We are a small operation in NY Southern Tier, Christmas Trees, firewood, recreation/hunting land sales and leasing.We would like a heavy duty minimum 12' dump trailer, 12,000+ capacity, road legal with a self powered knuckle boom loader capable of the following; loading logs to 16' and leftover chunks, processed firewood, brush, large rocks,dirt, sand, gravel, the unit with an interchangeable clam bucket and possibly an "orange peel" type grapple. Should be capable of excavating small ponds, roadside sumps and ditches while loading the excavated material for disposal or other use. The trailer should have a five way autolatching, spreading capable tailgate and machinery loading ramps that store under the bed for pull-out and use. The trailer capable of being hauled with a crawler or wheel type tractor, as well as being legal for highway use. AM I DREAMING? It seems feasible to me, but I am too old to build one myself. I saw a "You Tube" video of a nearly perfect unit slot in 2014, manufactured as a "one-off" unit in 2002 with a Provonost Trailer and a Hardy 1150ST Log Loader w/ bypass grapple. I called the company, this unit was factory built, but the only one made. The Company has been sold or disassembled now. Any suggestions about construction or where one might obtain a similar unit as wishfully described?
Blue OX is out of business,+Tree & Landscape equipment Trader has a advertisment Brownwood Sales Ohio,makes a grapple trailer,614 443 1821,don't know if their would build one for you. I have a B Wise gooseneck dump,717 261 0922,they make some nice trailers,mabe their would build one for you,either way won't be cheap
I have one similar to your wants . Its from Brownwoood sales . 14000 gvw , dump with ramps and self contained power unit . The loader is a Anderson and Brownwood has the trailer made and fitted here in Ohio .
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10451/20140510_183235.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1408317614)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10451/20140529_084511.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1408317314)
Nice trailer, Ohio Bill!
Whats the tongue weight on that thing and does it have to be pulled by the 6 wheeler or will say a 450/4500 - 550/5500 do the job ?
http://www.northeastimplement.com/Products/Valby-Custom-DOT-Log-Trailers/
I'm sure these guys can probably help you out.
I'm not sure of the exact tongue weight but a 1 ton aka 350 will work just fine.
We have whatever it takes to pull it, TD7, Belarus, Dodge Ram 350, etc. our main issue is a multi-purpose loader that will load logs, firewood, brush, dirt, sand gravel, big rocks. We are thinking a four leg "orange peel" grapple that has interchangeable leg covers so that the wider faces will hold sand, dirt, and gravel. This should allow us to dig holes like a backhoe and load the dirt into the trailer for disposal or relocation. Loaded gravel into the dump trailer could be spread on roads or dumped in a pile for future use. Four narrow grapple legs should grab logs firmly, as well as large chunks left over after logging, brush, trash, construction waist, etc. what we are shooting for is one unit that does all of the jobs mentioned and more, with a minimum of conversion. Most "orange peel" grapples are much too large because they are used mostly on large excavators and cranes in the junk business. We have not been able to find one less than 2000#, which is much too heavy for the light duty log loaders we are considering for attachment to a 12,000# Dump Trailer.
Just my opinion, I think you will be disappointed with trying to dig holes with the size log loader you could put on a 14K trailer. It doesn't work very well with a large truck mount loader, I can't see where a small one with limited reach and not much weight to it would work very well either. I've never tried one though. I do move a little dirt around with the large forwarder I run, and it's tedious. Log loaders are designed to lift, not dig.
With an "orange peel" grapple that offeres 100% closing wide grapple arm faces the arms would be doing the digging hydraulically, and the lift would be moving the gravel to the trailer, much in the same way it would move a log. There is a European Company that makes such a unit, but they are large and heavy. Also the grapple arms would need to have interchangeable wear faces in order to change to narrow grapples for loading logs. This is a new and untried idea as far as I know, but it would add a lot of use diversity to existing knuckle boom loaders the world over if it worked. The first step, it seems, would be to convince an existing grapple manufacturer to construct a prototype unit to try out.
