Wheel Barrel & Shovel are retired

[roostersmasher]

Well I have been lurking on the forms and reading a lot of great info in here from you fellas. I had Hernia surgery about 3 months ago. My back is pretty sore from doing things the old fashion way, shovel and a wheel barrel. Chain sawing huge logs and rolling them or dragging them with the ole truck. I am in my 50's now, so I pulled the trigger on a NEW B 3200 Kabota. Looked at several used machines and couple of them had issues and others were not to far off from just buying new.

Got the FEL and a back blade. Heck in 3 hours last night I got done what whould have taken me months to do. Got a decent deal on her, $18,500 and some change then I stacked the insurance on it through Kabota, did that 0% down 0% intrest.

Need to get some pallet forks for shrub removal and digging holes and moving large logs. Looking for recommendations from you folks in here.

I delt with 2 dealers and I went with the fella who is a little bit further away but a great guy with a well run service department. He lives just a couple miles away from me. He delivered the machine the next day on his way home from work at 7:00 on a Friday night.

It's going to be in the upper 90's today, the wheel barrel and shovel will remain in the shed today. Just bought a forclosed home and the fella who lived here before ran a tree service. While he was fore closing on the house he was dumping mass amounts of dirt, chips, logs, brush, shingles and lord knows what else is under all that several hundred yards of crap. I can now give my back a rest and give my right arm and right foot a work out.

I was hesitant on getting this machine, my wife begged me to get it. It's Saturday morning, all coffeed up, time to go burn some FUEL...

Rooster

 

[TripleR]

Congratulations, you will appreciate it more with every time you use it.

 

[k0ua]

Not only will it save your body, on the jobs you would have done by hand, but you will think up new tasks that just never would have gotten done before. Tractors truly are a wonderful tool to own. And on top of all of that they are fun to operate.


James K0UA

 

[johnk]

You'll wonder how you got along without one all your life. Now you'll always need one..

 

[creekbend]

Congratulations. Here's wishing you many enjoyable hours of Seat Time in regards to your projects.

 

[gwdixon]

"Need to get some pallet forks for shrub removal and digging holes and moving large logs. Looking for recommendations from you folks in here."

If your tractor has a quick hitch up front then a stand alone set of forks (rather than the kind that attaches to the bucket) will serve you well. You will also get more lifting power for those large logs since they sit closer to the tractor's fulcrum.

However, they are not meant for digging at all. It is way too easy to bend the tips. Forks are meant to carry things.

If your bucket has a bolt-on cutting edge you may be able to better use that for digging holes and removing shrubs.

 

[Gary Fowler]

FEL's really arent made for digging even if you add a tooth bar. Sure, you can dig out dirt by scraping the bucket width and end up with a massive hole, but please dont attempt to dig with the corner of the bucket to root out a hedge or stump as sooner or later you will damage the FEL and it will never be level again. If you have a Quick attach (QA) bucket then you might look to Everything attachments and buy a QA plate. Take the plate and weld on a section of half pipe so it looks like a large shovel and use that for digging. There is a thread her where someone built a bolt on to the bucket but I wouldnt want to take a chance on bending the bucket lip with one. The QA plate is only $149 including shipping

 

[TripleR]

I won't debate whether a FEL was made for digging or not, but I have used those on all of our tractors for that. I haven't bent or broken anything in the 25 years I have been doing it, but if I do, I will suck it up and get it fixed or replaced; not saying anyone else should.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Notice I said digging the full width of the blade is ok, where the damage comes in is trying to point dig with a corner of the bucket. I dont care how good you are or how careful you are, digging with the corner like when digging out a stump or large rock is going to get you in trouble with warped frame and you dont fix those, you replace the whole thing or live with it being low on one side which then makes digging hard to impossible as the low side digs in more which contributes to more warpage.

 

[bigballer]

congrats on your new purchase, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish with your tractor and fel. as you start to use it and spend time on this site, your wish list of attachment's will grow but it sounds like you might benefit from a boxscraper which will double as ballast, i have a 3400 and spent a long time on the edge of my seat when moving dirt, gravel, etc because the rear end felt so light even with a 500lb ballast. i finally ended up filling the rear tires and immediately felt like i had a new machine that was much more stable and balanced. it sounds like you have alot of fel work ahead of you and would recommend doing this immediately if not already done. you will feel much more confident when moving heavy loads. again congrats and enjoy your "painfree" weekend.