Loader mounted brush saw

[Andy1969]

I built a loader mounted brush saw. Have a 900 driveway through woods. Wanted something to keep it trimmed back and to keep trails in woods open for tractor and Mule. Still have some guarding and braces to play with but I fired it up and did some cutting today. Trimmed stuff ranging from briars to tree limbs about 5 diameter. Worked quite well. Simple setup. Hydraulic motor, love joy coupling, couple pillow blocks, and a 30 blade.

 

[Inspector507]

That's awesome! Thanks for posting it.

 

[newbury]

And the safety police get on to me for wanting to pressurize a pipe to 50lbs that's rated for 110lbs!

Have you thought of stacking like three of them?

 

[Andy1969]

Did consider multiple blade setup. But that complicates things mechanically adding cost and weight. A 30 swath makes pretty quick work out of things. Looking forward to spending more time with it cleaning up around trees and field edges. Will make brush hogging much easier without having limbs in my face all the time:laughing:

 

[Jcoon]

Nice!! I need one of these!

Where did u get the blade?

 

[Jcoon]

Nice!! I need one of these!

Where did u get the blade?

 

[Andy1969]

Found the blade on Craigslist. About a 160 mile round trip.

 

[dcartercarter52]

Were did you get the parts for the bucket saw. You have part numbers

 

[Andy1969]

The bearings, hydraulic motor, lovejoy coupling, hoses, and fittings I got at Surplus Center. Shaft blank came from McMaster Carr (4140 annealed). Channel steel from local steel supply house. The rest of the bits and pieces where made by myself and a friend who is a retired toolmaker. Been a very useful thing to have.

 

[farm boy00]

How did you mount the blade to the shaft?

 

[Andy1969]

Hopefully this photo will help. 2 shaft turned down to 1.375 to accept saw blade bore. Milled a key seat in the turned down portion and used a keyed chain sprocket with the teeth knocked off as a drive flange. Then a big custom washer under the nut to spread out the clamping forces

 

[toyocruiser]

Hopefully this photo will help. 2 shaft turned down to 1.375 to accept saw blade bore. Milled a key seat in the turned down portion and used a keyed chain sprocket with the teeth knocked off as a drive flange. Then a big custom washer under the nut to spread out the clamping forces View attachment 590177

What rpm hydraulic motor are you using ?

Thanks

 

[Andy1969]

Calculated RPM at my flow rate came out to just North of 700.

 

[Diggin It]

I need something the other way, flush with the ground so I can cut off small trees and shrubs. I used a line trimmer curved shaft with a circular saw blade and an electric power head. Also tried a 2 stroke head. It worked OK, but there was too much bounce when cutting and I was concerned about toes and shins.

Ideally, I'd like to find a way to mount the rig to one of my riders and power it with 12V off the battery.

 

[Andy1969]

This hydraulic powered saw could easily be reoriented so the blade was parallel to the ground. You could hang it off your front bucket and raise and lower it with the loader valve to adjust the cut height. I could see that being useful too. For my application I needed a way to keep all of the brush and briars that constantly grow and and encroach on my driveway under control. Same for trails in woods. It’s worked well for me. And I know it’s scary looking but I honestly think it’s safer than other more manual methods since the blade is way out in front and to the side while you’re in the tractor seat. Just keep kids and pets away :shocked:

 

[jmc]

Well done.

What happens when cutting light limbs, say 1/2" or less- does it just catch in the teeth and wrap around or do you get a clean cut? (Love to see some video!)

 

[Andy1969]

I thought that light stuff would get all wrapped up too but it doesn’t. I have a lot of that briar crap that grows up each spring and starts to spread out into driveway. It went through it like butter and cut it clean. I did take videos of it in action but don’t think you can post them here and I haven’t posted anything to YouTube in a long time.

 

[3Lfarms]

Ditto on the want to see video.

If my math is right, at 700rpm, that 30” blade is turning at a rate of 1100 inches of cutting teeth per second.
I don’t know what OP’s hydraulic flow rate is, but I bet that motor is developing at least 5hp. I bet that blade will go through a 4” tree limb in about 2 seconds without even slowing down.

 

[Andy1969]

Exactly! When I designed it I calculated 66,000 inches per minute. Which happens to be the same as 1100 inches per second. I liked the IPM number because it’s bigger and sounds more impressive :laughing: but yes it’s theoretically about 6 HP if I remember all my original design details based on flow and pressure when I speced the motor. And I have cut some pretty big stuff with it no problem.

 

[jmc]

Andy, do you know what that type of blade is called? It doesn't have any "hook" to the tooth like a crosscut, rip, or chainsaw, so it's probably not as grabby. In fact, it looks like it would cut as well in either direction.

I saw a TBN forum for videos but I have enough trouble doing searches. Wish one of our resident techies would do a video posting tutorial.