice concept.
Have been following another trend on same subject as well.

Now some of my thoughts!

Same design but perhaps made to fit the 3-point?
-Lots of power
-Great visibility
-great manouvering (for alignment) as working backwards is like driving a fork lift.
-top link would be adjusted so that the 'forks' would dig in gently (naturally a hydraulic top link would work best)

I might just fab one from my scraps as I do ocassionly 'pull' saplings as well.

 

[VinnieNC]

I'm not sure how much lift and curl capacity the FEL has; but it can probably safely pick up 1000- 1500 pounds. It is a model 541 and the specs are listed for lots of movements depending on the position of the cylinders. By design, the V is closer to the FEL arms than the front edge of the bucket when mounted, so I think this gives a little more mechanical advantage to the FEL. Also, by making the V plate only 8 inches wide, this concentrates all the power/ pressure/ umph that is normally distributed accross a 6 foot bucket.

Piloon, I was originally planning to build this for the 3 point hitch so it could be used on other tractors. If it worked out well, I was going to modify it to fit the FEL. I finally decided to just build it for the FEL since it has more flexible options such as the curl and viewing from the front of the tractor as opposed to looking backwards. I could still make this fit the three point hitch with the addition of some lift pins.

After seeing it work, I think you would definitely want the top and tilt hydraulic cylinder in place of a top link. The lift capacity is plenty strong, but the curl function really helps to keep the tree in the V during extraction.

-Vinnie