Advice on backhoe

[TomG]

I think you'll probably want something on the bucket for lifting brush. My bucket probably is smaller than yours, but it's pretty disappointing trying to scoop and lift a bucket of brush. Stuff that's longer than the bucket ends up across the front and prevents it from filling. When lifting, tangled stuff that's outside the bucket does a real good job of pulling stuff from inside the bucket back onto the ground.

A tooth bar should help, and forks on the bucket might help even more. I heard of somebody rigging up forks that clamped onto a bucket. He claimed they handle fair weight. I don't think I'd trust such a rig with weight, but the idea might be pretty good for something fairly light like brush.

There is a whole range of commercial bucket attachments--from forks that bolt on a bucket to bucket replacements. There also are hydraulically operated grapples, but some of these things are pretty pricey. Grapples would do a good job of lifting your brush.

Some of the more elaborate accessories are fairly specific to a tractor/loader. What's available for a dedicated loader/hoe may be more limited and almost certainly more expensive.

 

[Bird]

I would think that the bolt on toothbar would help with moving brush, but since I don't have one, I don't know how much. I do have a set of 4' fork lift forks that I can put on the front of the bucket and that works pretty well.

Bird

 

[Richard]

The bucket on this thing is 8 feet wide and based on eyeballs only, maybe 3 1/2 feet +/- "tall" in the front. I pushed over 3 pine trees and one cedar last night just to get a feel for this. One of the pine trees broke at about knee level as did the cedar, the other two pines uprooted. Kinda nice the amount of BACKPAIN I just saved /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif.

I think I am going to get the tooth bar, I might also even get the regular cutting bar...what the heck. It's only money right?

I called dealer about a 4 way bucket...OVER $5,000 /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif I decided I didn't need it that much.

 

[gerard]

Listed in the classifieds of this site is a dealer that sells hydraulic grapples. About $900 for compacts, I don't know id they make larger sizes for larger buckets but even a light duty set would work just for moving brush which is pretty light. I can't think of anything working better than that and the price isn't TOO bad. (Better than 5k anyway!) Guess it depends on how much brush you plan on moving in the future.