Landpride grapple for SCUT?

[CHDinCT]

you might also check out the commercial prospects of selling that. I know of another couple who purchased property at the same time that I did. during the DNR walkthrough as part of the forest management class, we found a huge maple burr. They bought the property, cut down one tree, sold the burr, and used the proceeds to mostly pay off the property they just bought. kind of like winning the lottery.

Speaking of commercial value of wood, I happened to catch a few episodes of Ax Men the other day. The show seemed a little contrived at points, but part of it is about a guy in the LA bayou that hunts for sunken logs. I think prized types are Cypress and Heart Pine, from what I saw. Anyway, they never explained what the value of this wood is or what it's used for, but it must be valuable since he has a lot of equipment to go hunt it and bring it back (I though logs rotted in fresh water??). They followed similar crews in FL too. None of them actually use a chainsaw or ax that I saw, ironically. However, part of the show is about PNW loggers, which is what I expected it to be about based on the show's name.

 

[smitesmash]

Speaking of commercial value of wood, I happened to catch a few episodes of Ax Men the other day. The show seemed a little contrived at points, but part of it is about a guy in the LA bayou that hunts for sunken logs. I think prized types are Cypress and Heart Pine, from what I saw. Anyway, they never explained what the value of this wood is or what it's used for, but it must be valuable since he has a lot of equipment to go hunt it and bring it back (I though logs rotted in fresh water??). They followed similar crews in FL too. None of them actually use a chainsaw or ax that I saw, ironically. However, part of the show is about PNW loggers, which is what I expected it to be about based on the show's name.

harvesting river wood is something that I first heard about when PNW loggers used to create dams and river harbors. they used to create a raft of wood, float it out to where they wanted the dam to be, load it with dirt and logs until it sank, rinse and repeat.

Timbers at the bottom of swamps and in dams rot very slowly, due to the low levels of oxygen in the water. they can be preserved this way for 100s of years.

Mostly this is old growth wood (no knots, very tight grain) which is very valuable in its own right.

I do remember something about the wood being special because it was somehow pickled, but could not find a reference to that on google.

back to grapples. there is a guy on the Colombia river that finds and harvests old growth trees that sank on their way to the log mills. he has this huge excavator mounted on a barge with a grapple claw, and using a sonar they reach down and pluck a log from the bottom of the river.

 

[lowellw2]

Thanks for the info on drying the wood. I've set that chunk of wood aside for now and will wait and wait. My only experience with green wood was when I built my house back in 1996. My frame builder got the red oak timbers cut on the Amish farms in Ohio. You cannot find 25' straight red oaks in Texas (at least I have never seen one). The various mortise/tendon and dovetail joints were cut and then assembled on site into bents and raised just like the old days (except a crane was used). Everything was pegged together (no nails). The wood was all green and the requisite expected checking was considered though I don't know how one engineers that into an equation. The main verticals timbers were all 11"x11". They are all now about 10"x10". I have been amazed at that degree of shrinkage. It took about 7-10 years. Boy could I have used that grapple back then. I had piles of cleared cedars all over and many were right where the house now sits. A lot of it could be burned (allowed in my county) but small piles are a lot easier and safer to burn. The if piles could have been pulled apart with my little BX and LP grapple. Of course neither existed back then. I need to take a trip out to the Pacific Northwest and load up with turning blanks - then to the Northeast and do the same. By then I may be too old to do anything though. With this last cold front moving out of my area I plan on gathering up a lot more fallen limbs and then seeing how this LP grapple can clean up some old burn pile areas that have a lot of buried (shallow) limbs. I think the LP grapple design is most like a root grapple. I plan on seeing how well one can angle the tines into the soil to dig out those limbs (leaving the soil). This was impossible with the bucket of course. I tried a rock rake but the tines were too springy. My hope is that the narrow tines will just slice through the soil and I can push the debris into piles I can then pick up.

 

[smitesmash]

Thanks for the info on drying the wood. I've set that chunk of wood aside for now and will wait and wait.

