FEL Root Cutter

[Buckee]

In some late night TBN reading I remember where somebody used several feet of heavy angle iron, slotted one end so it would slide over the bottom of the FEL bucket (V down), and sharpened the other end so it could be pushed into ground under a tree and cut the roots. This focused the cut on a small area vice the whole width of the FEL.

Now I can't find this anywhere - does anybody remember, or have a better idea? Thanks - Buckee

 

[Zork]

Im not sure, I think I remember something like that on the front of a skidsteer for cutting trenches or removing small trees. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[jmc]

Buckee,

I made something similiar using 10 or 12 inch channel bolted to the bottom of the fel bucket. The channel was lying flat, sharpened on the three edges of the end, with the u shape up. It stuck out about 2 feet in front of the bucket lip. Used it to uproot a bunch of thorn trees and it worked. It worked a lot better with the channel welded up to an A frame for the 3PH. You could see better and my 3PH had more lift force than the fel. If your interested, I could dig it out of the weeds and post a picture.

John

 

[EricL]

Something like this ?

 

[Buckee]

jmc - sounds exactly like what I had in mind, if not too much trouble would love to see a picture. When you used it on the 3PH did you have trouble getting in close to the trees? What was the biggest tree you could cut off? I'm thinking I will bolt it to the holes on bottom of the FEL bucket to cut roots, then push tree over with bucket, then cut up & lift out with the grapple.

EricL - that is one nice piece. When I did a Google on "tree spade" I got several commercial variations of that, but your homebuilt looks as nice as any. I don't have the equipment to build that, need something more on the crude side.

 

[jmc]

Buckee,

Sorry for the delay in taking these pictures of the 3PH mounted root cutter. Recall this channel started out bolted to the FEL bucket but was difficult to see with the bucket in the way. If you stick it out far enough to see, you lose your lifting force. Otherwise, you have to stand up to see, or tilt the channel down at a steeper than necessary angle and look under the bucket.

This picture shows the attachment in about the position it would be used. The square on the ground is 4 feet long to give an idea of size. The channel was welded to what used to be a home made bale mover. Its reinforced with a small piece of angle iron as a hypotenuse.

I used this to pop out honey locust trees (thorn) up to about 3 inches in diameter in heavy clay. In Indiana, these are dense, tough trees with a tap root. The idea was to get out most of the root ball so the root suckers wouldn't grow. The way it worked out was that the sharpened edge cut a small percent of roots but most of the ball was pulled up with brute force- a combination of 3PH lift and backing up. I think in general, most tractors lift more in back than in front.

John

 

[jmc]

Closer view

 

[jmc]

This last shot shows a little damage if you look closely. It had been used on a Ford 1920 4WD - only around 30 HP, but still managed to bend the cutting lip and right lower link pin.

I think a nice piece of sharpened angle iron would have been better since once the penetration is done, the roots are broken by lifting rather than cutting.

If you want to use the fel for this, one thing that might be interesting is to weld up a frame to hold your angle iron that REPLACES the bucket. Visibility would improve and since lift force may be important, you could use your curl cylinders to pry the tree out.

Picture the attachment from the side of the tractor. Its "L" shaped with the horizontal leg being the sharpened angle iron. The vertical leg would be part of the frame and longer for leverage. Connect the pins on the fel arms near the L's junction. Connect the curl cylinders to the top of the vertical leg. For really stubborn trees, if the heel of the L was supported by the ground, you would have tremendous leaverage when curling the attachment.

Sorry to get so windy about a rusting piece of metal but it was a lot of fun to use. Hope you get around to it.

John

 

[Buckee]

jmc - thanks very much for the pics, my gears are turning now. I think you are right about the 3PH being the better mount for this, being able to see exact placement. You said you thought angle iron would work better - seems like the root under attack would tend to slip off to the side unless hit perfectly center? I am going to haunt the scrap yard this weekend ...

 

[jmc]

Buckee,

I used that wide channel because I thought that cutting the roots were important. It turned out, on those thorn trees at least, that to cut ALL the roots you would have to work your way around the tree, backing in 3 or 4 times from different directions. 'Slow and leaves the ground all around pretty much trampled. What worked and was more fun is to slide the channel under the tree, lift until the hydraulics max, then continue to back up. At least half the roots are ripped up or broken rather than being cut. Sharpening the end not only cut the roots but helped penetration.

With that lesson in mind, to make one again, I'd try maybe a 6x6x3/8 angle iron instead of that channel. (V up) It would probably be strong enough in the vertical direction with proper reinforcement, penetrate better, and concentrate lifting force on the tree instead of dirt.

To make it, rather than cutting the angle iron off perpendicular, I'd tilt the cut 45 degrees to form a point where the two "legs" meet. Besides sharpening the end, I'd sharpen the two sides along the length of the angle iron for a foot or so.

Also, if you have a hydraulic top link thats big enough, it would increase you lifting power. I didn't at the time and haven't tried it on this new tractor.

John