Here is a few pictures of a land clearing project we are working on for a local guy. We are using the home made root rate that we made last year, mounted on the D6C & the 318B Excavator to knock the trees down. The property owner had someone else in there first with a forestry head & they had left all the big trees standing. We are raking up what the forestry head left behind plus digging the stumps out that he left behind as well.
Outstanding! I will never get tired of seeing pics of work gettin' done. Who made that root rake?
We did it in house. Sent out to a plasma cutting shop to cut the platework. See the link below for the work in progress. HeavyEquipmentForums
The rake sure turned out nice ! Looks better built than a factory unit . Looks like it will come in handy dealing with the mulch & limbs left behind .
Here is a few more of the clearing project today. We are using the 318B to dig around the bigger trees a bit, then push them over. Could use a bigger excavator for this job, but this is what we have & it just takes a little longer........
Yeah Metalman , your excavator & dozer combination make a great team for projects like that . Clearing for pasture or farm ground ?
That is a very nice rake Metalman, nice job. :thumbsup Right on, as my tag line says - Take what you win, run what you brung.:drinkup
I believe short term the owner intends to rent it out for cash cropping & long term to have it developed.
The dirt sure looks good & lays nice for cropping . Almost looks like it was cleared in the past & let go back in forest , maybe 25 to 30 year growth on the trees ?
That sure is a great looking rake. Looks as good or better than anything you can buy. Keep posting!
I agree on the 25-30 yr dormancy, with the exception of some of the headlands where I would venture a guess that some of the oldest trees in there may be 80-100 years old, real hardwoods & up 60' + tall. Our area generally speaking is "heavy clay", but will grow good crops if handled right they say. Lots of soya beans grown around here.
Thanks for the rake compliment........if anyone wants to build one, I have the drawing on file that I can send at no charge. I wonder when our valued friends from "Down Under" may chime in telling us it is just to narrow!!
Nice that you have put that good looking rake to use. Looks like it works pretty good.
Yair . . . Would anyone do that? (grins) Seriously though that is a nice piece of fabrication and it looks like it works well. Excellent job. Cheers.
Yeah , It's amazing how fast nature will take back formally clear ground . If ya want to grow a forest all we have to do is quit mowing the grass and in a year or two tree saplings are starting up . I got a small clearing gig to go to next week that's about 25 year growth . Customer wants to make pasture out of it .
Got a similar project going on here in the south clearing this jungle for a cattle farmer. Look how much poorer the soil looks on these sandy uplands. He will have to pour the chicken litter to it to establish a Bermuda pasture, but that is what a lot of these guys have plenty of.
Looking good ETMF ! Kind of the same way in my area . Got plenty of turkey & chicken litter to help on getting the green stuff growing in poor ground . Hey , is the cutting edge on the V plow serrated ?
It looks just like this photo, which is a blade on a timber company dozer in this area. I re-cut my teeth this year to look like this and it is working real well. I will probably have to replace the knife blades after this season, or find another blade. This one is getting down to the minimum width to cut anything of decent size. Of course, it's not a D8, so I don't take jobs with big timber anyway.
That's interesting , imagine she cuts nice . I had contemplated notching the edge on the K/G blade , the only drawback for me is once in a while catch or glance off a big rock in the ground . Was afraid it might do more damage to the edge if notched so ended up leaving it smooth & just keep it sharp .
Metalman: Read your fabrication link, thanks for writing that all up. What material did you use for the tynes and how is it holding up from abrasive wear? What wall thickness in the 6x6? I am going to build one for my D5H, just hope it has enough weight and power to shove the rake through a foot of soil and roots. Have a 13' blade, so 15 tynes. Decided to put some teeth on to make it move more easily in the soil, so scored some nice little 30 degree chisel point and a 1.5" wide weld on adapter.
Here is a copy of my assembly drawing. 8" Sq x .500 wall Hss for the cross tube. Tynes were just cut from 2" Mild Steel. No real wear on mine yet. I have in mind to tip my rake teeth with some AR mat'l when I notice some wear beginning.
Thanks. I got a killer deal on some teeth and adapters from my favourite non-Cat independent. They had sat on the shelf for decades, so it was just short of a giveawy (plus I got a spare set of teeth). That will take care of the tips (if the rocks don't destroy the teeth and/or adapters. I was tempted to curve the face of the tynes, but that would make it tough to weld on a hard, round wear bar if it is needed. Have been struggling with using the square beam loaded in torsion or just move it up a little and make longer tynes that get pushed by the cutting edge loading the square in bending. Also thinking of taking the side loads out with tabs that push on the blade edge, eliminating need for any bracing on the two long tynes. I already have a pair of 2" eyes on the top of the blade face, 9' apart, so that is easy.