Push over trees with a small compact?

[5030]

Waiting for Hay Dude to chime in and talk about his really large units...lol My M9's both have rops that stay up all the time. In the case of the cab unit, the ROPS is built into the cab structure. The open station has a canopy attached to the ROPS. Only reason I removed the ROPS entirely on the mower was because even in the folded position, it was snagging low tree limbs when mowing under trees. If I don't fit, it won't fit either and I really don't have any off camber or hills to deal with anyway. It's all flat mowing. I don't even engage the (in the case of the F series mower) the rear wheel drive unit. It stays in front wheel drive all the time. If I could have purchased a front wheel drive unit, I would have. It's a mower, not a tractor. IMO, it a heck of a mower at that. No belts, drive shaft operated. The only belt is the fan belt on the motor and a multi rib belt on the mower deck that drives the outer spindles and it's completely enclosed under shields on the deck itself and in typical Kubota fashion, everything is greaseable without any disassembly. The mower, like my tractors are 'festooned' with grease fittings everywhere.

Always got a kick out of his disparaging comments about my 'small Kubota tractors'. They are perfectly sized for what I do. I don't need bigger units and certainly not smaller ones either. Took me about 10 tractors bought and traded in to get to what is ideal for me, hence my screen name '5030' as that came about when I owned (and traded in) a 5030 HSTC cab tractor as it was too small to be an efficient unit for what I do. Was a nice tractor but the hydrostat wasn't ideal for me and neither was the overall weight of the unit. The 5030 never had sufficient pto power to run the disc mower, let alone the round bailer. I was always coming up short in the power department.

 

[5030]

I like the urinal comment.... At my age, it's easier to sit on the commode than stand in front of a urinal... Besides, most all public commodes have doors so there is no embarrassment over the size of the hose either...lol I get a kick out out of the 'unisex' bathrooms... One size fits all...

 

[Torvy]

Two guys peeing off the bridge, one says that water is cold, the other says it's deep too...

-Richard Pryor (RIP)

 

[Squirrel's242]

I've seen some videos where people say that they use their compact or scut tractor to push over trees. The base of trees can hop up as they fall, so I'm wondering about peoples experiences with doing this with a smaller tractor.

For an 8 or 10 inch diameter tree, maybe 60 feet or more tall,
Would it be safe to:
- notch the tree in the direction that I want it to fall
- start a back cut
- then use the front end loader to encourage the tree to fall in the desired direction

No, the proper tool is the chainsaw. Not worth putting more expensive equipment in the mix when proper cuts with the chainsaw is all you need.

Use the tractor for cleanup after.

 

[5030]

Tiny trtactors and trees don't get along well.

 

[Straightgrain3016]

I use mechanical "help" any time I'm cutting near power lines, property boundary, or a structure.

Ladder (at least 1/3 of the height), run a cable in a dog-leg to a snatch block, then to the tractor....99.9% more safe than pushing a tree down with a tractor.

Barbur Chairs can destroy a tractor.

I have fun with slinging large eye bolt, tied to para cord...go up, and over a limb, then fishing-up the winch cable. On some trees, I use a wrist rocket with a zebco reel that has 65LB braided line...I shoot a 1 oz sinker, then fish the para cord, then the cable.

My .02

 

[not2old]

There was an 80' fir tree next door, about 14" in diameter, that swayed a lot in the wind disturbing my satellite reception and I was concerned that it might come down on my house is a windstorm. I used a 40' ladder to loop a 3/8x60' chain around it, anchored to a larger tree base with a 2000 lb. come-along. I tracked down the owner of the vacant lot and got permission to remove it at my risk. I had planned to cut it with a chain saw, but when I started putting serious pressure on it I noticed the ground swelling on the back side. I kept pulling until it was laying on the ground. There were other large trees near by that made me comfortable knowing it could only go sideways so far.

 

[DK35vince]

Waiting for Hay Dude to chime in and talk about his really large units...lol
Always got a kick out of his disparaging comments about my 'small Kubota tractors'. They are perfectly sized for what I do. I don't need bigger units department.

OH spare me !!
You do exactly the same thing to CUT and SCUT owners ALL the time !!
Disparaging comments about there "small tractors" yet they also bought the perfect sized tractor to fit their needs

 

[CalG]

Just to add flavor to the thread.....

I was once clearing a home site with a couple others. The son of my next door neighbor was building just down the road. One member of our group was the builder, and he had the plan, and a small track bucket dozer. ;-) I was just a cutter.

I had boxed a 70-80 foot tall maple in the way I was comfortable felling, with just a few taps of a hammer on some wedges. Well, the fellow on the bucket dozer pulls up close and with the bucket high, comes to bear against the maple stem. Well, I guess he came in a little hot and broke the hinge! Pushed the stem off the stump and back onto the ground!

Damn! We all yelled and looked skyward before the several of us ran helter-skelter, none of us with a clue where that hinge-less tree was going to go. The dozer guy threw up his arms to shield his head in anticipation of the worst! Fortunately, the butt stuck in the forest ground, the bucket dozer kept some forward motion, and that maple fell just about where the fall line was laied.

The dozer guy then yelled at me, "Don't box 'em so deep!"

Don't do that!

