Hi Reg,
Been very busy getting in firewood, but just got on the forum and noticed your request for a one year report.
Like most grapple owners, I think I have my grapple on the tractor more than my bucket. Since the beginning of September we have been pulling sawlogs and firewood just about every day along our trails. I'm running with the grapple up front and a winch on the back, and what a great combination for working in the woods. I've pulled in about 50 sawlogs and 30 cords of firewood.
I've found my 48" root grapple that weighs about 500 pounds to be well suited for my forestry work. I've moved everything from huge single hemlock sawlogs to big bunches of maple firewood logs. The hemlock sawlogs are cut 12'6" long and they are usually about 20" diameter. I don't know how much they weigh, but I'm sure glad I have loaded rear tires and a 1000 lb winch on the back. As long as I take my time lifting up these big logs to make sure they are centered well, I have found the 48" width works fine. And having a relatively light weight grapple has probably worked to my advantage lifting these heavy sawlogs. My only complaint with this application is that I wish the "throat" of the grapple was larger. Once I load a 20" diameter log in the grapple it's hard to grab anything else. I am starting to experiment with putting a 10" log in first and then pinching the 20" log, but the 20" just doesn't feel steady enough. Sometimes I need to drive half a mile to get these logs out of the woods.
For our maple firewood I can fit in just about all I can carry in the grapple. For the firewood gathering I always have a range of different size logs and it's easy to create a good bunch to carry out. I'm only limited by the weight lifting capacity of my loader arms which I can certainly max out with our maple.
Back at the landing the grapple has been very handy moving logs around and loading logs onto the sawmill. I have also used the grapple a couple of days cleaning up tops, limbs, and brush and it worked fine for that. My only complaint in this area is that with the big plate on the top of the grapple between the two teeth, my visibility isn't always the best.
As far as wear and tear, the only thing I've done is bend that big top plate. One day I grabbed a 15" fir tree, about 40 feet long, by the butt end. It was hanging out over a bank and I grabbed the butt end and pulled it back, then I got cute and raised the entire tree and drove it up to my burn pile. Imagine a giant spear out in front of the tractor. I noticed later the plate had a slight bend in it. Next time I won't be as lazy and I'll cut it into 12' lengths that I can manage driving between the trees along the road.
My second grapple hasn't had as much use, but it's a special purpose one anyways. I got it to pop rocks and stumps. I've had it on for about two weeks this year. It was handy during mowing season. I used it to pop rocks in my fields, sometimes before the brush hog found them, sometimes after banged against them. With it's much smaller front end, it's better at digging under rocks and popping them out than the root grapple which catches too much earth doing the same thing. But it's still no match for many of the stumps I have around here. Any hardwood stump over 12 inches isn't worth trying until it's had a couple years to rot down.
The third attachment I got out of the deal is a converter plate that allows me to move my rear three point hitch attachments up front to my quick attach. I have a set of forks that I move between the front and back of the tractor, and it works good for that. I'm going to make or buy a hitch reciever attachment that I'll be able to move around the same way with this converter plate.
Like other grapple owners, no matter what grapple they have, it's probably the best attachment I have. It certainly gets the most use.