If you haven't already, you should seal the ends of the wood. you can get end grain sealent at most wood working stores. this is just one example
Green Wood End Sealer-Select Option - Rockler Woodworking Tools
if you can't find any of this, you can substitute with a common latex paint.

the reason is that wood dries much faster near the cut end grain. water travels along the grain 15X faster than across the grain. if you let this happen, than the wood will dry unevenly, and you will get a lot of extra cracking; usually referred to as end checking.

you won't get rid of the checking entirely, but it will reduce it considerably.

another option is to turn it green. there is a high or likely chance of cracking, and a certainty of warping. But the cracking may not be fatal, and the warping can be cool

 

[varmint]

I can add a little about salvaged timber (logs). There was a tremendous amount of heart pine harvested from the forests of the S.E. in the 19th century, and much of it was floated downriver to mills. A significant amount sank, being really dense, and maybe 30 years ago some fellows started diving for it, salvaging it for eventual use as floor boards. Heart pine was once plentiful, and makes fine floor boards- it is not only beautiful, but hard, unlike typical pines. The old growth stuff has fine grain and color, and brings good money. First, old warehouse timbers were salvaged, but that is pretty much gone now. In the 80's, when I was designing homes, old heart pine flooring was costing maybe $8-9 a board foot. Oak, at that time, was about a fourth as much.

 

[Sodo]

I've moved tons and tons of brush with just a brush fork on my BX24 FEL, wishing I had some kind of a lid to clamp down on the pile. This grapple would speed things up bigtime, because you can travel faster and stuff doesn't fall off. You can grab stuff. No question it's useful.

We are also anxious to see the impressions of this grapple. Ted has been considering a true subcompact grapple for a while now, but he is unsure of what you'll be able to accomplish with one?.Travis

This post cracked me up. :laughing: I would expect "Everything Attachments" to ask "what you will accomplish WITHOUT one".:laughing:

 

[EverythingAttachments]

Actually, we were curious as to how much can be accomplished with a grapple installed on a BX. That curiosity provoked me to email a few customers that bought our 50" Single Lid Wicked Grapple with pin-on mounts for a BX Kubota.
If one can get good results with our 50" grapple and retain ability to cradle logs/debris etc., making an even lighter one may not be worthwhile.

I posted in another thread that explains it a little better:

I sent an email, requesting feedback, to the customers that have ordered our 50" Single Lid Grapple for B and BX Kubotas with pin-on buckets. In the email, I asked permission to share their replies so I could provide you(TBN) with more info.
The first response I received is from Jim, who installed our grapple and the WR Long 3rd Function Hydraulic Kit on his BX2230:

"I am really enjoying having the Everything Attachments compact tractor grapple. I haven't had it that long, and my use has so far been limited by our tough winter here, but it has proven useful in moving cut logs, broken telephone poles, and brush and debris left from a tornado we had here a year ago. I think a grapple is one of the most useful attachments you can buy, right up there with forks. The ability to grab things and pick them up is a huge improvement over trying to scoop them up with a bucket. An open-ended grapple also beats any kind of bucket grapple since you can pick up objects of any length.

The Everything Attachments grapple is an extremely sturdy unit, while being light enough to be useful with the limited lift capacity of the BX-series Kubota Loaders. In particular, the removable bottom tines save some weight (the tine spacing with them removed has not proven to be a problem in holding a load), as does the one-piece grapple lid. The lid is shorter than the bottom tines, which has not in any way been a limitation to me in using the grapple. With a tractor this small, it wouldn't be wise to grip something only at the far edge of a 50" grapple anyway. With the smaller lid, there is only one hydraulic cylinder, a further weight saving. Also, by just driving one cylinder, cycle time is quick. I timed a cycle from grapple fully closed to fully open of about a second with the engine at full throttle, about 3 seconds at slowest idle. The grapple lid has plenty of closing force, well exceeding the lift capacity of the loader arms in gripping 16+ diameter logs. I am able to pick individual logs off a jumbled pile with the grapple tips, then curl the grapple back and open enough to let the log roll back so it's easier to lift-being closer to the tractor. Since the single lid cylinder doesn't use a lot of hydraulic fluid, there is enough flow left over for other loader movements while the lid is in motion.

The lid opening distance is 30", really nice for picking up brush and other compressible items. You can get a good big bite of brush with it. The difference between what you can get to stay in the stock loader bucket and what you can grab with the grapple is unbelievable.

By substituting better quality steel for thicker steel, more weight is cut off of the grapple and available for payload. I haven't tested the unit to see exactly how many pounds I can lift with it, but 6 to 8 foot telephone pole sections are no problem at all.

Of course, a third-function kit is needed to drive the lid, and the unit I got through Everything Attachments was easy to install and works well. The hardest part was picking up a 12 volt feed for the electric valve. I tapped into the run circuit at the ignition switch. The valve kit includes a fuse, and long enough wires to make the run from the loader valve around to the ignition switch. Definitely a DIY project. No special tools required, and no cutting of hydraulic lines on your BX.

Also highly recommended with any grapple is something heavy (like a box blade) on the back of the tractor. BX's are light tractors, and a good counterweight is necessary to get maximum lift. Without it, you'll quickly find the back end up in the air. It's also a good idea to make sure your hydraulic pressure is up to snuff--that's really the limiting factor in lifting.

