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Best attachment for clearing rocks

673moto

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I live in a rocky area and am frequently battling rocks on jobs. I have a rock bucket that picks up the 3” and larger stuff but am looking to get the smaller rocks.
landscape rake?
Harley rake?
I have a flail mower and was thinking of replacing the flails with short lengths of chain and rigging up an expanded metal cage to catch the rocks... thoughts on that?
 

Tags

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I would say Harley rake. If you remove the big stuff first while rough grading with the rock bucket AND there’s enough soil, otherwise the Harley rake will just leave a lot of small stones behind even if you close down the stone guard on the rake. The Harley rake won’t pick them up but you can make piles to pick up afterwards.
 

DMiller

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Will require more than want to deal with to remove smaller stones. Will need to Shovel out with a loader and screen it to adequately remove ALL.
 

673moto

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What about a sweeper broom attachment and I cut out the bottom of the collection bucket and replace with expanded metal so the dirt falls through but stones get caught?
 

Tugger2

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When i was young they did a major on the local golf course. Thier solution for picking rocks was to sprinkle some change on the fresh tilled ground,then put out the word to us kids and follow us with a loader as we tossed rocks in the bucket and picked up nickels ,dimes, quarters and the odd 50 cent piece. Costs might have been 5.00 /Acre back then in the 60s but it got all the ambitious kids in town out racing around grabbing cash.
 

Steve Frazier

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I was going to recommend the Harley Rake as I've had one for 20 years but after seeing that Valentini L1800 video it seems tough to beat. You'd have to make 4 passes or more to prepare a site as rocky as they're doing with the Harley and then switch to a bucket to move the accumulated stones.

There's another attachment called a Preparator that is similar to a Harley Rake but it collects the stones as it sifts them. Requires frequent emptying of the hopper.

https://www.paladinattachments.com/products/preparator
 

673moto

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Tones

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Stone crushers come as skidsteer mounted, FAE and Mericrusher have dealers in the US. The rotaryhoe as far as I know are only PTO driven but wouldn't be difficult to convert to hydraulic drive made to mount on a skidsteer.
 

CM1995

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What's the cost on one of those for a CTL?
 

Tones

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I've no idea, you'd have talk to the dealers.
The stone crushers can also be used on pavement stabilising jobs as well with a bit of planing.
 

CM1995

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Very interesting attachment that could be used in all sorts of situations.
 

KSSS

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I use an attachment from FFC called a Preparator. I have been running them since the late 90's. That attachment is very cool. I looked it up and it doesn't look like they make it for a CTL, but their website looks old maybe that is no longer the case. The only downside is if your cleaning up on something already established, you would wreck irrigation systems and so forth. But dam it looks like it does a very nice job.

 
Last edited:

kenworth

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I have a similar rock bucket like yours for my skid steer and I have different sized crusher screen that I put in the bottom and back of my rock bucket to screen the rocks from the dirt. It works well when the material is dry, fill the bucket about 1/3 full and shake the bucket by curling it up and down.
I hold the screen in place with stainless steel hose clamps through the screen and around the bucket bars.
This works well but it is dusty for the operator.
 

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673moto

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Ended up with a Chinese landscape rake... lost/broke a half dozen bolts on the first day using it but was able to finish the job and it did rather well.
Worth the hassle considering it was dirt cheap!
Does anyone else think this chain should have a tensioner/roller?
Looks a little suspect to me...
476D983A-7091-4DA0-8DBF-69FDB702A975.jpeg
 

673moto

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Joined
Dec 5, 2019
Messages
319
Location
NorCal
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Slacker
Ended up with a Chinese landscape rake... lost/broke a half dozen bolts on the first day using it but was able to finish the job and it did rather well.
Worth the hassle considering it was dirt cheap!
Does anyone else think this chain should have a tensioner/roller?
Looks a little suspect to me...
View attachment 282823
And yes... after the first bolts fell out I sprayed them red to more easily find them once they fell off!
 
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