Show us your Arb Diggers please.

[Slicer Dicer]

25 minutes ago, Stephen Blair said:

10 years on from me starting this thread and my Arbdigger life has come to an end.  Had to face facts that my back can’t take the bouncing about and sitting for hours.  Luckily I’ve a good friend who has 1 with lots of attachments who loves sitting on his.

 

Arthritis? My back doesn't like sitting on the machine for too long either- it's worse all day in the machine than grafting for a day- I find regular little walks every hour or two helps.

 

[Stephen Blair]

20 hours ago, Slicer Dicer said:

Arthritis? My back doesn't like sitting on the machine for too long either- it's worse all day in the machine than grafting for a day- I find regular little walks every hour or two helps.

 

Just 30 plus years of graft and stress!  I’m pretty high strung and don’t deal with stress well.  So I’ve implemented changes that should help my future health.

[Wood wasp]

I bought this to help sort out garden, wee bit smaller at 1.8t than I planned but it's immaculate and was on my doorstep.

 

It has full service history but I'll change oil just as matter of course. Book says SAE 10w-30 or 15w-40, for UK climate does it really matter?

 

Also should I go for fully synthetic, part, mineral etc? Book doesn't mention anything about that! 

Thanks in advance for any advice

[doobin]

7 hours ago, Wood wasp said:

I bought this to help sort out garden, wee bit smaller at 1.8t than I planned but it's immaculate and was on my doorstep.

 

It has full service history but I'll change oil just as matter of course. Book says SAE 10w-30 or 15w-40, for UK climate does it really matter?

 

Also should I go for fully synthetic, part, mineral etc? Book doesn't mention anything about that! 

Thanks in advance for any advice

Either grade will do. Not familiar with that engine but I’d say mineral will be fine- it’s a small enough engine not to have dpf etc. 

 

[Wood wasp]

1 hour ago, doobin said:

Either grade will do. Not familiar with that engine but I’d say mineral will be fine- it’s a small enough engine not to have dpf etc. 

 

Thanks Doobin, I just ordered the oil from Cat... all £65 for it and the filter

[Scotty2809]

On 30/04/2023 at 21:32, Malus said:

I wonder if there's a difference in idler/roller design between brands that's better or worse. The little Kubotas are usually pretty good until the tracks get a bit stretchy. Have had issues with the Kubota u48 though, that used to throw off brand new tracks with no noticeable wear on the idler. Also had issues with the check valve on the track tensioner on a u48 so it wouldn't let grease in after putting the track back on.. may have lost a grease gun or two in a similar fashion to you 😂

 

I'm not the best at taking photos but here are a few from this job 

 

some nice switchbacks there... 

May i ask where this is? My Mrs is a big rider, also loves dirt jumping and gets a hand in digging and building at the local spot. 

 

[Malus]

On 25/10/2023 at 08:18, Scotty2809 said:

some nice switchbacks there... 

May i ask where this is? My Mrs is a big rider, also loves dirt jumping and gets a hand in digging and building at the local spot. 

 

It's up at Glentress forest near Peebles, Scottish Borders. They just opened to the public a couple of weeks ago so should be reasonably fresh still if you're up that way. Always good to hear of people digging trails, there's nothing better than riding something you've built!

[Malus]

Digger is now set up a bit better for "arb" - enough to join the thread anyway. Got an intermercato grab and rotator - drags brash a lot quicker than by hand and came in handy clearing some overstood hedging growing up through power lines. Doesn't feel nice to use under the tilting hitch so better to pin it direct to dipper, bit of a pain to change bit not too bad. Also pretty handy for holding logs to be cut of for firewood back at the yard.

 

When I get some time in the new year I'm planning on making a little log trailer to pull along with the digger, anyone got one? Pros and cons? 

 

Picked up a used femac flail for it too. I've used a flail head in the past so knew what to expect in terms of cutting capacity etc. This one's got boot flails which I think are preferable to the hammer flails I've used in the past. The boots seem to cope a bit better when you hit rocks or metal, and every now and then a hammer would get stuck folded back on itself and put the rotor out of balance. 

 

How are you all protecting the cab when using grabs/flails? I doubt I'll be getting marguard but was thinking of making a removable bar guard for the windscreen.

[Malus]

I managed to bend one of the tines on my grab this week. Bent it back with a sledge ok but it took a bit of beating. Was a bit surprised it bent tbh, has that happened to anyone else? It's an intermercato tg16.

 

Basically I was moving a lump of willow and I was rotating/dropping it off and when I slewed away one tine was lodged in a hole in the log. The log rotated and landed as expected but it just levered the tine and bent it.

 

 

[swinny]

Someone posted up on the fb arbtalk a few weeks back k how they had snapped a tine off one of the intermecato grabs and posted a pic. A few other folk saying they're made out of cheese now and quality gone down....

 

I suppose with anything. They can break and bend etc