Show us your Arb Diggers please.

[Matthew Storrs]

1 hour ago, the village idiot said:

Think I might have asked this before, but what is my best option for log handling?

 

I want to take cordwood from a stack, slew it round 180 degrees and then crosscut with chainsaws whilst holding the log off the ground.

 

Logs are generally 4-5 mtrs long and up to 20" diameter.

 

Am I better off with a grapple or a screw splitter? Let's say on an 8ton machine.

Grapple definitely, nice secure hold on it. screw splitter would be a nightmare trying to get into smaller diameter stuff enough to hold it whilst you saw. My grapple is 2ft wide which always means I’m left with a 2ft log at the end which is a bit of a pain!

[Matthew Storrs]

1 hour ago, Stephen Blair said:

Really enjoying the power of the new machine.&

Lovely- looks like the kind of job you can get stuck into. Reckon you’ve got a good combo there- backhoe for the grunt, 3 tonner for the finesse- and no lowloader in site. Did you have a dumper there or move all the material with the 4in1?

[Stephen Blair]

I originally had a dumper on hire and shifted about 50% of it and was sick of jumping on and off and rattling to bits in the 3 tonner as I was into rocky stuff.

  So went and bought the 3cx.

  Shifted the remaining ground in half the time with the 3cx with an air seat, air con and effortless digging .

[dig-dug-dan]

30 minutes ago, Stephen Blair said:

I originally had a dumper on hire and shifted about 50% of it and was sick of jumping on and off and rattling to bits in the 3 tonner as I was into rocky stuff.

  So went and bought the 3cx.

  Shifted the remaining ground in half the time with the 3cx with an air seat, air con and effortless digging .

Had an ideal job to price up for a jcb. Dig out a soakaway, cart the soil using front bucket, cart tonne bag of gravel. Phoned a local guy, but he refused to use his front bucket for soil as 'it puts too much strain on the front axle'. I did it myself in the end with a 360 and a dumper. It worked out cheaper too!

[the village idiot]

3 hours ago, Matthew Storrs said:

Grapple definitely, nice secure hold on it. screw splitter would be a nightmare trying to get into smaller diameter stuff enough to hold it whilst you saw. My grapple is 2ft wide which always means I’m left with a 2ft log at the end which is a bit of a pain!

Excellent. Thank you

[Matthew Storrs]

I reckon I’d use a wheeled digger a lot- my only reservations are I do a lot of stone walling- big lumps of granite so all needs a digger to do it- 3 tonner struggles with a lot of the rocks but is easy to jump on and off- which needs doing for almost every large rock placed,a wheeled digger- got to swing the seat around- climb down the steps and then get back in again! I guess soft ground could be a problem too- but then it’s just a case of putting the right machine on the job and id still have a tracked digger anyway. 

 

[Matthew Storrs]

38 minutes ago, dig-dug-dan said:

Had an ideal job to price up for a jcb. Dig out a soakaway, cart the soil using front bucket, cart tonne bag of gravel. Phoned a local guy, but he refused to use his front bucket for soil as 'it puts too much strain on the front axle'. I did it myself in the end with a 360 and a dumper. It worked out cheaper too!

Swings and roundabouts I think for a job like that- 360 and dumper means the soil only needs to be in a bucket once. Whereas backhoe is just one machine in the job- no trailers to get it there and could pretty much do the whole job without getting out of the seat, this appeals to me- My knees are getting pretty bad these days from 14 years working on my own jumping on and off machines etc. When I used to do a lot of fencing I’d be in and out the tractor 300 times a day sometimes-it’s a killer!

[Conor Wright]

Excellent. Thank you

My hydraulic thumb on a tb125. Narrower than a proper hydraulic grapple. it's easy to cut the log between the tines once you are careful not to cut right through and hit the bucket. Drop the last two logs three quarters cut and finish on the ground.. its welded to mine but cant see why it couldn't be clamped on with bolts. might work for you.
It's all about matching the geometry of the bucket/hitch to the grab. That same grab possibly wouldn't work so well on another machine.

[the village idiot]

What are people's thoughts on an ideal size machine for woodland work?

 

I personally don't need to move the machine off site.

 

Most common job would be log handling, rarely anything huge. Would also be good to have the option to power a flail/brushcutter head and the capacity to grade over some rutted rides.

 

All thoughts gratefully received!

[Matthew Storrs]

5 ton would do all that comfortably whilst still not being too big. Don’t think I’d want to go any bigger really. Even a 3 ton would be fine but may struggle a bit with larger timber (2ft plus dia). Somewhere in between the 2 if you can find one.