Debris Forks

Carl_NH · Oct 19, 2025

Yes, AKADAVE - installed 800' of fencing and these forks can be a work platform or for hauling the posts or just a good extension to the bucket for any sort of use.

WranglerX · Oct 19, 2025

chim said:
As mentioned, forks are something that get used frequently.

I made an inexpensive but usable set to clamp onto the bucket of an L3200 I had. Made a olarger and more capable set for the L4240 from bale spears and QA frame. The chains on the front of the L3200 forks weren't for holding the forks. They were the "self-install" method. To install them, the bucket was dumped over the forks as they laid on the ground. The chains (one end permanently attached to the forks) were dropped into the slotted angle on the top of the bucket. Curling the bucket lifted the forks and the clip angles caught on the cutting edge. They were then fastened to the bucket with a load binder on the back side of the bucket.

The L4240 forks are much better. Easy on and off via the QA frame. They even worked as a crude crane with a 10' piece of 3" EMT and some chains. I set it up to catch pieces of a dead tree at the creek and when the one large piece fell, it drove the conduit back into the fork structure and the gusset acted like a Kett Shear till the end of the conduit bottomed against the QA frame..

About the bale spears... Are they really stiff enough to resist bending with sever use.... Kind of wonder about them but the cost of spears (5) and the sockets sort has me wondering if the investment and quality of spears is worth it.... Dont know enough about bale spears to adopt them over replacing my square steel tube..

chim · Oct 19, 2025

WranglerX said:
About the bale spears... Are they really stiff enough to resist bending with sever use.... Kind of wonder about them but the cost of spears (5) and the sockets sort has me wondering if the investment and quality of spears is worth it.... Dont know enough about bale spears to adopt them over replacing my square steel tube..

They're quite tough. Here's the build thread from 2020:

Brush Forks - Second Attempt

The first pair was several years ago for the L3200. Post# 18 in the link below has a brief description of them. The pictures in the link don't show a couple add-ons that made them pretty much self installing. Sort of like the "early photo" in an obit. Since those forks were custom made to...

www.tractorbynet.com

As mentioned the 10' piece of conduit slipped over one of the spears for a redneck crane. Then two chains were hooked from the end of the pipe in a "V" shape to the slotted angle on the top of the QA frame to take most of the weight. That way one end of the pipe pushed against the QA frame while the other pulled tension on the two chains. The tree was mostly in the creek, and the only help available was the Kubota (and Wifey occasionally checking to see if she needed to call 911).

I cut everything I could standing on the banks with a DeWalt 20V pole saw that did way more than should be asked of it and the branches landed on the banks. When it was time for the Stihl to cut the bigger stuff, the crane was used to place the extension ladder with a couple planks across the creek. That made a decent platform to work from. Then it seemed like it would be better to keep the wood from going into the creek instead of fishing it out.

So the crane was set and the load chain was wrapped around the big chunks to catch them. On one of these the weight was underestimated. When the chunk came free and dropped, the force was great enough to shove the conduit into the QA frame and the end of the conduit hit the spear gusset making a small piece of the conduit to be cut and curled. It also pulled down hard on the spear as any slack in the chains was used up and the conduit became effectively shorter by an inch or so.

Below is another picture from the tree removal side show that illustrates how far the spear was pulled down, compared with the other spears that had no load. It looked like the tip was pulled down about 6" and my first thought was "Uh oh, now ya dunnit". I was pleasantly surprised that the spear went right back into its original position when the load was removed. It was equally surprising that the Millermatic 175 welds held up.

paulsharvey · Oct 20, 2025

Another point on bale spears is that they are cheap, compared to a fork. My hesitation, would be they arent designed to make that whole round bale load, at the tip, they are meant to stab in, and take loaf over the whole spear. So, if you're the type that would use the tip to lift, you likely will bend/break something. However, if you look at this complete Vevor SSQA bale spears, and its price, that looks like a great starting place for a build of debris forks