Adding a loader to a trailer with a GVWR of 12,000 lbs is going to cut your allowable pay load by a serious amount.
Thanks for the tip. We should get a heavier duty trailer. Most of our use would be on our 500 acre main farm so licensing is not a problem. But we do have four other woodlots to bring material from. Our purpose for loading gravel is to repair woods roads, so a trailer with a spreading tailgate would be helpful. We farm out our logging jobs, but go in after to clear and repair roads and to cut firewood and pick up large chunks left over from the logging operation.
I too think you will be disappointed with trying to dig holes with a knuckle boom no matter what kind of bucket you have on it. The way the boom was designed is different than say a backhoe, and the shear fact the the bucket is mounted on a swivel makes digging hard. Sure it will dig better than a shovel, but it won't be able to come close to a machine designed to dig.
You should call up that company that I posted the link to, I think they are an hour and a half from you. Probably the best chance you have aside from building one yourself.
You don't have the weight or leverage that a purpose designed excavator would have. The weight is what will force your grapple down into the dirt- sure, the hydraulics of the grapple will do the work, but if your boom is too light, the whole works will just lift up off of the ground. I'm not trying to be contradictory, but I've seen this happen with the crane on my machine that has a 7000lb lifting capacity.
Bartender, Thanks for your input. We have heavy equipment to do the kind of work that requires it, but we are essentially a one-man operation. My nephew at 50 yrs old is the man, and we only do our own work on our own land, so we are not in a hurry or coordinating with other workers. Regarding my thought that a four tine orange Peel Grapple would be a more versatile solution to having a single attachment on the loader boom may not work in some instances, especially like digging hard ground, but it seems to me that it would load logs, firewood, chunks, and remove brush and logging slash from roadways. We wondered about having two separate controls on opposing tines on the grapple, so that when loading logs, 2 opposing tines would initially stay in the open position while the other two grabbed the log, then the two open tines could be closed enough to stabilize the log.
On loading and spreading sand, gravel, or dirt, it would seem that it might work for material freshly dug with our excavator or backhoe and piled for occasional use as needed. These activities for us are small volume and occasional.
The only real digging I could foresee the need for is our occasional cleaning of culvert sumps along our woods roads, ditch accumulations of leaves/soft dirt, and the cleaning along the edges of the many small ponds on our properties, where we would only be excavating soft muck-like material. Some of the ponds are very small, 6-12 feet in diameter and are sumps that accumulate silt from runoff that needs to be cleaned out occasionally. We stock them with different kinds of fish. The big advantage I would imagine here is not requiring two machines, a backhoe and a dump truck to carry away material excaveted which would require constant repositioning by only one person to do these jobs.
We considered a clam bucket, but felt that it would not perform as well loading logs, processed firewood, and brush or logging slash.
A loader will have a very limited digging depth.
I am with the others it will not work that well .but a smaller orange peel grapple from a catch basin cleaner. Most city's have them. You might find one in the bone yard
Good idea snowstorm, thanks. I will start a search! Never have seen one.
If that doesn't work out, vet plates fabbed up to go inside your grapple to make it a clam type. I can see this working if you are just dredging around culverts and such. I don't think you'll dig a pond deep enough to get water over your boots though.
Dig a pond???? No say it isn't true
OK, it's not true! We have a large Hitchai excavator and a Case 480 backhoe for heavy digging. We also now have 16 ponds of various sizes to maintain shorelines and feeder ditches that do not require large heavy equipment to maintain.
My main issue here is whether an orange Peel Grapple with interchangeable faces on four tines would be a more versatile grapple head for a variety of uses than other types. We are visualizing a "one size fits all", although maybe not perfectly, to do all jobs we anticipate. We realize that knuckle boom devices are for lifting and loading, not digging hard dirt. The problem seems to be that there is presently no Grapple of this type available for a knuckle boom loader. To really evaluate the practicality of a four tine grapple with individual hydraulic Controll on each opposing pair, we would likely need to have such a unit custom made. At 80 years young, I am no longer capable of doing this, so will need to find someone to custom design and fabricate, or at least modify a factory made grapple. I find no factory made units available with the desired features.
