Overhead protection for falling debris?

[MarkV]

Take a look at the Kubota B26, L39, L59 TLB’s. They come standard with certified FOPS for working commercial construction sites.

MarkV

 

[jcims]

You are right to be concerned about falling limbs. I had a near miss last summer. I was clearing some ground when the loader bucket got tangled with some wild grape vines.

That's exactly what i'm worried about. Wild grape vine is everywhere, many times 2-3 inches thick. You can hook a piece and not even realize it until you've given a good hard yank on whatever it's connected to 40-50 feet up. Here's our build site, and the canopy gets up there a ways...i'd hate to be under whatever comes down.

I got a little demo of the damage this fall. We were hooking up some cable to one of the trees prior to cutting it, and knocked a 6' section off (about halfway up) that was probably 3" in diameter. It came down end over end, but drove like a spike straight through the seats of four stacked plastic patio chairs and stuck about 4" into the soil. (Actually it's in the above photo, the tree with the slightly curved trunk that the car is facing)

 

[jcims]

I had a local welder build me an excellent protection system out of square stock and expanded metal (the stuff that looks kinda like a metal screen).

That looks really good! I like the front reinforcement on it. If it was ROPS mounted only, something heavy would probably fold the whole thing in your face. Also gives me a place to mount some brush guards to keep from getting whapped by the scrub (esp the Hawthornes)