It's Grapple Time

[M59 Jim]

Bigballer - sorry I did not get back to you right away. We took some time off to visit my new grand daughter before the weather turned nasty.

You are right, placing rocks on a "wall" would be tough. My wall was a retaining wall of single big rocks so I could raise the level of my driveway. Here is the before and after pictures. Raising the road made it much nicer to drive on. The grapple was a must have tool for this job.

 

[HiTechTed]

Bigballer - sorry I did not get back to you right away. We took some time off to visit my new grand daughter before the weather turned nasty.

You are right, placing rocks on a "wall" would be tough. My wall was a retaining wall of single big rocks so I could raise the level of my driveway. Here is the before and after pictures. Raising the road made it much nicer to drive on. The grapple was a must have tool for this job.

I'd probably call those small boulders...! And your machine is 100% bad ***. I have no use for anything that hardcore, but I'd like to have it anyway! Sweet.

 

[IslandTractor]

After looking at my needs/requirements and my Big Orange which has a lift capacity of almost 4000 lbs (excluding implement) and a breakout force of almost 6000 lbs, I concluded for my situation I needed a serious grapple. They make bigger ones but this fit my needs and it is one bad boy.

Anbo GR-SH 6' Site-Pro Heavy Duty Grapple Rake, 6" spacing. The tines are 5/8" and outer tines 3/4" made of AR400 Steel, 3x8 cylinders with a 51" opening, weighs in at 1005 lbs.

Nice grapple Jim but at the risk of stirring up trouble I will challenge some of your assertions.

You have spent probably close to $3K on a 1000lb grapple for your M59. That means you have reduced your lift capacity by 1000lbs rather than by 300lbs had you chosen a light duty grapple. That means your 4000lb lift capacity is now a net 3000lbs which leaves your significantly bigger tractor not much more lift than mine (2700lb capacity with 300lb grapple). Agreed, the M59 is a bigger heavier tractor and loader to be sure but at least one other TBNer has the same grapple I do on his M59 with no regrets.

The bigger is better or heaviest duty is best philosophy just doesn't fly very well with grapples on CUTs. The grapple you purchased was designed for a big skidsteer with much higher lift capacity (not rating) than yours. If a M59 doesn't destroy a 300lb grapple then what are the extra 700lbs of steel doing?

Width is another thing. I suppose there are some applications like clearing construction debris where a wide grapple would excel as it sweeps up bricks etc but for trees, slash and brush a wider grapple has very little if any advantage in what the grapple can hold. Brush is "sticky" and you can hold a lot wider bolus of brush in your grapple than the grapple is wide. Wider grapples just add weight and block vision when working in the forest as well as reducing manuverablity. A narrow grapple also lets you put more force from your loader on a given spot of soil or root. That means that paradoxically a smaller grapple can uproot a bigger tree or lift a larger rock than a bigger heavier duty grapple on the same loader.

Putting a skidsteer grapple on a CUT is much more expensive, cuts lift capacity and targetted breakout as well as reducing manuverability. I don't even know for sure you gain durability as a bent tine on your grapple is a lot more difficult to fix than the mild steel on a Gator or similar light duty grapple.

Can your rig really grapple more than this $600, 300lb, 48 inch grapple? :

 

[MD3]

Nice grapple Jim but at the risk of stirring up trouble I will challenge some of your assertions.



Width is another thing. I suppose there are some applications like clearing construction debris where a wide grapple would excel as it sweeps up bricks etc but for trees, slash and brush a wider grapple has very little if any advantage in what the grapple can hold. Brush is "sticky" and you can hold a lot wider bolus of brush in your grapple than the grapple is wide. Wider grapples just add weight and block vision when working in the forest as well as reducing manuverablity. A narrow grapple also lets you put more force from your loader on a given spot of soil or root. That means that paradoxically a smaller grapple can uproot a bigger tree or lift a larger rock than a bigger heavier duty grapple on the same loader.

:

Is that a BH stabilizer arm that I see in the 1 pic. I bet you were only on the flat for the picture. Backhoe stabilizer arms can sure make you feel better at times.