One issue you will find with an orange peal grapple on a small loader is the weight of a grapple will really limit what you can lift. Having all four jaws controlled independently means lots of mechanical parts, which is more weigh and more to go wrong. So you will need a larger loader and larger trailer, etc
http://www.kinshofer.com/en/index.php/en/crane-2/scrap-handling/orange-peel-grapples
Are you looking for 1 like this ? They come in a 4 tine smallest weighs in at 726 lbs without the rotator.
The Kinshofer with four arms looks about right. I don't know if they sell in the US. There would only be one extra valve, because both sets of OPPOSING LEGS would operate with its own valve, making a total of two valves instead of one in order to operate the opposing legs independently of each other. This would be mostly used in loading logs to improve gripping. It may also assist in digging. Tree Diggers work with four spades, each lowered independently and in rotation so as to not lift the digger out of the ground.
With quick couplers on the hoses and one pin to knock in and out a bucket change can be done pretty quick.
If the smallest one weighs 750 odd pounds, that's how much the grapple hanging on the Ponsse K100 on the BuffaloKing weighs. Lifting capacity approximately 3.5 tons.
There web site said Sanborn, NY. Just scroll down to the bottom, click contact, and scroll down to the one for the US. Pick up the phone call the 1-800-# and empty your pockets.....I'm sure that thing isn't cheap.
Most of those small trailer mounted loaders have a lifting capacity of 1500-2000 lbs. Hang close to half that capacity in just the grapple and rotator and you will be sadly disappointed with the performance.
http://www.wallensteinequipment.com/us/en/model/lx115w-lt60h-log-trailer-grapple-package
This may be the alternative solution.
Quote from: chevytaHOE5674 on April 20, 2017, 05:03:09 PM
Most of those small trailer mounted loaders have a lifting capacity of 1500-2000 lbs. Hang close to half that capacity in just the grapple and rotator and you will be sadly disappointed with the performance.
i agree. he has a excavator just use that. a 480 case that has gotta be old. i haven't see one of those in years
I tried to find the video I had seen on youtube a few years ago but had no luck.
It was a video of mini porter with the ability to put on a dump box and convert the grapple into a clam bucket, It looked like a nice rig to do the kind of work you describe, not for tough digging but more for moving gravel and cleaning out drains and culverts. The grapple to clam bucket looks like a less costly option.
I think a clam style bucket would be a better, lighter, cheaper dirt loader. Ive run a sennebogen scrap loader with orange peel and i cant imagine effectively doing pond maintenance with it. We use an ibeam to groom the gravel lot but thats pretty different than loading muck.
What about a bypass log grapple with bolt on fabricated sideplates that turn it into a clamp bucket? I have a garden tractor with a blade that i bolt various side plates onto for specific tasks with excellent results.
I sure appreciate all of the suggestions, I am beginning to feel that one grapple attachment will not do all. I think for loading sand, gravel, and loose dirt a clam type would certainly work best. I found a Finnish Grapple imported into the US and Canada with dealers stateside that specializes in firewood, but looks like it would handle logs, brush, and even possibly rocks. I will try to insert a photo here, but have not learned too well yet. There is a You Tube video also.(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/45654/You_Doodle_Pro_2017-04-21T22_46_47Z.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1492815938)
Branch Manager makes a bolt on bucket that goes on their grapples, good for stump grindings,chips or brush think it's on you tube
I was just about ready to give up on a four tine all purpose Grapple when I found this You Tube video;
Check it out!
The unit is a "KESLA300X"
https://youtu.be/XSkAi9G-8gQ
https://youtu.be/XSkAi9G-8gQ
Well that looks exactly like what you're looking for, it does exist! ;) It looks slick!
Wow I really like the look of that grapple, any idea what it retails at?
That works better than i expected
Hey that looks pretty handy,
buy 'er up and let us know how it works out!!