You lucky dawg you. Personally I would want a loader tractor for doing road maintenance...using the front bucket of a SS would be a PITA...I know you can buy other attachments, but You can buy 3PH blades and stuff pretty cheap...that and the loader bucket would be a decent combo...maybe a box scraper if needed...also pretty cheap. Plus the loader would have a shot of picking the totes full of green oak as mentioned...a SS big enough to do that would be MEGA bux.
Used Bobcat T190's go for 10 to 15 K. I've been running one for 12 years and can out grade, out dig, out lift and out plow compact tractors.
Buddy is thinking selling 7o hp JD and upgrading.. since I can borrow his JD I am encouraging it!! I still have Bota. Sometimes 2 pieces of equipment with different attachments on 1 job is soo much gooder
You don’t have to buy a skid steer. You can always do what I did and rent one for the weekend for the low low price of $650
I’m not familiar. This was the one and only skid steer I ever ran. Last summer I was putting up my pool and had several yards of dirt to move plus about 5-6 yards of pool sand. No way I would’ve moved all that in July using a shovel and wheelbarrow. It was a fun piece of equipment. Reminded me a lot of running a forklift, with a fancier steering system anyway.
I joined the Army as a Combat Engineer in Oct 79. One of the first days in basic training this tough old Nam Vet Drill Sgt was yellin at us and said, " You ain't gonna run a Caterpillar dozer or John Deere backhoe. The recruiter lied. You signed up to run a 117DAW. One pick, one shovel, seven days a week."
I rented a 7k pound excavator to improve driveway, during Covid options were limited was over 1,000 for 2 days but everything was booked
If you can get a couple decent used T190s for just over $10,000 grab em up and bring them this way you can double your money
I knew a couple of brothers that would line up some work and rent equipment for a weekend. They ran it hard and knew how to run it all through the night. They did well at it.
Ive thought about getting some myself, but without a way to move them i opted out. Perfect IMO for nuggets/shorts etc. Id do like amateur cutter did and cut the front off for access. Stacks 12" shorts in front and back fill with nuggets. I more or less do the same with pallets bins i make. In your case id say no.
Well a tote can take 1/3 cord if stacked. Fully wet oak is like 5600 lbs a cord. So it's about the right amount of power/ capacity for a full tote of oak. My buddy just got a toolcat 5610. 1500 lb front lift capacity is what they say, but I'm sure it can do a bit more than that. Who doesn't max out a machine's capacities? Bobcat Toolcat 5610
If you have someplace to put the IBC totes permanently (or at least they do not need to be moved once filled), they can be moved around by hand when empty. So the question is really whether they will benefit your processing/storage needs. I've looked for them in the past, however the only ones I have found are in the $100 range and I can live without them for that price. I can get all the pallets I want for free, make a quick pallet pin, and accomplish just about the same thing (I realize the pallet bins would need more support if I was going to stack them). The 42-horse tractor picks these up with no problem. Pallet bins are obviously not as clean or sexy as IBC totes, however other than the cost of screws, they're free. Each pallet bin holds approximately 1/3 cord.
Not to mention that the toolcat is big $$$. Here's a used 2016. $43+k. Air conditioning in the cab is really nice, but adds to the cost. 2016 Bobcat® 5600 146556 | Mid-State Equipment