Before I bought my grapple I was convinced that it had to be as wide as my bucket (6'). I never used a grapple before so I decided to read a lot of post on TBN from the pros. It appeared to me that most folks liked the smaller width grapples. One day I found a brand new 5' grapple on Craigs List that I could buy for $700.00. I decided to listen to the TBNers and bought the 5'. After just a few weeks of use and I am so glad that I took the advise. What a difference driving through the woods with 5' compared to 6'. It weighs plenty at 5'. I have yet to wish it were 6' but I have said to myself several times sure am glad I took the advise.

 

[IslandTractor]

Is that a BH stabilizer arm that I see in the 1 pic. I bet you were only on the flat for the picture. Backhoe stabilizer arms can sure make you feel better at times. .

Yes, I have my BH with ripper mounted which is why the trees you see have all their roots. Popping them out and carrying them to the brush pile.

I also like leaving the stabilizers open to about one foot off the ground as a safety prayer. I don't travel with the load up as high once I get to the slope I need to decend to the brush pile. I did screw up last week though when I drove the tractor into the barn with the stabilizers like that and nailed both sides with the stabilizers. Luckily I had a can of paint so quickly painted up the damage and banged a couple of boards back into place. SWMBO doesn't know and if I have any luck she'll never figure it out.:laughing: If things go as usual however she'll spot it the next time she is around the barn despite my clever repairs.

 

[M59 Jim]

IslandTractor - Thanks for the comments. After using the grapple most of the summer I know it was a good choice for what I am using it for on my M59 TLB.

Yes I could have chosen a light duty grapple as you say and that would have left me with more lift capacity. And I agree that bigger and heaver is not necessarily better. In some cases smaller may be easier to use and more convenient. And as you say there is another TBNer with a light duty grapple like yours on a M59 and has no regrets. If you or anyone who has a light duty grapple on their CUT and are satisfied and happy then I say they made the right choice. Most of us don't have the opportunity to try out various sizes and models so we hope that what we are getting will be the "right" one. Input from fellow TBNers is a good source for information. So is your local dealer a good source of information, which by the way convinced me to change my original choice of grapples, I will explain later.

You do not have to worry about stirring up trouble, everyone is entitled to their opinions. I may not agree with you on some things but that is OK. I am a new member here, I'm not a farmer but I have owned tractors for 30+ years so I have some knowledge. I welcome comments from anyone, I was going to say you old timers, but I'm an old timer based on age, however if I think you are wrong I will tell you so.

That said, may I comment on some of your statements.

My original choice of grapples was a step down and lighter duty one than the one I have. My dealer had another M59 owner with the lighter duty grapple and said he bent it, so he recommended the heaver duty one just to be on the safe side. I didn't ask how it happened but based on the tree and rock work I was going to do I agreed with him. I also talked to the manufacture and they also agreed. One thing I did not mention was that when I'm driving forward digging with the lower jaws to break up the sod, clean up roots or small surface rocks it covers the width of the tractor which is nice. However, if I hit something big I have close to 10,000lbs of tractor putting pressure on the grapple, so I go slow. What do you think would happen to your 300lb grapple with 5 tons pushing on it? Case in point, the grapple I have was NOT just designed for big skid steers, a M59 CAN destroy a 300lb grapple, and the extra 700lbs, I guess that would be to make it a little bit more sturdy so you don't bend it.

Depending what you are using it for a narrower grapple may work as good or even better. However, I do like the ability to back rake with the upper jaw the width of the tractor. As I said in my original post I will be using it for the next several years to clear up branches and debris from delimbed trees and landscaping rock work. These trees are dead and the branches are big, dry and hard and they do not play nice with tires and they like to poke at the Big Orange. In my case your thinking that a narrower grapple is better just doesn't hold any water. There are times when I would like to have an even wider grapple, but there are trade offs and too wide is not good either. On the other side of the coin, if a narrower 48" is better, would a 24" be twice as good. No pun intended.

As I said you have your opinions and you are entitled to them. I will not go back and forth on a soap box trying to convince anyone which is better or what to buy. Everyone is different, the size of your tractor, location, long and short term usage, type of brush, trees, even the soil conditions all contribute to a decision.

In closing you asked "Can your rig really grapple more than this $600, 300lb 48 inch grapple?"
The answer...a simple YES.