I plan to put this grapple to much more use once the weather warms up. I have accumulated a number of brush and debris piles in our ongoing tornado cleanup, and the grapple is the perfect thing to get them cleared. I'll also be putting in some new fence in the spring, and the grapple will be great for carrying fence posts, rolls of fencing and gates."

If you have an Everything Attachments Grapple installed on your B/BX Kubota or other SCUT, we'd love to hear about it. If you do not have one, we would love for you to purchase one and tell everyone about it!!
All of our grapples ship free to a commercial business or supporting freight terminal within 1,000 miles of Newton, NC.
Travis

 

[Sodo]

Actually, we were curious as to how much can be accomplished with a grapple installed on a BX.

I can't think of a more perfect attachment for a BX, actually. The only thing that comes close is a brush fork which adds great versatility at much lower cost. BXers want to get more done with less $$.

A person with a BX accomplishes a LOT more than a person with no BX. Adding a grapple would cause a multiplier like 5x or 10x more accomplished. With a 1500lb BX the grapple has to be made lightweight such that the weight doesn't eat into the 460 lb payload. Even so, five 300 lb payloads puts an F250 at full capacity. So what if a bigger tractor can load an F250 to full capacity in 2 or 3 loads. You use what you got, a BX just takes a little longer (or not). The BX unit sales numbers is your target and I suspect it's a respectable number.

I understand one big problem of making a lightweight & lower cost grapple, it's the customer. Many would use the small and lower cost grapple on bigger tractors and bust it, then they'd call it flimsy. Sorry for that, I don't know the solution. But I disagree that the grapple wouldn't accomplish much, I suspect its demise is the market problems, not the BX capacity. I think you should make it, low cost, and choice of 12v actuator (significantly lower cost & easy install) or hydraulic. With the 12v and Hydr actuators interchangeable so the customer can upgrade at a later point. Maybe you could make it 12v ONLY then those with bigger tractor syndrome might leave it for the BXers.

Don't underestimate the effect of "easy install" for BX owners. It's a significant part of their purchasing decision. And usually when you sell a tractor you can't get much for the attachments, which can get in the way of attachment purchases.

A BX with a grapple can produce 10X the work of a bigger tractor with no grapple. Everybody with a grapple should know that.

 

[jmc]

I can't think of a more perfect attachment for a BX, actually. The only thing that comes close is a brush fork which adds great versatility at much lower cost. BXers want to get more done with less $$.

A person with a BX accomplishes a LOT more than a person with no BX. Adding a grapple would cause a multiplier like 5x or 10x more accomplished. With a 1500lb BX the grapple has to be made lightweight such that the weight doesn't eat into the 460 lb payload. Even so, five 300 lb payloads puts an F250 at full capacity. So what if a bigger tractor can load an F250 to full capacity in 2 or 3 loads. You use what you got, a BX just takes a little longer (or not). The BX unit sales numbers is your target and I suspect it's a respectable number.

I understand one big problem of making a lightweight & lower cost grapple, it's the customer. Many would use the small and lower cost grapple on bigger tractors and bust it, then they'd call it flimsy. Sorry for that, I don't know the solution. But I disagree that the grapple wouldn't accomplish much, I suspect its demise is the market problems, not the BX capacity. I think you should make it, low cost, and choice of 12v actuator (significantly lower cost & easy install) or hydraulic. With the 12v and Hydr actuators interchangeable so the customer can upgrade at a later point. Maybe you could make it 12v ONLY then those with bigger tractor syndrome might leave it for the BXers.

Don't underestimate the effect of "easy install" for BX owners. It's a significant part of their purchasing decision. And usually when you sell a tractor you can't get much for the attachments, which can get in the way of attachment purchases.

A BX with a grapple can produce 10X the work of a bigger tractor with no grapple. Everybody with a grapple should know that.

Good argument, Sodo. Have you found a 12v linear actuator that would be a satisfactory substitute for a hydraulic cylinder?

 

[Sodo]

Yes I saw some 1000 lb 12v actuators that would operate a hold-down "lid" just fine. They wouldnt crush anything but could probably produce 250 lbs of hold-down (or 2 for 500 lbs).

I think a brush rake attached to the FEL bucket at the bottom, and a 12v "lid" at ghe top of the bucket would be a great low-cost attachment that would easily bolt on to a SCUT. And increase productivity bigtime.

But I recently bought a 3700 lb mini-excavator with a hydraulic thumb. So no longer planning a tractor grapple. I'll adapt my mini stick-rakes to the excavator bucket & thumb.