They work better with chains, have tougher sidewalls, and don't tear up the ground/soil/grass as bad as Ag tires. Certainly the Ag tires have superior traction in most situations, but I will probably use chains most of the time.
Kioti DK4710SE HST
- Thread starter SpaceBus
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They work better with chains, have tougher sidewalls, and don't tear up the ground/soil/grass as bad as Ag tires. Certainly the Ag tires have superior traction in most situations, but I will probably use chains most of the time.
Bad LP
Minister of Fire
Ag's really suck in the snow and will tear up the lawn in short order. R4 offers the best all around all season use but also have their downfalls on the turf. They have the toughest construction in the sidewall and tread areas. Turfs are also suitable for lawn (obviously) and OK on snow and ice but the sidewalls are not that strong.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Good arguments have been made for all three types. Once you chain up, it really doesn’t matter what type you’re running, you might as well be running turf tires under those chains, from a traction perspective.
The comments on sidewall construction are mostly true, but you can find heavy wall turf tires in most sizes. I am running some on the front of my machine, due to the heavy loader. Not as gentle on the lawn as a standard turf tire, but better than ags or R4’s for lawn use.
I went with turf on the Deere, since I use the machine on my lawn a lot. In the woods, I usually have my buddy’s Ford with Ags. Once I put chains on all four corners of that 4wd Deere, the traction is probably no worse than the Ford.
The skidding winch should be here this morning. I'm going to try and get my front chains mounted after I help the wife get to work. I should have a good six hours of solid daylight today if not eight if the clouds stay away. We haven't had a day this nice in weeksm
Ashful
Minister of Fire
I ended up having to chain up today to push my wood wagon (uphill in reverse on saturated mud). In this case, I just did the rears, which was good enough, I didn’t want to bother with all four.
Here’s how I’ve been tensioning, I threw the stupid tensioning chain that came with these springs in the trash after two uses.
I own and race sailboats, and this is the knot I use for all of my cover ties, so I can tie it darn quick. It has a 2:1 purchase, and comes undone with a simple pull of the pigtail.
Here’s how I’ve been tensioning, I threw the stupid tensioning chain that came with these springs in the trash after two uses.
I own and race sailboats, and this is the knot I use for all of my cover ties, so I can tie it darn quick. It has a 2:1 purchase, and comes undone with a simple pull of the pigtail.
I can't fathom why a ratcheting tire chain tensioner doesn't exist. I was looking at my chains after running the tractor for while and I could probably get them a bit tighter. A few springs don't even have coil separation.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Meh... I've never had an issue. I'm not exactly running this thing at highway speed.
It seems that most grapples are made to order. I found this one on Fleabay for $1,300 shipped. 60" root rake grapple with 19" tines. I've been looking for something with 12-18" of ground engagement depth, but everything like that has a tube linking all of the teeth. The rake shop makes them without the cross tube, but they are over 24" long, and that's probably not going to be good geometry for ripping top soil. It's between this and the 66" extreme root rake grapple on EA. I like the idea of the grapple being narrower than my rear tires for ease of maneuvering around trees, and this ebay grapple is $1,000 less than the EA grapple. Supposedly the ebay grapple is made in Alabama, so that's cool too.
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thewoodlands
Minister of Fire
Do you like where the hydraulic lines run on the one made in Bama? Were getting some freezing rain at the moment, I'm not sure if it's headed your way but I thought that I would tell you. They say we're in for 0.25 of rain too.
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Ashful
Minister of Fire
SpaceBus, what's the weight and hp of your machine? Lifting whole logs with a grapple is not normally the domain of 2000 lb. CUT's. They get tippy, fast.
I think they just have the hoses wrapped around the hydraulic cylinder, but I noticed the same thing.
My Kioti is 3500 lbs without the loader, plus whatever the chains weigh. I plan on skidding most logs with the forestry winch, so the grapple is mostly for clearing brush, breaking ground, and grabbing large odd objects.
thewoodlands
Minister of Fire
The picture didn't come out the way I copied it, it runs across the whole front on the inside pretty close to where you attach the grapple to your tractor, I was talking about to the right of the cylinder.
Maybe I'm just a worrywart.
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You make a valid point. I assumed the hoses and such would be protected there, but I have far less experience than you. I'll look at some other models and see if they are all like that.
thewoodlands
Minister of Fire
I don't have a grapple so there goes any experience out the door. I think in 2020 I'll be looking for a grapple.
After looking at some other designs, I don't like that the ebay/Alabama grapple has a solid back plate. That's going to catch a lot of soil and debris and make it hard for the rake to move through the ground. Like most things, if it's too good to be true, it is.
thewoodlands
Minister of Fire
It's a Balsam fir, not really prime firewood, but it had to come down anyway. I'm probably going to take a few more down tomorrow and over the next few days.
thewoodlands
Minister of Fire
We have a bunch of dead or dying white pine we season for a year and then we burn it for shoulder season wood, are you going to use the balsam fir for shoulder season wood?
Ha, I'll burn whatever's dry at this point. Most of my property is Balsam Fir and spruce with maybe 10% hardwoods. I got half a cord of birch from a friend I use for night burns. I'm medically retired and home every day so burning soft woods is fine with me.
Tried to get some more ice/slush out of the parking area and driveway. I also pulled down/out another widowmaker. There's still two more left in the are this came out of. There are hundreds on our property and the skidding winch was worth every penny. I can get so much more work done much easier when I don't have to buck the logs in the forest.
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thewoodlands
Minister of Fire
Nice work @SpaceBus , I use the pallet forks to get the log off the ground when bucking it up, you can't do the whole log on the forks but it's a back saver.
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I have been using the bucket to move the rounds lately. Can't get the logs to the splitter and I don't want to move it every time. I wanted to use the forks to lift the logs, but then I'd have to swap it for the bucket to move the rounds. This is where a side by side comes in handy I imagine. Once this snow is gone and I expand our gravel parking area, this will be much easier.
sloeffle
Minister of Fire
I bought a wood chipper from Woodland Mills and we had to cut about 3" off of each shaft. My tractor is new too, so the 3 point arms should be of "standard" length. This is the first shaft I've had to cut out of the four or five PTO driven implements I have.
I wonder if some manufacturers ship their attachments with longer PTO shafts so they know they will be compatible with any machine out there.
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