 

[IslandTractor]

Great points Jim. Let me continue the debate just so that others who have not yet decided can consider the various implications of heavy and wide versus light and narrow grapples.

There are several points you made that I'll try to respond to. First, is whether the light duty grapples can stand up to bigger tractors. Second is the width issue (would a 24 inch grapple be even better??) and finally the back raking point.

The key issue with regard to longevity when putting a light grapple on a heavy tractor is how you use it. Light duty grapples are more than adequate to handle the up and down and straight on forces encountered when grappling either wood or stone. I don't think it is any more possible to bend a light duty grapple while lifting than it is to bend the loader arms themselves. Light duty grapples clearly can handle more than 4000lbs lift. CharlesAF has the same grapple I do mounted on his M59. My tractor is more typical CUT size but with a pretty powerful loader with 2700lb lift, 3700lb breakout force. We've both bent tine tips on boulders but these are merely noble battle wounds and don't affect the function at all. They are also easily fixed with a little heat and hammer work as the grapples are mild steel. In five years I have repaired mine once just because I decided to fix it and add a gusset for strength. It was then and has always been functioning perfectly. We just don't hear of people breaking these light duty grapples while using CUTs. Most are mounted on CUTs under 50hp but that just reflects the prevalence of those size CUTs with TBN owners.

OK, so if they can handle lift then what about sideways forces. Not so much. That is how to destroy any grapple, light or heavy and is also how you damage loaders. None of these devices is engineered to endure much sideways stress and perhaps the weakest link are the FEL arms. This is an important reason that I think heavy duty grapples are bad news for CUTs (your M59 is a CUT for this argument as you'll see). The issue here relates to what FELs are designed to do. They lift. They do not push or resist sideways assymmetric forces well. If they were designed to push they would be short and stout like the arms of a bulldozer. They are designed to lift so they are long and slender so that they can lift a lot to a relatively high level as their main purpose by design is loading stuff into dump trucks or lifting bales of hay or moving piles of dirt. For those activities, all of which involve straight forward lifting with virtually no impact or lateral stress, the modern typical CUT FEL is pretty darn well designed. I doubt anyone has ever seriously damaged their FEL doing any of those straightforward lifting/dumping activities. Damage is possible, indeed likely, if significant twisting or sudden sideways loads are imparted to the CUT FEL arms. They are thin and spindley compared to a dozer and the shock of hitting a buried rock or stump with the left or right edge of a wide grapple or bucket will produce significant torque forces that the loader was not designed to resist. For heavier CUTs mounting wider buckets/grapples this is a bigger risk. Buckets don't usually create as much risk as they tend to be traveling on the surface where we can see obstacles but with a root grapple buried six or eight inches and catching a big root or boulder edge we can quickly put massive twisting forces on the FEL arms. A narrower 48 inch root grapple can still catch an edge but that edge is typically directly forward of one of the FEL arms, not outboard, and therefore the twisting forces are minimized. The forces generated here are significantly more than the loader is designed to lift even straight up much less assymetrically. A 10,000lb tractor moving at even just a couple of MPH has a lot of momentum and hitting an immovable object with an edge transfers that force through the FEL arm. CUT FELs are not designed to be dozers and that is one of the easiest ways to break them or at least knock them out of level. We all do dozer of course but using a wide submerged implement like a heavy duty grapple that will not bend itself but rather transmit the force to the FEL arm seems not a great idea. I doubt seriously if the Kubota engineers would bless the practice. Your big Anbo grapple was designed for big skidsteers which while not specifically designed for dozing are engineered to do more of that sort of thing and are built accordingly. Skidsteer arms are typically quite a lot heavier duty than CUT FEL arms.

So, if using a tractor FEL plus wide grapple is IMO not a great idea for grubbing or root raking then what are the alternatives. Well, a wide box blade with scarifiers down would work just fine. You'd get about the same depth penetration and be pulling with a 3PT specifically designed/engineered for that instead of pushing with relatively delicate FEL arms. For raking, a 3PT mounted landscape rake with tines aggressively set will sweep up debris even more efficiently than a grapple too. I'd use one or both of those implements as they are engineered for exactly that type of work while the tractor/CUT FEL is not.

