Show us your Arb Diggers please.

[Slicer Dicer]

1 hour ago, swinny said:

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

I have 2 fixed intermacato. I give them shit. Pulling roots out, levering boulders than I can just fit in side the grab etc, how I haven't managed to bend one yet is beyond me. quite surprised it bent so easily. But mine is has all the tines plated together so couldn't happen like that...

[Malus]

5 hours ago, swinny said:

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

That's a bit disappointing to hear after buying one recently based on everyone saying how good they are 🙄 to be fair though it's a brilliant bit of kit, very handy and speed up a job massively compared to moving stuff by hand or pushing brash with the bucket. Just would expect it to last.

 

4 hours ago, Slicer Dicer said:

I have 2 fixed intermacato. I give them shit. Pulling roots out, levering boulders than I can just fit in side the grab etc, how I haven't managed to bend one yet is beyond me. quite surprised it bent so easily. But mine is has all the tines plated together so couldn't happen like that...

Yeah exactly, I couldn't believe you lot use them for digging stumps out etc 😂 are they joined as in a log grab then as opposed to tines? The tines are pretty handy for brash and the few rocks I've moved have been easy to grab and position.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Malus

[monkeybusiness]

The individual tines will bend if you are rough - they are only as strong as the thickness of steel will allow and you are putting all of the force of an excavator through them at unusual angles…

They bend back though - just learn from the experience. 

[swinny]

Surely you could just weld some 16mm solid bar in between the tines half way down maybe just for support. That's what I'd do

[Slicer Dicer]

25 minutes ago, Malus said:

That's a bit disappointing to hear after buying one recently based on everyone saying how good they are 🙄 to be fair though it's a brilliant bit of kit, very handy and speed up a job massively compared to moving stuff by hand or pushing brash with the bucket. Just would expect it to last.

 

Yeah exactly, I couldn't believe you lot use them for digging stumps out etc 😂 are they joined as in a log grab then as opposed to tines? The tines are pretty handy for brash and the few rocks I've moved have been easy to grab and position.

Yes this is mine it's the TG16 light selector grab they call it I think more for general purpose work than timber handling but far stronger than it looks I have to say.

[doobin]

27 minutes ago, monkeybusiness said:

The individual tines will bend if you are rough - they are only as strong as the thickness of steel will allow and you are putting all of the force of an excavator through them at unusual angles…

They bend back though - just learn from the experience. 

Yup, I’ve run three Intermecatto for a long while. The only way I’ve bent them is by doing something stupid such as trying to grub out a massive stump because you can’t be arsed to track back for the ripper, or trying to pull out a steel gatepost. 
 Usually happens just after you think “I’m gonna bend this if I keep

abusing it!”

 

as said, learn from the experience. A bad workman blames the tools. My Intermecatto have done thousands of hours of hard work for me, and the only damage has been due to abuse. 

 

[dumper]

8 hours ago, Malus said:

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.

 

 

Always been told not to bend steel cold, warm it up before knocking six bells out of it 

[doobin]

2 hours ago, dumper said:

Always been told not to bend steel cold, warm it up before knocking six bells out of it 

If you can bash it back cold it’s the best option with these grabs. If you heat them up it’s easier to get them perfectly aligned, but you’ll have to quench them right otherwise they will bend where yo heated them with the slightest knock in the future. 

[dumper]

23 minutes ago, doobin said:

If you can bash it back cold it’s the best option with these grabs. If you heat them up it’s easier to get them perfectly aligned, but you’ll have to quench them right otherwise they will bend where yo heated them with the slightest knock in the future. 

I ran tree spades  for a few years the advice on straightening bent blades was to heat them to hand hot 100 degrees or so then to straighten less stress on the steel especially if the steel is treated 

[doobin]

9 hours ago, dumper said:

I ran tree spades  for a few years the advice on straightening bent blades was to heat them to hand hot 100 degrees or so then to straighten less stress on the steel especially if the steel is treated 

You sure that wasn’t the advice on the quenching temp? If you say hand hot I’m guessing you mean 100 Fahrenheit, that would be a sensible quenching temperature but not enough to make the steel bend any easier when trying to straighten it.