This started about three weeks ago when this perfectly healthy pine tree fell in the pond. Of course most of the limbs were on the pond side where the most light was so they’re underwater and jammed up in the muddy pond bottom.
Plan A was to cut the trunk at an angle near the water line, hope the stump fell back in the hole (it did about halfway), hook a chain to it, extend with a supposed 9K lb working strength bull rope, and pull it out. That got it about 6’ at which point it dug in, so did the tractor, and the made in China rope broke in the middle not near anything. Probably made out of recycled Ziplock bags and fly ash from trash incinerators but price was good at the time. Another reminder to me cheapest at the checkout isn’t always really cheapest.
Ever since I bought the Kubota, my father and I have been having problems busting ropes, chains, and various pieces of tree rigging stuff we’ve used with his older, smaller tractors for years. It’s a HST with R4’s so according to a lot of stuff I’ve read it shouldn’t be able to pull an empty Radio Flyer wagon downhill on asphalt, however on dry ground in a max pull scenario (like this one), we keep breaking things. The “oh, there’s no way it could break that” method was not working.
I really have no idea what the max drawbar force on a L4701 is but with it weighing about 6,000 lb or a bit less (by the time everything on it is added up) and some of the things we’ve broken, we figured absolute maximum under ideal conditions couldn’t be over about 4,000lb and usually probably not that much. So we finally decided to go through every piece of rigging we use and make sure we know the working loads and that they’re all within the forces that could be applied using a 6,000lb drawbar assumption, which should be well above reality, to provide a safety factor.
That exercise resulted in an 11,500lb rated 150’ synthetic winch line extension with steel eyelets on both ends, an additional 10,000KG snatch block, a pair of 7500lb tree saver anchor straps, and a short length of 1/2” grade 70 chain to link the snatch block to the tree. Of course some of our existing rigging was fine. Some is now relegated to lighter use with the lighter tractors.
The fixed snatch block is attached to a big gum tree. Not really room for a tractor even if the L would pull it straight out, which I’m sure it wouldn’t. Of course the snatch block down by the butt of the tree trunk is doubling whatever force the L is putting on the rope, thus the need for the 1/2” chain.
Like everything else, the L pulls better downhill than uphill and the nearby dam made a swell downhill run for the pull. Just needed Dad to sit well out of the way on the dam to watch the tree and rigging so he could signal me to start and stop as I couldn’t see the tree at all with it on the opposite side of the dam. It, and a bunch of stinking blue mud, pulled right out easy peasy. Of course moving 25’ x 8” limbs, chunks of tree trunk, etc. covered in blue mud that smells like a combination of rotten grass, goose crap, and a dead rotten turtle was much more pleasant with the grapple.
BTW I do know a skidding winch would be ideal for this sort of thing. Problem is I just can’t convince myself to spend that much for what use I’d get out of it. Maybe someday…
