wawajake
Veteran Member
Thanks to many of the posts here I saw advantages to having a set of forks for my BX2660.
I wanted something I could move pallets around (if I ever get around to storing my firewood on pallet boxes) but I also wanted flexibility of a single fork that I could use as spear to get under brush tree roots and pull them up . I also wondered if I could use some 6 inch channel iron that was here when I bought the property. So thought maybe I could make something that would fit the channel around the bucket teeth of my Markham toothbar.
So with my limited welding skills (Lincoln AC Arc welder ) and scrap pieces of angle iron so I would not need to spend hours cutting metal with my carpenter circular saw with cutoff blade.
Here is what I came up with. The teeth of bucket slip into the channel like a foot going into a slipper, and then the turnbuckles tighten it in place. Forks extend under bucket so that toothbar and bucket spread forces if ever an issue.
Lessons learned...they were a little sloppy unless turnbuckle is very very tight , so I ground the underside of that angle iron at a 45 roughly same width as tooth and that allowed tooth to be held better in place but still could be better. I did add a 45 inch of small angle to join the two forks under the bucket to hold them even better. And extra holes are there if I choose to have the forks moved to the two inner bucket teeth (so forks 20 apart ) and of course one fork alone can work in the middle tooth.
I also ended up making a general purpose box for carrying with some plywood , to triple the amount of wood I can carry in the bucket and can lift it the 6 ft high I need to get it near back door of house. I can take box and forks off by just undoing turnbuckles and tilting bucket to back out of it and leave it at my equipment staging area . All and all I am pleased with outcome. Total cost with free scrap steel was only the wood and orange paint and turnbuckles so $90 .
Open to suggestions if slight modifications would even further improve .
I wanted something I could move pallets around (if I ever get around to storing my firewood on pallet boxes) but I also wanted flexibility of a single fork that I could use as spear to get under brush tree roots and pull them up . I also wondered if I could use some 6 inch channel iron that was here when I bought the property. So thought maybe I could make something that would fit the channel around the bucket teeth of my Markham toothbar.
So with my limited welding skills (Lincoln AC Arc welder ) and scrap pieces of angle iron so I would not need to spend hours cutting metal with my carpenter circular saw with cutoff blade.
Here is what I came up with. The teeth of bucket slip into the channel like a foot going into a slipper, and then the turnbuckles tighten it in place. Forks extend under bucket so that toothbar and bucket spread forces if ever an issue.
Lessons learned...they were a little sloppy unless turnbuckle is very very tight , so I ground the underside of that angle iron at a 45 roughly same width as tooth and that allowed tooth to be held better in place but still could be better. I did add a 45 inch of small angle to join the two forks under the bucket to hold them even better. And extra holes are there if I choose to have the forks moved to the two inner bucket teeth (so forks 20 apart ) and of course one fork alone can work in the middle tooth.
I also ended up making a general purpose box for carrying with some plywood , to triple the amount of wood I can carry in the bucket and can lift it the 6 ft high I need to get it near back door of house. I can take box and forks off by just undoing turnbuckles and tilting bucket to back out of it and leave it at my equipment staging area . All and all I am pleased with outcome. Total cost with free scrap steel was only the wood and orange paint and turnbuckles so $90 .
Open to suggestions if slight modifications would even further improve .
