Purchased Dougherty Turbo Saw (3 point) - First Experience with Video

[christophercale]

Hello All -

I decided to start a new thread to provide info about my purchase of a 2004 John Deere 6403 (not a compact), and a Dougherty Turbo Saw (3 Point) to clear Huisache and Mesquite trees and brush from my property in Marion, TX.

After months of research I decided to go this route. I picked up the tractor at a local JD dealership. It's a 2004 with about 1800 hours. It was a one owner tractor, owned by the local funeral home to pull a drag shredder to maintain around the cemeteries. It turned out to be the perfect tractor as it has all tires foam filled, and it has an expanded metal screen mounted on the ROP to prevent flying debris from hitting the operator.

I picked up the Turbo Saw from a local dealer in Shiner Texas, brand new unit. I purchased the unit on New Years Eve and was able to cut 2 or 3 small trees before we lost sunlight.

Since both the tractor and saw are new to me, I had a learning curve to go through. I worked for about 5 hours on New Years Day, with about 3.5 of those actually cutting and dragging trees. I went back out today, Saturday, and worked about 7 hours and was able to cut much more than I anticipated. I was going pretty slowly because I was trying to get used to both the tractor and the saw, without causing any damage.

I have about 35 acres of property in Marion Texas that is completely overrun with Mesquite and Huisache. I'm not going to clear the entire property, but I'm working on clearing a drive way and building site for a new home. I've got several other clearing tasks in mind, but those are after we build and move out to the property.

I've loaded 3 videos up to YouTube and the links are below. It was very windy out today so I apologize for the wind noise in the videos. However, I can't complain about the sunny and 75 degrees conditions.

My goal was to clear a path for a drive way, 300 feet by about 50-ish feet. I was able to get to the 300 foot mark after about 15 hours of work. I got 100 ft on day 1 and 200 feet today after having a better feel for the equipment and procedure. I had to drag the cut trees about 1/8 of a mile to an open area that we have setup to build burn piles, so dragging took time.

I spent some time hopping off the tractor to drag smaller trees by hand to a pile that I could grab with the grapple, to reduce the number of trips to the burn pile.

All-in-all, I'm very pleased with the setup. After a slow start on New Years Day, I was able to make some great progress today.

Here's the videos:

Part 1: Huisache & Mesquite removal - Dougherty Turbo-Saw & JD 6403 - Part 1 - YouTube

Part 2: Huisache & Mesquite removal - Dougherty Turbo-Saw & JD 6403 - Part 2 - YouTube

Part 3: Huisache & Mesquite removal - Dougherty Turbo-Saw & JD 6403 - Part 3 - YouTube


I've got a camera tripod on order and I'll be posting up videos of the turbo saw in action in a week or so.

Christopher

 

[Poopdeck Pappy]

Looks good. You're making good progress. I look forward to seeing the action videos when you get your tripod.

 

[Gordon Gould]

Ditto ^^ :thumbsup:

 

[Renze]

I look forward to seeing the action videos when you get your tripod.

+1

 

[Complete Turf Care]

What will you do to keep the trees from coming back from the stumps?

A front end loader with a grapple attachment on that tractor would make hauling and stacking the cut trees a whole lot faster and easier.

 

[Creamer]

That looks like a mean outfit - good tool for this job! Look forward to the action shots!

 

[lostcreekranch]

Oh Crap! Another toy to add to my wish list. I second above suggestion of a FEL and grapple. Bought an 84" grapple for our NH TL100A one year ago and only regret is that I didn't get it 5 years ago. Thanks for sharing and looking forward to seeing your upcoming action videos. Rick

 

[mark02tj]

What will you do to keep the trees from coming back from the stumps?

I was wondering the same thing. In Ohio we have an invasive shrub called honeysuckle. If you just cut it, it only grows back quickly. You have to pull it out by the roots to keep it away. But honeysuckle is a fairly shallowrooted plant. Is it possible to pull the mesquite out with the roots intact or is it too deep rooted?

 

[christophercale]

I was wondering the same thing. In Ohio we have an invasive shrub called honeysuckle. If you just cut it, it only grows back quickly. You have to pull it out by the roots to keep it away. But honeysuckle is a fairly shallowrooted plant. Is it possible to pull the mesquite out with the roots intact or is it too deep rooted?

The Huisache will for sure come back up from the cut stumps. Next fall, I will spray the foilage of the plants that have resurfaced with Grazon P+D (Picloram). This stuff will penetrate into the roots and kill it. I'll also probably start doing a basal spray of Remedy on the plants which have not been cut, but that I know I will want to remove in the next couple of years, so that they will be dead when I remove them.

There's a lot of good info from Texas A&M university on controlling invasive plants in Texas such as Huisache and Mesquite here: Brush Busters ｫ Texas Natural Resources Server

Thanks for all of the comments & questions. This is a learning experience for me, so I'll take any info/suggestions that I can get.

Christopher

 

[Piston]

I missed this thread when you posted back in January.

Can you give us a quick review of how you like the tree saw now that you've had it for a little while?

have you cut any other trees? I"m curious how you think it would work on typical eastern hardwoods, like maple, birch, oak, hickory etc?

Do you have some pictures that you could post?

I've been thinking about one of these saws for a long time, but hesitant due to my relatively low hp of 39 pto hp.