I have an interesting problem I'm thinking on. We live on the side of a lake, we have a boat park (basically an inlet into our lawn about as wide and long as our boat, with deck all around it). This inlet attracts weed and other washed in organic matter.
I currently clean it out using a stake driven into the lake bed outside the boat park, a dredge (actually an old metal lattice shelf with ropes on it), and some pulleys so I can use the tractor to pull the dredge outwards into the lake.
This works well enough, but leaves a pile out in the lake that eventually washes away.
My better half has been thinking about some way to lift the gunk out of the lake, then we could put it in the compost pile, and it wouldn't wash back in.
I'm in the market for a new tractor, and if I got a backhoe then I could attach some sort of mesh bucket to the backhoe with a rope, and then could lift that mesh bucket up with the backhoe, and dump it into a trailer to take to the compost. The backhoe would reach over the decking, where the FEL won't.
I'm considering fabricating something to achieve a similar effect without having to buy a $7K backhoe.
I've got a picture in my head of a metal boom on a pivot on top of a post. So I could pull the mesh bucket up using a pulley on the boom, then swing the boom around to dump into the trailer. The boom would need to reach over the deck (so about 2 metres / 6 feet to give some clearance). I can imagine a pulley system on the boom so I can pull the load up with the tractor, but counter weighting it so it doesn't fall over would be complex. Has anyone done something like that before?
Another option is that the new tractor (probably a B2601) will have SSQA. I could make a SSQA attachment that was like a bale spear, but longer, with appropriate bracing. That would allow my FEL to then extend far enough over the deck to be over the water, then again a pulley on the end of that, and use the curl plus lift on the FEL to lift the gunk out of the water, and then drive the tractor to the trailer (or all the way to the compost pile). I have a ballast box, and a B2601 will lift about 400kg at the pivot pins, I'd probably only lift about 100kg of gunk in a load anyway (maybe less) - so even on the end of a reasonably long spear probably still within the lift capacity. Certainly it would beat raking or shovelling it out by hand. Again, has anyone done something like this before? I could probably prototype with some chains and clamps on the bucket of my current BX to see if the concept can work.
I currently clean it out using a stake driven into the lake bed outside the boat park, a dredge (actually an old metal lattice shelf with ropes on it), and some pulleys so I can use the tractor to pull the dredge outwards into the lake.
This works well enough, but leaves a pile out in the lake that eventually washes away.
My better half has been thinking about some way to lift the gunk out of the lake, then we could put it in the compost pile, and it wouldn't wash back in.
I'm in the market for a new tractor, and if I got a backhoe then I could attach some sort of mesh bucket to the backhoe with a rope, and then could lift that mesh bucket up with the backhoe, and dump it into a trailer to take to the compost. The backhoe would reach over the decking, where the FEL won't.
I'm considering fabricating something to achieve a similar effect without having to buy a $7K backhoe.
I've got a picture in my head of a metal boom on a pivot on top of a post. So I could pull the mesh bucket up using a pulley on the boom, then swing the boom around to dump into the trailer. The boom would need to reach over the deck (so about 2 metres / 6 feet to give some clearance). I can imagine a pulley system on the boom so I can pull the load up with the tractor, but counter weighting it so it doesn't fall over would be complex. Has anyone done something like that before?
Another option is that the new tractor (probably a B2601) will have SSQA. I could make a SSQA attachment that was like a bale spear, but longer, with appropriate bracing. That would allow my FEL to then extend far enough over the deck to be over the water, then again a pulley on the end of that, and use the curl plus lift on the FEL to lift the gunk out of the water, and then drive the tractor to the trailer (or all the way to the compost pile). I have a ballast box, and a B2601 will lift about 400kg at the pivot pins, I'd probably only lift about 100kg of gunk in a load anyway (maybe less) - so even on the end of a reasonably long spear probably still within the lift capacity. Certainly it would beat raking or shovelling it out by hand. Again, has anyone done something like this before? I could probably prototype with some chains and clamps on the bucket of my current BX to see if the concept can work.