Clearing land

[RWolf]

We'll I got my tire fixed and that will be the last time I use these people unless there isn't any other option. $50 service fee, $2 mile and (get this) $2 an inch (tire size). All they did was slobber some tire mounting paste on the rim and plug a small hole. Bill $118.00.

Anyways you requested some more photos so here goes. I've now ran into a couple of trees that I had to basicall break off at the bottom. Most of them don't have deep roots but spread out quite abit. I think the longest that came up without breaking was about 8ft.

Notice in the third picture of the bale spike frame, yes that's a horseshoe. We work at least one into every project we do.

 

[8934]

Rent or buy a mini excavator... Best thing to pull trees with, and you dont have to worry about flat tires.

I got one and it made a beleiver out of me.

I had never ran one before, but in one weekend I ripped up hundreds of small trees from 3/4" to 6". After a little practice many came up with one swipe of the bucket.

I was not looking forward to doing this with the tractor and a chain. The excavator saved me countless hours of work.

 

[RWolf]

That might be an option if it were'nt for the rental places wanting approx $300 an hour. One reason I had a service truck come is I needed to move some hay and needed it yesterday. Normally I would have repaired it myself and will in the future but because of time and breaking my breaker bar (new heavier one to come soon) just put be behind my timeline. Anyway back in business of pulling scrub and should have this section done by next weekend weather permitting.

 

[mrob2012003]

We'll I got my tire fixed and that will be the last time I use these people unless there isn't any other option. $50 service fee, $2 mile and (get this) $2 an inch (tire size). All they did was slobber some tire mounting paste on the rim and plug a small hole. Bill $118.00.

Have you tried putting water in the tires front and back? I have in my tractor and the flat tire just leaks down the the water level. Unless of course you have a huge hole. It also helps with traction. You have a lot of work ahead of you pulling those cedars out of the ground. Have you considered using a forestry mulcher? I am sure you can rent one at your local bobcat rental. We have them here in east texas.
I use them in my business but central texas is to far for me to drive to give you a demo. I think there are some contractors in the Austin area that have them you may want to look them up.

 

[Kfbeal]

Yea, it looks like a cumbersome project. If you could have some sort of gripper that would grab the cedars and you could just pull'em out and drop'em where you want'em.

I just filled my tires last weekend but haven't really used it since I filled them.

 

[firemen122]

ya need to fab you up a root rake for that tractor and in between the center teeth weld 2 pieces of flat bar to form a v grind edges to an angle. Then you can catch tree trunk in vee and push and pull up at the same time. works great and should make you alot more productive.

 

[Airic]

That is a nice picture. One thing I notice is that you don't have a hard break to the woods in the background. Your trees go from smaller at the edge to older growth tward the back. Within my land managment classes they say somthing like 90% of wooded creatures live in this soft break as it provides more protection. I'm working on trying to achieve this with some areas of my land.

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[RWolf]

>Fireman< you've got a good idea. Would work on "most" of the scrub trees and the others could be pulled/pushed/cut as I'm doing. >mrob< There was a pretty good sized hole in the tire so even if filled it would have leaked down. The biggest problem wasn't the hole but getting the tire to reseat on the rim. After this episode I'm going to pick some tire mounting paste. Service guy had the tire reinflated on the rim in about 5 -10 minutes. I had worked on this tire for about 1-1/2hour before giving up. >kfbeal< a grapple might work and I think a 4in1 might be a better choice but sadly a new impliment is not in the budget just yet and before the wet weather starts here in ernest I want to have at least this portion of the pasture done.

This coming weekend "weather permitting" my neighbor and I have a friendly challenge to see who can pull the most trees using our different methods. I'll be using my FEL and he will be using chains,wheel rim and 3pt.

 

[AKfish]

I'm in the process of clearing land on my place to expand my horse pastures, too. So, I read your efforts with added interest.

As well, I can realize the need to hold off on more "tools" until the cash reserves have some time to build back up again.

However, you might reconsider using your FEL on some of the larger Cedars. You could end up with a "tweaked" loader arm (no need to ask... ) before you know it!

The 3pt will lift more and the tractor will pull more off it as well. My FIL fabbed up a rear mount ripper using a scrap yard ripper tooth from an old Cat motor-grader. He's got about $125 into it and 4-5 days of trial and error fabrication time.

I don't know if that's an option for you - but any type of ripper on the 3pt would be a better option than the loader - IMO.

Best of luck.

AKfish

 

[J_J]

Here is an example of a device for ripping out trees, posted by someone on TBN .