Taking out a stump, a BIG stump

[Spencer]

GregJ, Nice Work! When I read B7500 I was expecting to see a sore excuse for a stump. I was pleasantly surprised! That's some stump!

 

[Anonymous Poster]

GregJ, Thanks for the tips and pics. I was also thinking my only option would be to dig a ramp into the hole. My thought was to get my loader bucket under the stump and try to roll it out of the hole. I was concerned that I may end up with a new hood ornament for my tractor if things didn't go as planned. I like your idea of dragging it out much better. Until I saw your pics I didn't think my tractor would be able to drag it.

Luckily for me while I was out digging on the stump this evening, my neighbor came by and offered me some help. It seems word had gotten around that I had completely lost my mind!? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif He offered to bring his 25,000# excavator over and remove the stump that has been consuming all my tractor time. Even though I wanted to win the battle with the stump I couldn't turn down his generous offer. He'll be pulling my stump this weekend, and I'll be brushhawging a motorcycle track on his property for his son.

I'm trying to get an idea of how large that rootball in the pic was, how wide is your loader bucket?

 

[GregJ]

My loader bucket is 48". Your neighbor just saved you some wear and tear, not to mention a lot of time. I did roll a big maple stump out of a hole last fall like you mentioned. It was huge, but just a single stump. The stumps I posted were clusters of 3 or more and even using leverage I couldn't budge them with my loader. There were many times that I was about to give up and call my neighbor with some larger equipment, but my stubborn Swedish heritage wouldn't let me. I am really glad this project is done and I am mowing grass where those trees once were.

Greg

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Don't forget to post some pictures for us! I'll have to put some pictures of my boss's backhoe I used for a while on Mon. and Tue.

Blake
WA

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Here's the picture of the backhoe I was using.

http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/bswallow25/vwp?.dir=/heavy+equipment&.src=ph&.dnm=DSCN0018.jpg&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/bc/bswallow25/lst%3f%26.dir=/heavy%2bequipment%26.src=ph%26.view=t


Blake
WA

 

[Anonymous Poster]

GregJ, I think your stump in the pic with the chain may be larger than the one I was working on. The rootball looks about the same but I only have one trunk and yours had 3! I'll bet you are a heck of a backhoe operator now. My skill level climbed really fast once I started picking out individual roots to break. I'm really impressed that you were able to accomplish so much with your tractor. Did you end up breaking any tractor parts or hoses while you were dealing with all those stumps?

I'll take some pics when the excavator comes out and shows that stump who's boss around here! I've got some pics of the stump and my tractor, but I don't have a digital yet so I'll have to either scan them or have the developer put them on a disk for me. I'll post them when I get them back, but it might be a few days.

 

[GregJ]

Hntr,
My tractor survived this ordeal intact. No broken hoses or parts. However, I do have some new bends on both sides of my FEL bucket from pushing those stumps up the road. I really don't consider that damage..... more like a modification. Now my bucket is actually around 50" wide instead of 48", which increases it's capacity..... right?

Greg

 

[normde2001]

That's pretty impressive , however, unless the stumps were in the way of my new swimming pool, I believe I would just leave them in the ground and burn them below ground level. A washtub or barrel or can with the bottom cut out, filled with charcoal briquettes and recovered will get rid of one in a few days.

 

[GregJ]

normde2001,
I wish I could have left them in place. The problem is they were right in the middle of an area that we have plans for next spring. We are planning a terraced garden and want to have options open for other things as well. I am sure over the next year we will be thinking of a lot of different uses for this area. The only way to really prep this was to get everything out of the way now, so the ground could settle and we wouldn't be fighting roots and stump remnants. On top of that, this project gave me a bunch of good seat time.

Greg

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Here's another way to pull big stumps. I first went around with the backhoe and broke the roots off as close to the stump as I could. Then, I hooked up my well-ballasted Farmall A with 100' of 5/16" cable with 5 snatch blocks, effectively giving me 6 times the pull. One end attached to the Farmall, 3 pulleys on the "victim" stump, 2 pulleys and the other end attached to the anchor stump. I used a 3/4" chain on the stump being pulled to attach the pulleys to, and multiple 3/8" chains (because that's what I have) on the anchor stump. The Farmall still worked pretty hard getting it out. Once the stump was tipped up on its side, I used the backhoe to scrape off the ball of clay that came with it.

Mike

 

[GregJ]

Mike,
That's incredibly clever. It's also an awfully big stump to get out with a little Farmall A. It's amazing what can be done with a little leverage and some basic knowledge of physics. Thanks for the post.

Greg

 

[kubotasaurus]

That's very clever.

I think I would have used dynamite though. It's very quick and safe so long as you know what you're doing. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

GregJ, I'm glad your tractor survived the battle with the stumps.


Friday my stump was removed by an excavator, it was a joy to watch! I had the stump about 2/3rds dug out,(I probably had 4 hrs into it) he broke the rest of the roots and had the stump upside down so he could clean off the dirt in no time. I had pushed all the limbs into a pile with my tractor next to my fence. He placed the stump and all the limbs into a nice big pile on the other side of my fence where I can burn it once we get some rain. Tearing out the stump,moving the brush pile, ripping out the leftover roots, and backfilling the hole probably took about an hour. I would have had at least 6hrs into tearing out the stump. I don't have a thumb for my backhoe so the brushpile and tearing out the leftover roots would have taken some time too. If I ever need to remove green, large,stumps again I'm gonna rent an excavator! He looked like he was having fun.