3510 With Boxblade

[Stimw]

I've got 21 hours on my 3510 (with R-4 tires) mowing and spreading fresh dirt. Today I decided to remove an old stump about 14 inches accross that I cut down 2 years ago. I have a KingKutter 5' Boxblade that I bought recently. I set the rip teeth 1 notch down and started scraping dirt and roots away. Put it in 4 WD, 2nd range, first gear and proceeded to rip roots right out of the ground. I've driven dozers and loaders before and I am very impressed with how much power this tractor has! This thing IS NOT A TOY! It hung a couple of times and spun the tires, it didn't even try to bog down. I just changed angles and ripped the root right out!
I put pretty good strain on the Boxblade and it took it very well. I also bought a KK 5' finish mower and I'm not too happy with it but the blade is a good buy. The way the Cutting edges are put back to back and made with a curve to them gives it a lot of strength. I pulled dirt and even pushed dirt with it and it did very well.
There are trees all over my property living in fear as I type! tim

 

[sassafraspete]

Tim, sounds like you are having a good time with the 3510. That bush your wife planted , but you have to mow around all the time, may just accidentally get ripped out. Operator error, right? Welcome to the club.

sassafraspete

 

[Yalerider]

I can relate. I have operated cats, excavators and skidders. I'm not gonna say my 3510 will push as much as a cat or skidder but..last night I was pushing 5-7 6 to 8 inch trees over to the edge of my field. I also have been taking down some fairly big trees. The power is more than I expected when I bought the machine.

 

[Stimw]

The amazing thing to me is I still had 4 more gears lower to go to! I don't know what you would use them for.

 

[Yalerider]

I was using the lowest gear to push my trees from the root ball after I had pushed them over. I probably would not have had to work so hard if I could have taken all the roots out first, but I don't have the room to manuever with the box blade as my trees are close.

 

[NCRancher]

What technique were you using to push the trees over?
Did you use the bucket?

 

[Stimw]

I used the box blade, I rake as much dirt as I can around the tree then back up to the trunk and push/rock it with the box blade. I even come into the stump low as possible and raise the blade lifting the stump to loosen it. It takes a little time but it gets the job done.
Watched a friend clear some trees with a large track hoe last week. He was grabbing oak trees about 20' up and snaping them off at about 12" in diameter then he yanked the stumps right out of the ground. I wasn't there at the time but he got too close to a large pond, the hoe slid and turned over. Nothing like seeing a 50,000lb machine on it's side. At least he wasn't hurt! It took a LARGE wrecker 4 hours to get it back up again. A couple hours latter they had it running too. I have pictures , I just need to resize them to post.

 

[Buckeye_Jim]

I have a choice of the box blade or the backhoe for ripping up the roots, prior to pushing over some pretty good sized trees. It had not occurred to me that I could use the box blade. Anybody have any experience with which is best?

3820i 6' BB, 8620 BH, FEL

 

[DavesTractor]

Just keep in mind that the three point arms are stronger pulling then pushing. A Branson is a heavy tractor and can bend the arms if you play bulldozer too agressively.

 

[Stimw]

I would think the backhoe would work better. I don't have the hoe (yet) on mine. You need to loosen the roots to remove the tree. Here in Florida we have a lot of sand so your results may varry.
Will try to post pics of overturned track hoe.