I SEE ON E BAY THERE IS A LOG GRAPPLE THAT IS AFFORDABLE MADE BY LANDY. LOOKS GOOD ONLY THING IT'S MANUAL ROTATION ! DOES ANY BODY HAVE IDEA ON HOW TO MAKE IT WORK WITH OUT GETTING OFF AND TURNING BY HAND.
Hey Jerry, can you not write in all caps please? Here we READ THAT AS YELLING!!😊
Just to get ahead of you just in case, links to ebay or Craigslist are not allowed.
I'm not familiar with this grapple. I have one I built for my skid steer, that I fashioned after the European style bypass grapple. I didn't use a rotator, I just made a swivel for it. I just bump it back and forth, people watching me run it think it is equipped with a rotator🤷 That said, it would be nice to have a rotator, especially when I have a grab of logs up in the air that I would just lime to set down without bumping it off of something.
Good info from 'bumper barbender'.
I'll jump in and maybe get a new nickname too.
Jerry, imagine you're looking over the hood. You're looking at both the grapple with its jaws open wide and the log ahead of you. As you approach the log, lower the grapple so that the one jaw that will catch on the top of the log will cause the grapple to swivel and position the other jaw on the far side. Lower and close the jaws - you're good to lift and go.
In the bush or almost every logyard, uneven ground is your friend 'cause it works for you.
Clear as mud ?
I purchased a Landy skidding grapple at auction new.
Spent a bunch of money at a machine shop getting it to fit my loaders skid steer attach.
The grapple is kind of spring loaded so it returns to the same rotation.
Like most China attachments the welding is not great.
I use a log tong hanging off the end of my SkyTrak forks. I am pretty good at estimating the center of gravity of my logs. I have several large clevises in a chain that allows about 90° rotation and I do the bump to rotate move.
A few years ago I cleared about 3 acres of woods and all I had to put large logs on my brush pile (I didn't have a sawmill at the time so if it wasn't hardwood I could turn into firewood it got burnt)was a small farm tractor with a pig pole and a log tong on a swivel.I drug a lot of logs and hardly ever got off machine to hook or unhook tongs.Bump method works pretty good 😊
I started of with a set of tongs on a boom, so the hydraulic grapple was a major upgrade. Plus I already had my "bump" time in😁
34" log, about the limit of my tongs.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/30640/1000006428.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1698473162)
Thanks for the help but I'm still determined to do this hydraulically.
I got the grapple, now I just have to change out the flat face couplers. It was shipped from Texas in a steel tubing cradle I was impressed with that! Looks well built and I have a couple of options on making it rotate hyd. We'll see what happens.