Grapple Best "rock" grapple for CUT?

[aginn]

The 3 points lack of smooth actuation wasn't a deal killer for me and I am glad to have the L3200. You just have to see what really suits you. This is a small part of what my tractor helped me accomplish this year. Both of these photos are taken from the same spot. The muddy water is now gone and the grass is growing well now. After I get my hoe for this machine this will slowly get expanded. Since I enjoy tractor time, a 12" bucket, a few brews, and lots of seat time will get me a private fishing hole.
It went from this.


To this.

 

[sdef]

...The muddy water is now gone and the grass is growing well now. After I get my hoe for this machine this will slowly get expanded. Since I enjoy tractor time, a 12" bucket, a few brews, and lots of seat time will get me a private fishing hole.
It went from this.View attachment 355375


To this.View attachment 355376

Great job and an awesome view. How did the water get/stay there?

 

[HillCountry]

The 3 points lack of smooth actuation wasn't a deal killer for me and I am glad to have the L3200. You just have to see what really suits you. This is a small part of what my tractor helped me accomplish this year. Both of these photos are taken from the same spot. The muddy water is now gone and the grass is growing well now. After I get my hoe for this machine this will slowly get expanded. Since I enjoy tractor time, a 12" bucket, a few brews, and lots of seat time will get me a private fishing hole.
It went from this.View attachment 355375


To this.View attachment 355376

That is beautiful. Nice job.

 

[sdef]

Update with a lot of new experience: With my heavy, dense, wet and slippery clay, along with the amount and size of rocks buried below the surface and forcing the bucket lip up and over them, I am not doing a very good job of scooping the rocks into the bucket with the tractor. So the rock removal process is now more manual than I had anticipated.

I am using the shanks of the box blade a few inches under the surface to bring the buried rocks to the surface. Then I am manually loading the basketball sized and smaller rocks into the bucket and dumping them. Any larger rocks can be picked up with the rock bucket grapple.

So far I have cleared the trees and stumps for the 16' x 275' driveway. Now I just need to finish picking up the last 10% of the rocks and using the box blade to shape and smooth the clay surface.

If I had less dense soil, I would think a good, heavy, rock rake/landscape rake would be very helpful. Also a backhoe for removing the tree stumps > than 8" or so diameter . I created several 8' - 12' diameter x 4' to 5' deep holes getting some stumps out. In the heavy, wet clay, with tires continually slipping and with all of the larger buried rocks surrounding the tree stumps, each hole this size took me 3 - 4 hours to complete with the CID stump bucket. I have come to the conclusion I will remove the smaller, easy to remove stumps and leave the others for a mini-x to remove. I think he should be able to do so in a day @ ~ $1000 maximum.

A few pictures of the driveway area before starting stump and rock removal. This area has been opened up and cleared, but I have no pics yet due to the weather:

 

[pwright]

Sheesh. I thought my area was rocky.

 

[k0ua]

Sheesh. I thought my area was rocky.

I was thinking the same thing... that fella has some rocks!

 

[HillCountry]

Ditto. We have a lot of rocks, but maybe not quite that many.

Good info on the combination of rocks and heavy clay soil. Have to think about it. Our soil is more sandy or loamy, depending on the area of the lot.

 

[sdef]

Ditto. We have a lot of rocks, but maybe not quite that many.

Good info on the combination of rocks and heavy clay soil. Have to think about it. Our soil is more sandy or loamy, depending on the area of the lot.

I think I would have had a much easier time with your soil type and my original premises most likely would have held. And I think a good rake like the ETA 3 would be very beneficial in sandy loam. But this heavy clay sure changes the ball game, especially when wet, which it has been each day I have been out there. My 710# box blade struggles to get a bite with the blade and I have to first go over the area with the scarifiers to break up the clay and then go back and scrape it. Of course the embedded, larger rocks are also a part of this, causing the blade to skip over the top of them instead of digging into the soil.