Grapple Bucket for cutting logs

[Vt Rider]

I've been reading a lot of post about grapple buckets. I like the idea of a 48" but not sure which one yet. Along with clearing some land, putting in food plots and general clean up of down trees I want to be able to cut my firewood. I usually order a load of logs every other year. Of the various brands I would like to know which close tight enough to be able to grab your average 8"-10" log and hold it while I chunk it to firewood length. In the past I've helped my brother who has a mini excavator which has a bucket and thumb. It works great and I'd like to be able to the same thing with a grapple bucket. Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

[plumbstraight]

having a thumb on an excavator is a handy tool.

The thing is about the thumb is that it closes more parallel with the bucket than the grapple buckets on loaders. The bucket will not close tight on a log unless it is just the right size. I can see you picking one up with the loader having it tilted down a bit as the log will rest against the bottom of the bucket and the bottom of the teeth as you cut one end then the other keeping the balance of the log centered. At least it will keep your saw out of the dirt and gravel.

 

[Gordon Gould]

I am not exactly sure what you mean by grapple bucket but this is what I have and it works fine holding logs. ATI bolt on grapple on 5' heavy duty bucket.

 

[Vt Rider]

A follow up question would be wether the grapple bucket works for moving split firewood. It would be handy if it did but my guess ist that it doesn't work very well. What I'm talking about is going into the non stacked wood pile and using the grapple to secure the splits while I move the wood to the wood shed.

 

[Vt Rider]

Gordon, thats pretty much exactly what I was talking about.

 

[puckgrinder85]

We have a custom bucket that has a thumb across the entire width of the bucket, what makes ours special is we have 6-7 tines that stick of from the bucket maybe 2.5 feet . The grapple sticks out as long as these tines do. Ours are welded in and work better than just a bucket with a thumb on it. Here is an example of what our custom one resembles:


http://www.ludensinc.com/var/plain/...14-eng-US/mds_72_manure_tine_bucket_large.jpg


http://www.ludensinc.com/var/plain/...-18-eng-US/ts_72_manure_tine_bucket_large.jpg


They call it a manure tine bucket but ours works awesome for brush and picking up logs and you can manipulate it better than just a bucket. Ours looks more like the second one, its lower and can grab smaller logs easier. Brush is is best thing, drive it straight into a pile, clamp down and you pull half the forest away with it, its awesome. Growing up as a child in the woods brush cleanup always sucked the worst, this made life a lot easier.

 

[Gordon Gould]

I have never tried picking a bucket full of piled wood with my setup. I think it would be pretty hard to get any where near a full bucket but maybe with practice you could get pretty good. My grapple works good if hand filled but you probably are trying to avoid getting off the tractor.

 

[dstig1]

There is pretty much nothing that works well for scooping up firewood splits. Even an open bottom grapple will pick up a ton of dirt at the bottom of the pile. Your scooping efficiency is also poor in general - you won't grab much even in the middle of the pile. You will get much better efficiency if you manually load the grapple or bucket with splits. My $0.02 from my experience.

 

[deere5105]

There is pretty much nothing that works well for scooping up firewood splits. Even an open bottom grapple will pick up a ton of dirt at the bottom of the pile. Your scooping efficiency is also poor in general - you won't grab much even in the middle of the pile. You will get much better efficiency if you manually load the grapple or bucket with splits. My $0.02 from my experience.

I concur. I have tried moving split wood both with a grapple and regular bucket. Put a lot of work into only getting a few pieces in the attachment. Much easier just to throw them in the bucket.

 

[Whisper35]

Gordon, where exactly did you get your grapple? I am interested and would like to get some more information about it.

Thanks,
Paul