Brush Grapple

[Mike.580ck]

among all the other projects i am working on i am planning out a brush grapple to put on my Case 580 ck bucket and im curious of different design ideas you may have tried or thought of if anyone wants to chime in on what they have made or seen please do , and pics would be greatly appreciated Thank You

 

[LMST]

Great Idea. I did fit a 6ft. GRAPPLE to a JCB 214. I would but the quick tach fittings from WASHBURN company and fit them to the CASE. A backhoe is way more powerful than most grapples need, so go gently. The JCB already had a third valve for the clam cylinders, so it just needed some longer steel hydraulic lines run to the front of the loader arms. The system works great, I have moved tons of brush and 30 ft long poles. I had a 11ft fence rail push through the open back of the grapple- go through the grill screen- and go over the top of the radiator and push the hood open, some luck. Now I am looking for a perferated 1/4 inch steel plate to create a HD Grill.

 

[Mike.580ck]

Im also considering building a skeleton bucket with a grapple on it so the dirt will fall out if i get to big of a scoop i won't end up with so much dirt in my burn pile lol . So far the hard part seems to be figuring out where to tie in for the extra hydraulic . my machine does not have any auxiliary hydraulic

 

[LMST]

Grapple Bucket- buy or build? I picked up a new large one for $1200. at a Ritchie Bros. auction. It was ready to use that day. no re-inventing the wheel. The spaces on the bottom allow anything smaller than a brick fall through. Mostly you are able to use it like a rake and just pickup what you want to burn. It seems that a switch and a electro-hydrolic valve is the perferred way to split off a extra curcuit. Not much flow needed for the grapple cylinders, small lines work well. If you have much clean-up to do its great. I have also seen a system that uses the original bucket and adds a grapple to the top, so you don't have to monkey with the loader arm mounts. That was on a large farm tractor, used to move big bales. Switching out a 800lbs bucket with four pins is a challange for me.

 

[Mike.580ck]

i have a Metal Fab shop and always have scrap steel laying around so building would be cheaper for me , my plan is hard to explain without a picture but i will take half inch plate and cut out the pieces and space them six inches apart or so and run say two inch pipe through them to hold it together then hinge the grapple on top made similar to the bottom half