Best way to move big wood?

climbhightree said:
I don't see any piece, I couldn't lift with my BMG. In fact I am pretty sure I could carry almost double what the video shows. It is all in how you try to carry/move the piece...low and tight.

But maybe this is an bad example of what you are talking about.

Free spinning grapple is awesome for flowing turns. To turn the grapple, to grab something, you just have to learn how to tweak the mini...or use of the brush to spin it. Once you grab the brush you can lock the spin, or free spin depending how you hang the grapple.

Imo if you are using the grapple (like pic below) you are using it way wrong. It doesn't hang low, unless you let it...and most times you shouldn't.
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Those pieces were small as they came out of the woods and had to go between trees...just baby pieces.

but my point, since I had a bmg for over a year, is that when you want to grab something the damn thing spins. With my Dingo grapple I can just ram the piece, flip it or whatever I want to do to make it get grabbed. Can't imagine a free spinning being "awesome" for any reason.
 
So I'm assuming you drag/carry everything out perpendicular to the mini then, butts sticking out one side of the grapple? Or can you grab a pile of brush by the butts, and drag it out length wise?

I used forks for a year, before getting the bmg. So I am fairly familiar working with brush in that manner.

But to each their own. Everyone has their own way that works for them.
 
I don't have a video showing why/where the free spinning grapple is nice. But I will get one. Other than feeding the chipper.

When in tight areas, it allows long brush to follow the path of the mini while turning...instead of an ridged 20' long mini (if grapple is locked).
 
you can grab logs on the ends with the grapple bucket too. you just have to position the butt end under one claw or the other. i load 9' logs 24" in diameter that way with my CAT skid into the chipbox sometimes.
 
climbhightree said:
So I'm assuming you drag/carry everything out perpendicular to the mini then, butts sticking out one side of the grapple? Or can you grab a pile of brush by the butts, and drag it out length wise?

I used forks for a year, before getting the bmg. So I am fairly familiar working with brush in that manner.

But to each their own. Everyone has their own way that works for them.
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If I am dragging brush or a leader I generally choke a mini porty to the grapple and have an old single climbing snap on the other end and the length is then adjustable. Then I snap choke a butt or pile. I can elevate the butt/butts to lighten the haul. You probably have the advantage when dragging brush if you can get the spin to cooperate...but then again this thread was bout moving wood.

I used to hate when I had a lot of wood side by side (the way it often comes off a td) and you just could not get a grab with the bmg without getting off and eating up time. You had to make space to get the prongs to penetrate to the sides of the piece. With my grapple I can roll them backwards, forwards or flick them or grab the butt etc.
 
Don't get me wrong tho, the BMG is a very good value, the most reasonable and very dependable grapple I looked at for my second mini which I got rid of as it was not going out much.
 
Here is a big stump cut from a silver poplar we removed today. I'm not sure what this piece weighs but my guess is 4k+. Bmg grapple picked it up once it found an area the jaws could get around.



 
treevet said:
Damn that's a nice loader. Can it doze at all with a bucket on it?...Into chips, grindings...stone...firewood...
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I bought it with a 1 cubic yard material bucket on it. It does really good on wood chips. Its not a dirt work machine though. Really the machine is best for material handling around a yard and picking things up with the grapple. I'd put some video up of the use but my gopro was stolen out of my pickup last week.

TreeLogic said:
I just wish they had a canopy on them...and enclosed cab....and AC :)
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TreeLogic, They make it with an enclosed cab and AC and a radio. I opted for the 2post because it gives the best visibility and keeps people from getting too comfortable in the cab. We don't do snow removal so the cab wasn't necessary.
 
fkn thieves, feel for ya, been hit myself could tell stories for hours ...BUT!!! Caught last one on dna from a pepsi can he left in my truck he stole with 2 dingo s on trailer and was pulled over by cops at 5 am :-)

watts.webp
 
Man that sucks. My nearly brand new SC352 and trailer was stolen back in '04 maybe. Filed a report, said a prayer, and figured it was gone.

Cop calls me a year later and said they found in Florence, SC (hour and a half away) and to come pick it up. It sat on the trailer unused the whole time! Hours were the same. The dude had all kinds of stolen items and just hadn't gotten around to using it yet.

Then there was the 200T that went missing one morning. I told the guys there were cameras on the building and that we'd figure out who stole our saw in a few minutes. 2 minutes later an employee fessed up.
 
thats great to hear some people getting stolen equipment back. I've had all my saws stolen a few times before. I've recovered a few of them from pawn shops but unfortunately still a lot of my stolen stuff out there in the world. Pisses a guy off but not much you can do about it.
 
Here is a picture of some of the logs we made from a recent job. We had about three piles this size. All residential tree work at an apartment complex. This is why we needed some bigger equipment than the mini skid loader.

 
if you only knew how many pawn shops we visited after the SC352. what sucks is the cops charged me nearly $200 for storing it at their facility for a day or two, and they blew a trailer tire that I had to fix before I could take her home. couldn't complain too much though :)
 
A buddy found my ms880 at a pawn shop 2 years ago. (not many of these come around in pawn shops) the serial number had been filed off but i told the cops it was mine and that the serial number on the inside of the cylinder would match. 2 days later a cop handed me a box of parts containing my saw. he personally had disassembled it down to the tiniest parts and broke/lost a lot of it in the process. i did get my saw back though.

The worst part of recovering equipment from a pawn shop is that you have to buy it back from them. I hate pawn shops.
 
I have had 2 fairly new $5k dump trailers stolen. My new one at $68 hun, they will never get. Busted the window in my Silverado with a concrete planter couple of months ago in my driveway under my bedroom in upper middle class neighborhood, and stole new 201, 150 and ms200. Just after second dump trailer stolen. Next night my 21 year old son and I watched a movie at night then went to bed. 3 am I wake up to a car door shutting. Next the night light is tripped in the driveway. I grab my Glock out of my night table and go down the upstairs hall. I get in the second story hallway and hear the garage door opening. I lock and load. I turn the corner and open the basement stair doors and start to go down as I figure they are stealing stuff in garage. There in front in dark is black figure taking first step up stairs. I put my finger on the trigger and yell halt.

It was my son. Nearly had a heart attack. Never considered he would go back out after he went to bed.
 
treevet said:
I have had 2 fairly new $5k dump trailers stolen. My new one at $68 hun, they will never get. Busted the window in my Silverado with a concrete planter couple of months ago in my driveway under my bedroom in upper middle class neighborhood, and stole new 201, 150 and ms200. Just after second dump trailer stolen. Next night my 21 year old son and I watched a movie at night then went to bed. 3 am I wake up to a car door shutting. Next the night light is tripped in the driveway. I grab my Glock out of my night table and go down the upstairs hall. I get in the second story hallway and hear the garage door opening. I lock and load. I turn the corner and open the basement stair doors and start to go down as I figure they are stealing stuff in garage. There in front in dark is black figure taking first step up stairs. I put my finger on the trigger and yell halt.

It was my son. Nearly had a heart attack. Never considered he would go back out after he went to bed.
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