Ok, all you guys with grapples can just kiss my...

[sd455dan]

Yep - first time out cleaning up tree debris with forks was my last. Ordered my grapple from palletforks.com and love it.

I managed for about 3 years of fork up what you can get and then hand pile the rest.. Then go S L O W to the burn pile.
Did enough of that way to lose a few pounds ( me - not the loader) still use the forks but not for picking up debris
Here's my forks with add on plate

 

[Wagtail]

You can attach a chain on the bottom bar of the forks.. stretch it out in front.. stack on all the brush.. bring chain up and over the "wad. and attach to top bar... Yes a pain but it works...
James K0UA

Thanks James! I've got a wee bit of old small logs & debris to clear out of the corner of a paddock. I was going to go with my pallet forks + a pallet and your tip about a chain around the 'bundle' sounds a lot safer than the rope that I was considering.

A good length of medium chain + D shackles will have multiple uses around the property in the future too.

I love this site. Ta Mate!

 

[West1]

Yes... it all boils down to how much one would have use for this type of attachment on the FEL..... For us we rarely need to move large amounts of brush at a single time.... Recently we thinned out a couple of dozen trees along an adjacent road way... so we had several piles of brush to move... With that a semi-temporary wooden platform deck was quickly made from on-hand materials.... In fact the plywood deck pieces viewed in the pictures were recently used as temporary ditch supports while installing portions of a subsurface field drainage network.... Most of the time the tractor is used to move shale/rock and clay mud to and from the ditch/drainage project.... So a very low cost and easily removal brush deck was our immediate need.... If one was managing a large apple orchard or hundreds of acres of forest land, etc, a more substantial attachment for this use would surely be justified in terms of expense....

 

[gasbag]

Hello all, I have had the same problem and come up with a similar solution. Instead of laying out a chain I used my comeallong, layed out the cable hooked to the bottom of the forks then over the top of the pile, then just crank the comeallong till the load is nice and tight. Mark

 

[pwright]

Here u go!

View attachment 340783

Just what you need for you forks!

That's cool but it probably costs as much as a stand-alone grapple.

 

[allen in texas]

Here u go!

View attachment 340783

Just what you need for you forks!

That is actually pretty sweet. I bet I could build something similar. I don't want to get off the tractor.

 

[sdef]

It's funny how much our uses for tractors can vary from one to another. I could manage to get by without my bucket, but no way on god's green earth will I ever be without a grapple!

Agreed. No getting off the tractor. Just scoop and grab, then move on. Photos of the grapple tearing down an old shed last Friday evening and loading the results into a trailer for the dump the following morning. No puncture wounds nor scratches from rusty nails either.

 

[Egbert]

Had some grapple fun for myself today. I did manage to rip it off the FEL later by using it to pry backwards on a massive root ball that was stuck in a debris pile - lol. Luckily, no damage to the hoses. Just had to get things re-hooked and went on my merry way.

 

[Rayster]

After purchasing a grapple, it sat for 6 months before I was able to install it. I was to blame for just dragging my feet on the project. It was one of the best purchases I had made in a long while.

 

[Piston]

Had some grapple fun for myself today. I did manage to rip it off the FEL later by using it to pry backwards on a massive root ball that was stuck in a debris pile - lol. Luckily, no damage to the hoses. Just had to get things re-hooked and went on my merry way.

View attachment 340951

That has to be one of the most useful setups I've ever seen. :thumbsup: