Hey guys, Its good to be back on the forum, after a long old winter up north here I'm getting spring fever, and my welding tanks still have some gas left In them I know last year I was looking for a way to Transplant a bunch of evergreens with the mini X ,and I still may try that Idea.......But Now I want to fab up a Tree Spade for my skid steer. I have never used one, or seen one up close, so any tips from you guys that have them , or used them would be appreciated:drinkup I plan on getting some material for It this week The size will be somewhat small, for a 24" wire basket, And I think maybe 20" stroke cylinders will work, the next size up from that jumps to a 30" stroke. The more Information I get, the easeir It will be for me to put together....If you have some close up pics of your spade, It would help me with the concept Thanks In Advance......I will be posting,with pictures as I go along Danny
opcorn
Dont think it will work, you made a terrible job of that bucket last year JK looking forward to the build
I just got the material today, Hold your horses I was just looking at that bucket, Its still on the machine I'm trying to figure out the cylinder stroke, The rest of the job should go Ok.....I should have some sparks flying by tommorow
what about hardening the cutting edges?
I had some time today to start this spade...I got jammed up on the math.....But after time I figured It out......I will be back on It Monday......And I now know where I'm going with It:notworthy....Its a start, Keep the pop corn machine plugged In
:notworthyHey Guys, I'm back at this tree spader again.....so far Its going ok. I had 1 bad JIC SWIVEL 90 so they had to recrimp a new one on Lots of welding and fitting on this one
I have all the cylinders on now.......Working on the blades next:drinkup
Looks good! Are you making your blades concave or straight to fit like a 3 sided pyramid when extended?
I'm useing hard steel for the blades, the tips Imay hot oil quench them Concave.
It looks like you´re well on the way, but does this help you any? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxgiOoQL9v0
Thanks, The spade works real good on that machine. I have some more time to spend on this job today....I consider It free time for me, because I'm In Between seasons
Things are going good on the spader......The blades are now all done, and have a coat of paint on them......I had to take all the hydraulics off......oil all over the place......what a mess, good thing I have lots of wood shaving hanging around. The main frame Is now In the warm part of the shop, to get cleaned up, then I will zip it outside for a coat of rust paint........It preaty cold up here, and I dont like spraying In the shop. I can see the end now.....will be done soon :notworthy:Banghead PS.....i FORGOT A WELD on the blade, after Its painted.....Time to get that back In the cold area, and get that weld on.....then dab some paint on.......were still good to go.......It should be rigged up this week.
Done Deal Pack Er Up Had time to finish off the spade today Al Is good except for a small drip at the contro lvalve We still have lots of frost In the ground, So I cant get out there to use It just yet Cheers.......on to the next project:drinkup
You need some "Danny Steel" decals.. Look good Too
Nice work!
Very impressive. Hopefully it holds up alright. They can put some amazing stresses on the machine and the attachment and result in cracks and bends were least expected. Looks amazing.
Nice looking piece of equipment! How much $$ do you have material?
Thanks all, There was close to $1000 In Hydraulics....Most of the steel I had here In my shop, from jobs that I did way back, For Instance I use to do repairs all kinds of Crane Booms, And made a lot of drilling tools, And pile driving equipment....And It was hard to throw a nice piece of steel In the scrap bin....I do have to buy the odd piece now and then, but I try to use what I have to keep the cost down. I always consider my labor free, as long as Its In between jobs.
I don't throw much of any steel away, it its been cut off with a torch I will trim out the good piece. I've got a heavy duty shelf that I stack iron on from 24" to 1" long, each shelf is for flatbar, angle, round, pipe or DOM, and square tubing. Once again, nice job.
Tried out he spade today, and Its lifting the front of the skid steer............I'm goint to make the blades pointed more, hope that helps
Can you add some weight to it?
Thats a good Idea.......hmmmmm what do I have kicken around the shop.......It digs In about 8" then It lifts the machine
Need to let the frost go out first Danny ...........:lmao
weight bolted to the rear wheels or hung on the back side behind the wheels
my wife told me the same thing:beatsme I thought I would need the weight at the front.....The further out the better. I'm atleast going to put the grinder to the tips...And maybe call up a few old GF and see If they could stand on the front end while I do my digging
ok read it wrong... maybe you could put bar bell weights on it.. weld a peg on each leg
Thats a great Idea, I did that to my grader blade for the 3PH , and I still have the steel plates.....I also have some old plastic covered bar bell weights some were....Thats what I will do weld a Peg on.......All the gals I called this morning still never returned my calls.
You probably don't need weights. We were digging 42" today with a bobcat. You may need different engineering. Do you have a rear stabilizer on the machine? A spade usually opens to surround the tree, then is closed around it and the base is locked together to form a solid ring, this keeps things from flexing out of alignment. Placement of the blades is very important, you don't push to far to fast, and keep going around the circle a little at a time. 1-6", 2-6", 3- 10", 2-12", 1-18" etc. Until you have the blades fully seated. The stabilizer is to help keep the machine from lifting. It needs to be at the far back well behind the wheels so all the weight is transferred to the front to keep the weight on the blades. Keep at it you will get the hang of it. I think you blades are more than pointed enough, sharp edges on all sides, bottom and sides to help it cut. That's all I can think of for now.
OK, checked the specs on your bobcat (new holland ls150, correct?) this is a very small and light machine for this application. That does not mean it can not do this, you have set up for a small 24" basket, which should be fine. However I take back my statement on weights, you may need more weight.
Some of these spades use vibrators on the blades to help penetrate the soil.
The weight of the 150 New Holland Is 4500lbs. The blades are going about 1/2 way into the ground....And I a'm forcing each blade a bit at a time. Theres no real flexing on the spade....all that part looks good......no hyd leaks...and the rams have lots of force...I'm going to try the pegs on the front, with some weight
Nice Job Danny ! ........ Hmmmmmm ...... I guess that's why BCat has added extra vertical lift cyl's at the rear of the skid .....it'll lift the rear of the skid off of the ground, transfering all of the weight forward, plus if you add them you'll have extra ballast when picking up them big root balls I would make a guess that making the spades more pointed won't help, yours look super and appear to look like the OEM's tapper
DON'T add extra weight to the front ...... your machine will already be challenged to pick-up everything off and out of the ground without doing a nose dive (now that we know the size of your skid)..... go online and look at the stabilizers ..... it'll be like killing 2 birds with one stone
With the rear stabilizers in place you can put much more of the weight of the machine on the spade if needed. Something you can build also.
How much can his machine pick up? I´m guessing the heaviest tree + root ball isn´t going to weigh over 300 lbs. The tree spade looks like it´s a little heavier than a standard bucket. If you´ve got any weights that you can hang on it, it can´t hurt anything. Your worst case scenario is that you take the weight off. Rear stabilizers would also work.
All the skidsteers with tree spades I see around here have rear stabilizers on them. they are usually as far back as they can mount them. this way you can put down pressure on the spade. hope you get it right, looks like a nice set up.
Yair... I am assuming the present setup drives all the spades together? I saw a similar jigger on the linkage of a little thirty horse Belarus...the spade rams had individual controllers so they could be driven in one at a time...some times with a bit of to and froing to cut past a rock or root. The tractor had a custom attachment on the loader bucket frame to load the trees onto a flatbed and the whole arrangement seemed to work pretty well. They worked around the clock to move a five thousand tree two year old orange orchard before we moved in with the scrapers
Scrub puller, This spade can control each blade one at a time.......And you guys are right about rear stabilizers....It was on my mind before I built this rig....But at this stage, my controller has only 3 outlets I'm looking for weights, around the shop here, and weld 2 pegs on the 2 front corners.......I could also maybe weld 2 platforms on the front, hire 2 guys to stand on the front while I dig the tree, then jump off when i lift the root ball, Lol....
you could always pull stabilizers on the rear you manually set. use some tubing that sides inside each other and cut holes for pins to go in. you can't up pressure on them to lift the rear but it maybe enough to keep the nose on the ground. just an idea that may help you.
splitter valve maybe?
Yes I think a splitter valve would work, If I went that route I think You guys just like to keep me welding away I have been working on this today, And went with your Idea, and the others that also pointed It out, with the tube...I figured by the time I got more weight on the front, I could have this rear Stabilizer set up and running
Pictures Of The Rear Stabilizers Ready for paint:notworthy
Time to put some load on to see If the welding passes :cool2 We had some bad weather here today, So this worked out good for me Hope It works,:beatsme I will hook the spade up tommorow Thanks for your comments, and suggestions
The Stableizers are helping, But I still had to add weights to the front
tree spade Hi Danny, your spade looks great, was wondering how you are making out with it and if you had any sketch's of the dimensions you would share? I could use one of these and building one seems like the best option for me thanks for any help Luke
And if nothing else- you have the 4 tire rotate under control in NASCAR fashion! Seriously- great job. Keep us in the loop.