 

[CalG]

In addition..

Don't think you are going to "pull down" or even direct the fall of any real tree with a typical hardware store come-along. They don't have the reach to do much more than take the slack out of the line.

A pair of those devices and good use of Prusiks can do the job. Much better is a cable "Cable Pull" or the like, as there is no spool capacity limit.

 

[not2old]

In addition..

Don't think you are going to "pull down" or even direct the fall of any real tree with a typical hardware store come-along. They don't have the reach to do much more than take the slack out of the line.




Good point, I did use two of them.

 

[bcp]

Bruce

 

[CalG]

View attachment 3551243



Bruce

The tree is just waiting for you to die.

Then your silly machines will stop their annoyance, and the tree's roots will feast upon your remains.

;-)

 

[5030]

OH spare me !!
You do exactly the same thing to CUT and SCUT owners ALL the time !!
Disparaging comments about there "small tractors" yet they also bought the perfect sized tractor to fit their needs

I agree. I'd like to have a small one as well. Maybe I can coerce my Kubota dealer into giving me one cheap, he has quite a few used ones below 25 horses. that are trade in's for bigger ones.

I don't disparage them except to point out that a small one is ill suited for larger jobs.

Now that I cut my hay ground in half, even mine are too large. but I still require the pto power to operate especially my round bailer, The rotary rake and the disc bine don't require the pto power I have actually and if I didn't have the round bailer And instead kept the small square bailer, I'd down size them and put the funds in my IRA.

I'm sure they would fetch a good price in as much as both are pre 4, well maintained and completely optioned out...

I may do just that in the very near future.

 

[5030]

View attachment 3551243



Bruce

Looks to me like an impending personal injury 'accident' Heck of a way to address a 'leaner' Have a huge on in the front yard presently that needs to come down and Just called my arborist buddy with his Hi-Ranger to do it for 2 reasons actually, One, it's leaning towards the house and he has the proper equipment to take it down, plus he has insurance, should it go bad. Another 'Yuge' stump to grind. I'd say it's at least 50" at the base, maybe more. Put my 090G against the base to compare ind even the 4.5 foot bar is not as wide as the soon to be stump will be. Old popple tree that is dying. They don't have a long lifespan. Already gotten tid of the larger wood and anything under 3" he will chip. Quoted me a grand and I'm good with it. If it fell the wrong way, it would be 10 times that.

 

[Too many Kubotas]

In addition..

Don't think you are going to "pull down" or even direct the fall of any real tree with a typical hardware store come-along. They don't have the reach to do much more than take the slack out of the line.

Oh, c'mon. All you need is a snatch block used in reverse, doubling the amount of cable it can pull.

 

[ning]

In addition..

Don't think you are going to "pull down" or even direct the fall of any real tree with a typical hardware store come-along. They don't have the reach to do much more than take the slack out of the line.

A pair of those devices and good use of Prusiks can do the job. Much better is a cable "Cable Pull" or the like, as there is no spool capacity limit.

View attachment 3551231

Probably shouldn't be using a steel line at all, not enough stretch.
Suggest

keeps pulling even after you stop

 

[5030]

I have the synthetic line on my 12000 pound Warn winch on the front of my 1 ton pickup truck and I agree, the poly rope is far superior to the braided steel. Don't rust, don't fray and is easier to handle. Lighter as well.

 

[WinterDeere]

I have the synthetic line on my 12000 pound Warn winch on the front of my 1 ton pickup truck and I agree, the poly rope is far superior to the braided steel. Don't rust, don't fray and is easier to handle. Lighter as well.

Winch line is generally Dyneema single braid, such as Samson's Amsteel Blue. It has even less stretch than steel, at the same fractional loading. It's amazing stuff, I have used literal miles of it on racing boats, but usually in a double-braid configuration for control lines (e.g. dyneema core with polyester cover).

As to ning's argument about stretch... yes. But you don't need to achieve stress in the winch line, as it's usually connected to a much longer pulling line. Those pulling lines are generally large diameter but low strength stretchy lines, polyester or nylon cheap stuff, as you don't need super high strength small diameter line when you're not trying to fit it all onto a small winch spool.

The reason folks run Dyneema on winches, versus nylon or polyester, is that you can achieve 10,000 or 20,000 pull strengths with a line small enough to still allow you to fit 50 or 100 feet of it onto a winch spool. The down side is that small diameter line chafes more easily, and can jam and break more easily in blocks, versus larger diameter lines. It's also hell when you knot it, and it also suffers more fractional weakening when knotted.

 

[ning]

I have the synthetic line on my 12000 pound Warn winch on the front of my 1 ton pickup truck and I agree, the poly rope is far superior to the braided steel. Don't rust, don't fray and is easier to handle. Lighter as well.

Very different rope.
The maasadam rope puller usually has a 1500# line, because you're typically not trying to pull a tree out by its roots and don't want to be carrying around a ship hawser.
The rope puller gets a good pull in, puts a load on a tree, and has plenty of stretch so that when the tree starts moving, the rope is still pulling for quite a while - if you've got 100' of rope with a decent tension on it, it's got a good pull for easily 5-6'. A steel cable or winch line would go slack as soon as the tree starts moving and wouldn't any help at all beyond that point.