How about the width issue with regard to "is smaller better"? Interesting point you made and I actually agree. If I think 48 is better than 72 as it allows you to concentrate force then going further would sometimes be even better. That is why stump bucket/grapples are only 12" at the cutting point so you can take all that 4000lbs of lift or 6000lbs of breakout force and concentrate it. Even better if one were really just out stump hunting would be to mount a single ripper tooth, 1 or 2 inches wide and 18-24 inches long with a beveled leading edge on the FEL and have a double pronged upper jaw to clamp down on the tree after you've ripped it out. That would indeed be a useful but very specialized tool. For general use however the 48 inch size is a good compromise and works just fine.

The ability of a clam shell grapple (also sometimes confusingly known as root rake which is a term also sometimes applied to the type of grapple I have) to use the upper jaw to rake while reversing the tractor is indeed an advantage of that design. For cleaning up at construction sites it makes a lot of sense. However, as I noted earlier, in a field or woods, this function is also easily performed with a 3PT mounted rake which can be even wider than the grapple and is certainly a lot less money as well as being much faster. I use a six foot rake but you could easily mount an eight footer. I just rake an area and drop stuff in a pile then turn the tractor around and pick up the pile with my grapple.

One other issue to consider. ANBO rakes or clamshell rakes in general are a bit more subject to twisting of the top grapple tine structure as clamping forces can be assymmetric. If you imagine what happens with a boulder situated all the way to the left of the grapple, when it is clamped the left side of the top arm will stop moving before the right side does. The hydraulic cylinder will continue to try to close the right side even after the left is jammed. That will twist the upper arm. You don't try to grasp a boulder just on one side obviously but when picking up an assymmetrical object like a stump you are essentially forced to clamp one side before the other. Granted something as well built as the ANBO is designed to withstand that but there are reports on TBN of people who have twisted/bent the top arm of an ANBO doing this. If I recall correclty ANBO did not offer to cover the damage. This is not such an issue with a single narrow centrally mounted upper arm as on the Millonzi/Markham/Gator style grapples.

I'm glad you are happy with your ANBO. One thing about all styles of grapples is that their owners always love them. I've never heard of a TBN user who dumped his grapple for another. It does help for those considering grapple purchase though to think carefully about what exact types of tasks they will be doing, what the size of their equipment must be and whether the grapple they are considering was really designed for CUT use.

Happy grappling.:thumbsup:

 

[nebraskasparks]

Grapple, grapple, grapple, grapple, grapple....:thumbsup:
I can't imagine having any kind of acreage without a grapple and I did it for 7 years...It's like having 30 big Swedes any time you want to move something. Probably most important piece of equipment you'll ever buy over the age of 50! Makes you wonder why you lifted anything during your entire life.

It lifts everything but sand, digs, knocks over,picks, pulls, pushes, pushes aside, levels, rakes, snaps limbs into smaller limbs, and can move a whole lot of wood in a very short period of time. Its an extended hand under 3000 psi that makes chores into chuckles.
Not as good as dialogue about shrimp in Forest Gump but I think someone will come up with one.

Is there any one on TBN that doesn't enjoy having a grapple????????

 

[ovrszd]

Unfortunately about 2 years ago pine bettles started killing off the trees and we got hit bad. It's hard to believe how a little bettle can cause so much devistation, not to mention the fire danger as the trees dry out.


Jim, sorry to hear of your tree loss. My wife and I Jeep in Colorado each Summer. Every year we see more damage. Colorado is going to lose all their pine trees. Very sad. Also as you mentioned, very dangerous. There are hundreds if not thousands of very expensive homes sitting in the middle of dead pine tree forests throughout Colorado. I'm normally not in favor of government involvement, but, those people need prodded into action and start falling those trees and removing them before an accidental fire turns into a catastrophic event.

 

[jgrreed]

Is there any one on TBN that doesn't enjoy having a grapple????????

I don't know yet, but I've been dreaming of one for the 2.5 years since I got my 4720!!! Can't imagine a much more useful tool.

Sure hope mine works..... it's on ice in the barn, waiting for a new circuit to control it.

-Jer.