Mostly Finished Making Fork for Tractor

[Suburban Plowboy]

Last year I converted my Kubota L3710 and bucket to quick attach, and that meant I could no longer use my crazy chain-on fork tines. I decided to cut them up and make a quick-attach fork.

Seeing the way the world was going kind of killed my enthusiasm for a lot of things, but I got back to work this week, and I am here to post a photo of what I now have. I haven't finished the paint, and there are a couple of welds I still have to do, but I tried it out today on some fallen trees, and it seems to be okay.

It gets better leverage than the old tines because it's closer to the FEL, and these tines can't shift around because the whole fork is rigid.

One thing I didn't think of: the bucket had a sloped rear surface, so when I used the forks, I was able to rotate them up maybe 20 degrees when the FEL was down. Now the tines are pretty much level when the fork is on the ground and the hydraulic rods are retracted. It doesn't seem to slow me down, though.

I am thinking of welding some square tube crossmembers between the tines about 10" from where they join the frame, to take stress off the welds at the rear.

I should be able to lift no more than 1200 pounds with this thing, based on Kubota's specs and the weight of all the hardware.

Any suggestions? I was considering putting goat fencing across the vertical members to keep things from coming back at me. It hasn't been a problem in the past, but I suppose it could.

I could have gotten a grapple, but I have seen them in action, and they just don't seem to do everything a fork can do. I can move big logs, and this thing holds a huge amount of brush.

I don't understand why no one makes an attachment like this.

 

[WranglerX]

I have something similar but smaller and I find that with brush it seems that at least half falls off between where I gather it and the burn pile, my thinking is I need a grapple but then again the hydraulics involved and complete rebuild of front end makes it not so much in my futire...

 

[mo1]

Last year I converted my Kubota L3710 and bucket to quick attach, and that meant I could no longer use my crazy chain-on fork tines. I decided to cut them up and make a quick-attach fork.

Seeing the way the world was going kind of killed my enthusiasm for a lot of things, but I got back to work this week, and I am here to post a photo of what I now have. I haven't finished the paint, and there are a couple of welds I still have to do, but I tried it out today on some fallen trees, and it seems to be okay.

It gets better leverage than the old tines because it's closer to the FEL, and these tines can't shift around because the whole fork is rigid.

One thing I didn't think of: the bucket had a sloped rear surface, so when I used the forks, I was able to rotate them up maybe 20 degrees when the FEL was down. Now the tines are pretty much level when the fork is on the ground and the hydraulic rods are retracted. It doesn't seem to slow me down, though.

I am thinking of welding some square tube crossmembers between the tines about 10" from where they join the frame, to take stress off the welds at the rear.

I should be able to lift no more than 1200 pounds with this thing, based on Kubota's specs and the weight of all the hardware.

Any suggestions? I was considering putting goat fencing across the vertical members to keep things from coming back at me. It hasn't been a problem in the past, but I suppose it could.

I could have gotten a grapple, but I have seen them in action, and they just don't seem to do everything a fork can do. I can move big logs, and this thing holds a huge amount of brush.

I don't understand why no one makes an attachment like this.

View attachment 804543

What you made looks a lot like commercially available manure forks or silage forks, although they typically have 6-10 forks/spears instead of four. There are a few different ways those are made, some basically weld several smaller forks to a pallet fork headache rack or use a bale spear frame with 6-10 stabilizer spears at the bottom for the forks, and some use a solid piece of metal where the QA attaches and then attach the forks/spears to that. Using the 4 gauge welded wire goat panels would basically be building a lightweight headache rack for your forks and that should be okay as long as you are not going to be pushing real heavy loads with it.

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

I had to look up silage and manure forks to see what they were. Seems like their tines are on the short and thin side, so I guess they're not suited to what I do. I'm always moving downed trees, so I need something sturdy.

The tines on my fork are maybe 4 feet long.

It seems strange to me that no one makes an attachment quite like this. It's so useful. The old chain-on tines were also useful, but they slid around all the time, and they were slowly ruining my bucket. And what a pain, switching from the bucket to the tines.

I have two screw-on tines I can use with the bucket if I need to move a pallet, and this thing will also fit some pallets, so I think I have that covered.

 

[ruffdog]

A 4 tine bale mover with 49" spears and 14K capacity:

https://stingerattachments.com/buy/bale-spears-series-4/

 

[mo1]

I had to look up silage and manure forks to see what they were. Seems like their tines are on the short and thin side, so I guess they're not suited to what I do. I'm always moving downed trees, so I need something sturdy.

The tines on my fork are maybe 4 feet long.

It seems strange to me that no one makes an attachment quite like this. It's so useful. The old chain-on tines were also useful, but they slid around all the time, and they were slowly ruining my bucket. And what a pain, switching from the bucket to the tines.

I have two screw-on tines I can use with the bucket if I need to move a pallet, and this thing will also fit some pallets, so I think I have that covered.

I was guessing at the length/size of the forks in the picture. If they are actually four feet long, then they look a lot like the forks on an old style 3 point round bale fork. Those can be quite robust and heavy. I have one of them with only two forks, a similar-looking square tube frame, and no uprights, and I guess the weight at about 200-250 pounds and the weight carrying capacity of at least a ton. Four of those forks plus the frame plus the uprights would probably be every bit of 400 if not 500 pounds unless your steel is a lot lighter than what's in the old bale forks I have. If it really is that heavy and stout, you probably don't see something like that commercially available as it would be much heavier and stouter than needed- a set of manure forks would be 1/3 to 1/2 that weight.

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

A 4 tine bale mover with 49" spears and 14K capacity:

https://stingerattachments.com/buy/bale-spears-series-4/

I think I would have preferred buying that to doing all this fabrication, but I couldn't find anything like it while I was searching.

I believe I paid $150 for a quick-attach plate, which I used for two attachments. Cutting it up was a mess, but not terrible. Then I had to buy some small plate rectangles to put between the backs of the tines and the frame. I had to buy all the tubing for the frame, and then of course, there were consumables. The rest came from the old tines.

The attachment plates on the fork in the link are sloped so it can be tilted more than mine can. I'm going to look at the way they did it in case I want to make a modification.

This isn't deductible, so I don't have receipts. I suppose I'm into it for $500-$600.

 

[ruffdog]

The attachment plates on the fork in the link are sloped so it can be tilted more than mine can. I'm going to look at the way they did it in case I want to make a modification.

I like how some attachments have built in roll-back or curl-back.

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

When I tried it, the slope didn't make any difference in how well it worked, so I'm conflicted.

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

I finished up the welds and moved more junk today.

I'll post a photo of one load of brush. Is it possible to move that much junk with a grapple? They look like they only hold smaller stuff, like logs.

I would guess there might have been 200 pounds of junk on the forks, total, but look how much room it takes up. Moving that with an attachment that only holds small loads would take several trips.

I shoved this thing under an oak log about 15 feet long and 18" thick, lifted one end, and moved it out of my way. Nothing snapped, so I think this attachment is sturdy enough for my needs.