Mini Excavator pallet forks

[PeterG]

We are trying to get a pallet fork attachment for our mini excavator. I have not found a US manufacturer for one, so this means building one. We have purchased used Pallet forks, and a center bridge between the two will be quite easy to fabricate. The difficulty lies in the attachment fabrication of the Wain Roy coupler. Either I need to fabricate all the wain roy parts, buy them from some place which I think is impossible, or use the top part of an old bucket. Anyone build pallet forks for their excavator? Anyone build a Wain roy quick attachment and know the best way to do that?

 

[bmckenzie]

At one time I considered building one when I was building my house, got to thinking about how easy it would be to twist the boom being only one attach point . Proceed with caution my man.

 

[excavator]

We have a couple of local contractors who have them, one on a Kubota 121 and one on a Cat 304. I think that you probably won't find a national company who builds them, for liability reasons.

 

[Graham1]

I’m amazed there are no US manufacturers of excavator forks. I would think every European attachment manufacturer supplies excavator forks. A great attachment to have, especially if you have a tilt rotator, but great anyway.
Easy enough to look at designs on line and fab what you like best. My first set were from a forklift we scrapped. Just kept the slider rail and forks and added a set of pins. Obviously having a quick hitch helps.
What you will find is the balance is crap when not attached and you need to leave them under something as they tend to tip up.
Graham

 

[StumpyWally]

PeterG...I've been planning on putting a skid-steer quick-attach on my NH EH80cs excavator (re-badged Kobelco sk80cs) so that I can mount my pallet forks (or other SS attachments) on my excavator.

There is a company called Thor Attachments (John Gustafson) that builds quick attach hitches for loaders & excavators. I bought one of his quick attaches for my compact utility tractor a while ago & it has transformed the way I can use my tractor. His quick attaches are unique, as he builds 2" receiver tubes into the quick attach, that allow any 2" receiver fitting to be used in the quick attach when there is no bucket or such actually mounted in the quick attach. I use grab hook receiver fittings in mine, & they are very useful!! Here is a view of the quick attach on my tractor just after I first mounted it (nice & freshly painted!!):
John will build the same kind of quick attach, with or without receiver tubes, but even more heavy duty, to fit your excavator. His website is very minimal (http://www.thorattachments.com/home.html), but attached at the end of this post is one of his brochures for the excavator model:

Give him a call...

In my case, I plan on getting his excavator quick attach with just plain mounting ears. Then I will have one of my excavator quick coupler attach plates (a mechanical Klac coupler from Werk Brau) welded to it. Plus I will need to have an additional pin with ears, of my own design, fabricated in order to enable my excavator quick coupler to work in reverse mode (forward).

Keep me posted on your progress....

 

[Batkom]

I built one for my JD 60 G.
Did what you are thinking. Bought a set of good used forks, machined up the rails that the forks slide on, then cut up an old 24 in bucket from my Hitatchi ex50, welded the plates to it, and a few gussets. This is a simplified version- it was a bit of work, but not bad.
I would not worry about twisting a boom or it being hard on the machine. The mechanics of it how it all works out when you are using will limit your lift capability. I could only lift 1000 to 1500 max depending on how far out I had to pick up or place.
It was handy and got used quite a bit.

 

[Graham1]

I don’t know what you are expecting to pay, but you can buy them on eBay and have them shipped to you pretty cheap.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Excavator-...284642?hash=item4b40d58e62:g:jp8AAOSwfo9a09fH
Graham

 

[tantoy]

 

[dirty4fun]

I ordered a from excavator to skid steer mount. So I can use my pallet forks, post hole auger, and what ever I want that will fit a skid steer. Supposed to be here in a little over a week. They are in Indiana, will let you know more once I see it.

 

[Batkom]

TANTOY
That is a very clean and nice fork set up. I only have one picture of the one I built, and it was incidental- so it’s not a real good angle to show what I did. Need to build one for my Komatsu one of these days, I will be building it like your picture.

 

[Graham1]

This company sell excavator forks and supply Canada and USA.
Graham
http://amiattachments.com/attachments.php?link=excavator-forks&name=fork_rack

 

[PeterG]

The one built by Batkom looks really nice! As my excavator is a 6 ton machine, I would like the fork attachment to be very strong with a strength capacity of over 4000 lbs. I would like to lift and be able to move slowly a 3,200 lb pallet of wall block even if it's only on level stable ground, and the pallet is just barely above ground. It would be nice to be able to move a 2500 lb pallet and swing it around easily. Quite a bit of use would be just to lift pallets that are under 700 lbs loads (Usually I use my Toro TX425) to lift small pallets of items into the truck and out, such as a stack of empty pallets, material that needs to go back to the supplier etc.
The wain Roy design is hard to come by. It may be easier to just buy and old bucket. Regarding the middle bridge between the blades, I only need the forks about 30" apart or so. Would half inch thick steel be strong enough? Would it be best to buy the middle pieces? One big reason for this project is not to have to bring to job sites the tracked skidsteer loader just to move pallets.

