Kubotas at play. Er, I mean work!

Thank you

 

We took the Orange machine to the piney woods Monday. First task was getting a blowdown stump up and carried to the burn pile...
Grapple is working good now, we thought it was the cylinder leaking by, but looks like it was a 3rd function valve problem on old tractor.

 

How are you finding the power upgrade? Guessing pretty noticable.

 

Very noticeable, and the steady pressure from the HST is great for what we're doing.
Wish I had gotten a picture of this stump when it first came out of the ground. Even after getting a good bit of clay off the root ball, still had to roll it to the pile.

 

Rootballs are no joke weight wise. I had one a couple years ago that was 5 stems all together (6-8" maples). Got it out of the hole with the dinosaur JD hoe but then couldn't really move it around after. Took tractor with chains and the JD hoe to drag/push it to the dump hill. Tried to pick it apart but the roots were sewn together.

 

No kidding. I just planted a 10' thuja without using power equipment. The root ball was easily 150 lbs and a bear to move around the yard.

 

Did some experiments this morning and got some
This big white oak was cut in Oct '24.
The L3130 with tongs would barely pick it up at WOT, it wouldn't grab and hold the round with the grapple
I set the RPM to 1600 and tried picking up a round with just the grapple. I know it's been cut 6 months, but I don't think it has lost that much weight
Then I found the butt section...grapple held it like this...it finally fell out after a few minutes. Grapple doesn't have teeth on top rake
Then I grabbed it like you would normally load it...tractor would have no problem putting it in the dump trailer...

 

We found a hose that was leaking on the power steering in the front of the operator station. Luckily, it was just loose, tightened it up, the Big Pumpkin got it's first bath...
Miz Carol was shocked, to say the least...

 

I rarely run mine over 1500 when moving logs around.

 

A buddy of mine recently bought a KX057 and had a loose hose upon delivery (he got to run it all of a half hour). Came all the way off and made quite a mess he told me. Dealer came out and put 5 gallons of fluid back in and addressed the hose a day later. My buddy thought something catastrophic had happened. Hose was somewhere inside.

 

Nice shiny new tractor brother Jeff.


Now Miz Carol has some shade as well. That's handy down there in heat stroke country.

 

We decided to get a different style grapple as well. We have some land that needs cleaning up, this one will work better for that. It's a Catawba 60" root rake.
Took it out on it's first job Saturday morning, had a big pecan tree blow down from Helene to clean up.
Worked well at pulling some big roots up...
Had to push/roll the bottom section out of the hole...32" bar wouldn't reach across it.

Drug the top section to the burn pile
Bottom section

 

Don't be afraid to use that new Machine Jeff!! Lol

 

Did a little fishing this weekend.

 

Getting it done. Nice.

 

I almost didn't post due to the 'smol' drag. It just worked out better to cut it down short and not bring multiple logs at once. My 'easy' skid route is muddy right now, so I had to take the hilly route. I did finally put a battery in the old girl last year. 2003 to 2024 on the stock battery, sitting under a canopy shelter with no tender in Ohio weather. Frikkin impressive.

 

That's great on the battery. We put one in ours a couple years ago, IIRC

 

We'll it's not as shiny as jeff's, but it was put to use on the mill today.

And a new counter weight that I put together this winter.

I scrounged this forklift weight for it's compact size. I had to take advantage of the available holes for the 3 point hitch and the bottom 4x3 tubing is for the "feet" to keep it upright on its own.
The other steel is going to get some wood bolted to it in some fashion to provide some additional carrying ability.

 

That's a nice weight

 

Worked in the piney woods yesterday.
L4802 standing guard on a leaning pine...
Carrying 2 nice logs with the Catawba grapple