Grappling fun - A Picture Thread....

[Gordon Gould]

I have been trying to determine if I can use a grapple to dig up large rocks, or do I need a backhoe? Any rocks I need will be at least partially exposed.

It looks from your rock example, a grapple will do the trick, yes?

I know a grapple will do a lot of other chores that I need to have done and I hate to buy a backhoe for moving rocks, if it can be avoided.

Thanks

It is hard to answer your question. There are always rocks that are to big.
My method is to loosen the rock with my heavy duty bucket and a 5' construction bar. Once it is loosened or popped I pick it out of the hole with the grapple. I try to do this at the time of year when the ground is softest. For us that is spring when the frost is coming out of the ground.
The type of grapple I have does not help me dig to loosen the rock but it is a big help getting it up out of the hole and picking it up. I guess I would say that for any rock you can loosen or move with your bucket adding a grapple like mine will make it a lot easier. If you can't move it with your bucket and a bar then the grapple won't help. I don't know about the dedicated rock grapples, there is probably a different answer for them.

 

[Old Red]

I thought I would ad a short video of some grappling fun with the T190

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKWQpOsSPHI]Root Grapple - YouTube[/ame]

 

[rdneckbota]

Just plain fun!

 

[Piston]

Piston,

Terrible idea.

Now I need to get off the tractor more often and take more grapple pics...

Did I see a sawmill in one of your pics? Are you making your own lumber (I hate you! I'm so jealous!).

David

David,
Sorry about that, I must have missed your question the first time around and I haven't updated this thread lately.
Yes that is a woodmizer LT-15. I do some 'hobby' milling for my timber framing hobby. Its actually what got me more and more into 'tractors' in general. I sort of went full circle with my interests, I've always liked tractors and heavy equipment, as well as working in the woods, so I figured I should get into something that uses the trees I like to take down :laughing:
I became interested in timber framing after getting addicted to the forestry forum, so rather than buy a bunch of timbers I figured I needed a sawmill (a friend of mine and I actually split the mill so it wasn't so expensive) then I needed a way to put get the logs to the mill, enter the tractor
Now I enjoy using the tractor more than anything, so of course I needed to figure out ways to make it more useful, enter the grapple, the best move I've ever made. :thumbsup:
That little mill is pretty impressive though, and yes, absolutely a blast to use. It's a pretty amazing feeling to go into the woods, pick out a tree that will be used for a specific timber, cut it down, limb it, drop it on the mill, and there is your timber, ready for joinery. Really is addictive, I like all aspects of the process.

 

[Piston]

It's time for some updated pics!

I used the tractor and grapple for about 3 days (not nearly as much as I hoped) to start clearing my land in NH.

Here are some pics of what it accomplished.....

Also, I mean no disrespect to the many people who are extremely happy with their Wildkat grapples, but I'd like to point out that I am very happy that I paid a little extra for my WR Long grapple. I put it to the test with these projects and not once did it let me down. After reading through this thread (Broke my grapple ( Am I the only one?) - TractorByNet.com) it made me realize how good of a decision I made by not going with the cheapest grapple out there (granted I bought my grapple before Wildkat was popular on here) Numerous times I 'accidentally' put more stress on the grapple thumb (arm whatever it's called) by pushing it into a tree like in the link I posted, and it didn't so much as bend or crack a weld at the mounting point. Again, I know a lot of guys are happy with the Wildkat, but I won't stray away from whole heartedly recommending WR Long to people.

Here are some overdue pics!

(more to follow)

 

[Piston]

My Dad helped me a lot, he had a lot of fun, I had him running the tractor almost all the time, while I was on the ground as the chainsaw man. The nice thing about this is I got to take a lot of pics, whereas it's a lot harder when your the one on the tractor.

 

[Piston]

Many times we would just knock the tree over, nice and easy, slow and making sure there are no dead limbs to fall on us, and uproot the entire tree, saving the hassle of digging out the stumps later. There were very few trees we couldn't knock over.

For many trees, we could pick up the entire tree and put it in the 'brush' pile, the larger ones we cut in half or thirds and piled that way.

Mostly we cut the stumps right where the tree fell, then I come back and grab a couple of stumps at a time, one in each arm, and dump them in a stump pile.

There wasn't too much for firewood where we were clearing, but any of the hardwoods over 4" or so DBH we would pile separately.

For some of the nicer pines, I cut them into log length and piled separately from the mill. I did throw a few decent sawlogs in the burn pile that I wish I had kept. Actually, I should rephrase that, my dad threw a couple decent sawlogs into the burn pile when I wasn't paying attention :laughing:

I say burn pile, but when we do burn, we'll light a separate fire and slowly add and pick away at the big pile, I may pick out some logs as we do that to save, if they aren't already stained.

 

[buck12]

It's time for some updated pics!

I used the tractor and grapple for about 3 days (not nearly as much as I hoped) to start clearing my land in NH.

Here are some pics of what it accomplished.....

Also, I mean no disrespect to the many people who are extremely happy with their Wildkat grapples, but I'd like to point out that I am very happy that I paid a little extra for my WR Long grapple. I put it to the test with these projects and not once did it let me down. After reading through this thread (Broke my grapple ( Am I the only one?) - TractorByNet.com) it made me realize how good of a decision I made by not going with the cheapest grapple out there (granted I bought my grapple before Wildkat was popular on here) Numerous times I 'accidentally' put more stress on the grapple thumb (arm whatever it's called) by pushing it into a tree like in the link I posted, and it didn't so much as bend or crack a weld at the mounting point. Again, I know a lot of guys are happy with the Wildkat, but I won't stray away from whole heartedly recommending WR Long to people.

Here are some overdue pics!

(more to follow)

Looks like you are getting a lot done. Glad you like your grapple. I went with the Wildkat grapple and WR Long hydraulic kit. The grapple has performed well but the WR Long kit did not work. The kit was suppose to be a direct plug and play however the kit required a lot of modification to work which cost me money and time.

 

[MossflowerWoods]

David,

Yes that is a woodmizer LT-15. I do some 'hobby' milling for my timber framing hobby. ...so rather than buy a bunch of timbers I figured I needed a sawmill (a friend of mine and I actually split the mill so it wasn't so expensive)

That little mill is pretty impressive though, and yes, absolutely a blast to use. It's a pretty amazing feeling to go into the woods, pick out a tree that will be used for a specific timber, cut it down, limb it, drop it on the mill, and there is your timber, ready for joinery. Really is addictive, I like all aspects of the process.

I am VERY interested in getting a small mill myself.

That sounds awesome!

David

 

[Gordon Gould]

Men and machines at work :thumbsup:
Looks like you are doing real well. Be careful.