My NX6010

[IslandTractor]

On your park expansion video you are driving back and forth in reverse the whole time. That's difficult. The first part was really just pretty thin material and I wonder if you could have driven forward. Much faster that way even if you need to dodge obstacles.

The second part, trying to mulch the 3" saplings, did look frustrating. Been there done that. I don't try to mulch them anymore. You end up going over stuff many many times and still end up with lots of punji sticks. A flail does a better job of mulching but a flail big enough to take down 3" saplings will cost $$$$. I find it is faster to use the grapple to scoop them up out of the ground and move to a burn or rot pile. The grapple should make pretty quick work of saplings that size.

I use my Woods BB mostly on brush/bushes/briar and small saplings up to about eight feet tall, 2" diameter. 3" saplings are technically within the capability of a medium duty bush hog and horsepower is not an issue even with the DK40 but I just find it is pretty inefficient to try to back into them.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

On your park expansion video you are driving back and forth in reverse the whole time. That's difficult. The first part was really just pretty thin material and I wonder if you could have driven forward. Much faster that way even if you need to dodge obstacles.

The second part, trying to mulch the 3" saplings, did look frustrating. Been there done that. I don't try to mulch them anymore. You end up going over stuff many many times and still end up with lots of punji sticks. A flail does a better job of mulching but a flail big enough to take down 3" saplings will cost $$$$. I find it is faster to use the grapple to scoop them up out of the ground and move to a burn or rot pile. The grapple should make pretty quick work of saplings that size.

I use my Woods BB mostly on brush/bushes/briar and small saplings up to about eight feet tall, 2" diameter. 3" saplings are technically within the capability of a medium duty bush hog and horsepower is not an issue even with the DK40 but I just find it is pretty inefficient to try to back into them.

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I wish that stuff was only 3" material, Island. Some of it is, and some of it is smaller and some of it is larger.

A $2000 flail mower like your Caroni TM1900 wouldn't do anything to the poplar, aspen and growing oaks. A flail mower is made to cut small brush, rough grass and with finishing hammer, as a finishing mower on golf courses, parks and so forth. A three point forest mulcher, like a Seppi Miniforest, an attachment that would only work on this material when driven backwards also quotes out at $27,000 plus tax, plus replacement teeth and Mike over at Titan Machinery would love to sell me the one they have in stock. This is to say, Island, I'm using the cost effective system and it works on material approaching five inches. I've also weighed and considered flail mowers as well as forest mulchers.

At any-rate, in the video I note that I'm happy to cut small stuff at the beginning because most of the time I'm running into 20' and taller material like I'm processing at the end of the video.

 

[IslandTractor]

I wish that stuff was only 3" material, Island. Some of it is, and some of it is smaller and some of it is larger.

A $2000 flail mower like your Caroni TM1900 wouldn't do anything to the poplar, aspen and growing oaks. A flail mower is made to cut small brush, rough grass and with finishing hammer, as a finishing mower on golf courses, parks and so forth. A three point forest mulcher, like a Seppi Miniforest, an attachment that would only work on this material when driven backwards also quotes out at $27,000 plus tax, plus replacement teeth and Mike over at Titan Machinery would love to sell me the one they have in stock. This is to say, Island, I'm using the cost effective system and it works fine on material approaching five inches.

At any-rate, in the video I note that I'm happy to cut small stuff at the beginning because most of the time I'm running into 20' and taller material like I'm processing at the end of the video.

If I were in your shoes I'd do an experiment with the grapple as the primary device to uproot those things. Your tractor is essentially the same as mine in weight and loader capacity and I find it quite efficient to simply push over and uproot the darn things. With the size of most of what I saw in the video, you could easily knock those things over and pop them out. Figure about a minute a piece at most (leaving the big stuff to be dealt with after you've cleared the moderate sized trees.) I usually push a few over and then move them to the "pile" and then come back for more. One benefit is that there is less debris on the forest floor so grass will grow more quickly. Another benefit is that you don't generate sharp sticks that live for a few years and a third benefit is that the darn things cannot just grow back from the stump.

I only showed the Caroni flail to give you an idea of how clean the mulching is compared to what you get with a bush hog. I agree that the Caroni couldn't take down those 3"+ size saplings. Not sure you really would need a specialty forest device though. Some of the heavier duty flails used by highway departments are big enough to be set up for saplings. Anything you can push over with your grapple and just drive over should be chewed up pretty efficiently by a solid heavy duty flail.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

If I were in your shoes I'd do an experiment with the grapple as the primary device to uproot those things. Your tractor is essentially the same as mine in weight and loader capacity and I find it quite efficient to simply push over and uproot the darn things. With the size of most of what I saw in the video, you could easily knock those things over and pop them out. Figure about a minute a piece at most (leaving the big stuff to be dealt with after you've cleared the moderate sized trees.) I usually push a few over and then move them to the "pile" and then come back for more. One benefit is that there is less debris on the forest floor so grass will grow more quickly. Another benefit is that you don't generate sharp sticks that live for a few years and a third benefit is that the darn things cannot just grow back from the stump.

In the video, you can see I'm working far faster than a minute each tree.

I already know what the grapple can and cannot do. A grapple can yank out a rootball from a tree that I've already knocked over, and it cannot do a thing to an oak tree's tap root. It is easier to knock the material over and turn it into bits.

Understand, I'm working as efficiently as I can with the equipment I have. I really looked into the different types of equipment available before settling on a tractor, a piece of equipment I knew going in would be slower at processing material but allow me greater flexibility in the future, especially for shoreline preparation, than a track loader with a forest mulcher.

 

[ishiboo]

Eric,

Knowing what you know now... would you buy another NX6010? I am looking at picking one up this week... drove a 4010 ROPS and a 5510 cab, and decided the 6010HST cab was for me.

 

[ishiboo]

Eric,

Knowing what you know now... would you buy another NX6010? I am looking at picking one up this week... drove a 4010 ROPS and a 5510 cab, and decided the 6010HST cab was for me.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

Eric,

Knowing what you know now... would you buy another NX6010? I am looking at picking one up this week... drove a 4010 ROPS and a 5510 cab, and decided the 6010HST cab was for me.

I would. It would have been easier if I wasn't the first guy doing stuff.

 

[ishiboo]

Sounds good. I might be looking at the NX5510... there are no 6010HST cabs in North Carolina and they're backordered.

The 5510 has only 2 less PTO HP, for like 2 grand more.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

Last week Thursday while making a trail through a sea of 30' tall aspen so a semi tractor-trailer combination could get through, an aspen log high centered and flexed my belly armor up and stuck a stick into my mid-point PTO output shaft's seal, deforming it. The seal immediately began to pour fluid out. I took a pick and tried to pull the deformed seal back into shape and I slowed the leak down to the point where I was able to hit it with some permatex and tie a rag around it and get back to work. Sadly, by the afternoon of the next day my field fix had failed, which kicked off a series of attempts to slow the leak with what I had on hand so I could keep working Saturday.

The following videos tell the story.

 

[MinnesotaEric]