 

[Graham1]

I do the same, if I’m not taking my loader to site I take my excavator forks. My small excavators can’t lift as much as the loader, but still very handy.
If you are lifting near the limit and you have room it works well to pick the forks up facing you, so the weight is on the inside of the dipper. Much more stable and if you hit a bump and tip forward the load can’t slide off the forks.
Graham

 

[Batkom]

Peter G
The bars that the forks slide on are 1 1/4 x 5 in steel, it was definitely overkill but I did not want it bending!
I intended to go 36 wide but ended up just going 32 wide, worked just fine.
My issue with trying to lift something like a pallet full of blocks that weigh that much was this-
That pallet full of blocks is maybe 3 or 4 feet tall?
To lift and move something that heavy I had to have the boom n stick sucked up as close as possible. And when I did this then the stick was at an angle over the top of the pallet - and something 3 ft tall you would be hitting it. So my 60G was over 13000 lbs. and realistically I could not lift and move with a load over 1500 and that was pushing it stability wise.
Now if you can do as Graham said and turn them the other way that might give you the ability to move with that 3000lb load. That would be awesome, and your stick would not hit a tall stack of whatever is on the pallet.

 

[suladas]

Making the Wain Roy part is super easy. What I did for the bolt hole part was find pipe with inside diameter of the bolt (probably 1 1/4"), then cut a piece of plate so the pipe fits inside, then weld together. 2" pipe with plate spacers so it fits tight for the coupler to grab. Much easier and less work to make the coupler part from scratch then a used bucket. I've converted a bucket and made a ripper from scratch and they work great. Took awhile to get them shimmed properly to get rid of slop, but other then that it's pretty easy.

 

[PeterG]

Well the forks were finally welded up and painted. We didn't do it ourselves, as we are not good enough welders, and our welding equipment not big enough. The quick coupler was adapted from our TAG thumb ripper. The Quick Coupler was removed, and a flange plate with 12 bolt holes was welded up. This system would allow me to make more custom attachments. We have only tried it in our storage area on the smaller Takeuchi TB240. We are taking it to the job site this week where we will use it on a terraced retainer wall job attached to our bigger Takeuchi TB153. We hope to be able move pallets around, and for smaller pallet loads to lower block down or lift block up as we build two 75' long 4' tall terraced walls. In addition, we also want to use it to load and unload equipment from the back of our truck with barn doors where we can reach in further instead of using a chain and pallet puller or pushing pallets back. There is a bit of a learning curve to use the forks. It will be much easier to drive the forks into the pallet, then to reach the forks into the pallet. Much different than using the track loader forks. Perhaps we can make a video showing them in action.

 

[Graham1]

There is a bit of a learning curve to use the forks. It will be much easier to drive the forks into the pallet, then to reach the forks into the pallet. Much different than using the track loader forks.

Forks look great, although appear to be fixed with, which may cause issues. Nice to have bolt on headstock so you can use them on a variety of machines.
Getting completely square to the pallet and setting the dipper out so it doesn't hit the top of the truck, then tracking in makes it easy. You need plenty of practice on the ground and be very smooth in order not to gouge the truck floor or the pallet if sitting still and picking stuff out of a truck.
I'm sure you will find them very useful, I certainly do.
Graham

 

[PeterG]

Well we used the new pallet forks, so here is a follow up of how well the performed. The performance is based a lot on how well the machine will do and how much you are lifting. In this case we have the forks on a 12,500 lb Takeuchi TB153FR with boom that curls up on the side. We find that with a full pallet of wall block, about 3000lb, the machine can lift the pallet barely off the ground and perhaps drag it but then the machine is too off balance. This is because in order to engage the forks into the pallet, the boom is stretched out a lot. It also appears that the TB153Fr does not have a powerful blade lift cylinder to lift the pallet up, before moving it in with the boom. The removal of two rows of block makes the pallet moveable and doable. This brings the pallet weight down into the 1700-1900 lb range. In that weight the machine can lift and move the pallet with ease and balance is not much of an issue. For sure, a 9 ton machine would work best, but might have a hard time rotating it around less you were on a machine such as a Takeuchi TB280FR where you can keep the load close in. Other than that our custom pallet fork attachments seem good. It does give us the options of using our tracked skidsteer, or Toro DIngo to move and place items with greater ease. In this case we are placing block on the upper row of the terraced retainer wall. They may also work well lowering block down a hill. We have a job like that in the next week.

 

[cat303.5]

I put a set of forks on the blade: works good, just not very high.
https://youtu.be/MermiEy5zGI

 

[PeterG]

The blade forks are a pretty cool idea. Especially if they are easy to get on an off. We used the pallet forks for another wall build, this time to lower stuff down. I'm now looking to get something better than a pallet to hold and spread gravel and dirt from. This would be closer to a solid top pallet with low sides. See images of forks in use from our last job.