Figure 1  About the New Design -  For starters we have to be strong enough to handle the rollback power on 40 plus hp compact tractors.  Picking up a load equal to the carrying capacity of these tractors is no trouble for anyone.  The machine weight is relatively low and even ballasted in the rear the carry capacity is low enough that most grapple bottoms can pick it up if all you want to do is pick it up and put it down.  We are aware that you need more than that from a grapple.  You can get pallet forks to pick it up and put it down.  CAL has used fully integrated 3/8” tines with a heavy corner radius and optimized the spacing to maximize the rollout strength while keeping the weight down to increase capacity.  There is plenty of meat in the corner on the bucket tines as shown above, tying the lower bucket tines to a 3x3 box tube at the top and bottom.  The superior bucket body is finished off with the 1 5/8”OD schedule 80 pipe tying the tines together at the ends with 3/8” tapered gussets/cutters on both sides of every tine.  The spacing on the bucket tines is designed to allow grapple lids to strike evenly on 2 gussets per lid to be certain the lids will bottom out about 3/16” before the lid cylinder bottoms out thereby extending the cylinder packing life exponentially.      After creating the best full blown root grapple bucket for a compact tractor we packed the lids and hinges with features that open the gap between this grapple and the next best even further.  Look at the shape of the grapple lid in the embedded drawing fig2.  Old design root grapples give the illusion of increased grapple capacity by coming farther out along the top of the grapple and then turning in a tighter than 90 degree manner down to the bucket body.  This creates a pocket of air that appears as extra space when the bucket is closed, but actually cannot be filled ever.  You see, by maintaining an advantageous cylinder angle for clamping and getting the most grapple force you are limited by rollback angle on the grapple lid.  When you open the traditional style lid there is open space between the grapple lid tine and the interior opening of the tine.  Driving straight in with your tractor, you can’t fill that space.  We have reshaped the tine making better use of the space and giving you a much stronger lid tine to boot.  We are over 4 ½” thick in the tine radius where the grapple work is truly being done.  Look at the drawing above and notice the 100% usable grapple opening of over 29”.  There is no trapped space.  The lids are tied together with schedule 40 pipe and 2”X2” boxed tubing all reinforced with 3/16” A572 steel covers configured in a complex brake pattern that makes this the toughest lid ever made for this application.  We added the lid doubler plate to the bottom of the same material with an aggressive tooth design comparable to our larger skid steer grapples.  Our hinge mounts in the rear fully wrap over the 3x3 box tubing top section and are cut from heavy ½” steel plate.  The lids hinges on 1 ¼” zinc plated pivot pins, with 1” zinc pins on the cylinder pivots.  All pins are stationary with bosses rotating on the pins and pins are stabilized using bolt tabs and 3/8” bolts.  There are no locking collars to line up with the pins for bolts to drop through.  A common pin tab is used throughout and care has been given to ensure bolts are easily accessible with a full range of motion for removing the nuts with a wrench.  If you have ever removed a bolt where your wrench can only turn a couple of degrees at a time you are sure to appreciate this feature. Figure 2      We put the same consideration for access in the hose protection.  Bulkhead mount and hoses are protected with a bolt on cover.  Cover removes with 4 easily accessible bolts and with cover removed bulkhead fitting nuts can be easily turned with full wrench strokes.  Hoses are passed through the lid hinges for protection and passages have been lined up with fittings for hose protection and ease of assembly.  The photo below shows bulkhead mount fully assembled with hoses.  The unique angle of the bulkhead as shown allows perfect access to connections when cover is removed and excellent protection for your connections. Figure 3      Lids are operated using 2 custom welded cylinders made for Cal with a 2” bore and 4 ½” stroke.  Maximum grapple force at 2000psi is approximately 1500#’s with forces even greater on loaders pushing 2800 to 2900psi.  The standard hitch is universal skid steer.  We have made the hinge plates into heavy gussets for the top rail and our compact lower hitch bracket is the heaviest you will find anywhere for compact attachments.  We are aware of the tractor type universal hitches that have independent floating pads with a little extra movement in the latch pin.  For that reason we left a 1/8” gap in the hitching area between the back of the bucket tines and the landing area at the back of the 3x3 tubes to account for any play you may develop in your latch pin spring assembly.    As with any CAL attachment, you get the benefit of our extensive hitch library and our willingness to match any hitch that we can match for an exact fit on you tractor loader.  Keep this attachment in mind for mini skid steers as well.  The 15 degree forward roll on the bucket back makes this a good fit for mini skid steers with their limited rollback capability and is a great match for the power and lift capabilities on these machines.

Hi. I'm Ted from Everything Attachments, and we're here today with the compact version of the Construction Attachments root grapple.

Even though it's a compact version, it's built to a very high standard to withstand everything that your compact tractor under 50 horsepower should be able to put out. So they've made it a lot like their skid-steer grapple. It's just a little bit lighter here and there, so it'll still give your machine a lot of capacity. They've centered the cylinders and turned the hoses to the top and taken away some of the vents underneath, where you can't get any damage to your cylinder or your hoses. They're completely enclosed in the back here, so you don't have to worry about that.

Now, on the front of the gussets, this round bar here, a lot of buckets use a flat bar. The problem with a flat bar is when you angle these teeth down under the ground to be getting all the roots and all, you've basically got a compact tractor. So you've only got so much push to give up. You want this wheel to keep you to be able to regulate how much pitch you're putting onto those teeth. If you went straight down and they kept on going, your tractor would stop pushing. So that round bar kind of acts as a wheel and keeps you from going too deep. We try to put as little of gussets up here at the front as we can so you can get good penetration into the ground. So the more gusseting that you find within a grapple means really the cheaper it's built. It might weigh more, but it won't be as strong. These have the nip guards on the end of it. It has a separate plate welded to the end of the grapples that are kind of sharp to help you pull and tear things out of the ground.

Unless you specifically ask for something different on the compact tractor stuff, you will receive ½-inch ag couplers and hoses on all of our equipment. If you need flat bases or something because you're going to put it on something different, let me know. If you need the John Deere hitch, there is an up charge, but you can get the John Deere hitch. You can get four pin mounts for most loaders. There is a small up charge for that. Just let me know what you've got so we can get you the right mount.

If you're considering purchasing a Construction Attachments root grapple or a brush grapple for your tractor, there's a couple extra things we just wanted to let you know. One is you know you're going to need a hydraulics to open and close these clam shells, and we're going to go over that in just a second. On this new design, it does have a 29 ½ inch opening, so you can get to just about anything that this size of tractor is going to handle. This compact root grapple is meant for 50 horsepower and below. It comes in 60-inch, 66-inch, and 72-inch widths. Because it's a little bit longer, normally if I'm going to be in tight quarters, I cut the width of what my normal bucket is down about 6 inches so I can get around better. If I've got a big field and a lot to do, then I probably want as much as I can get on there to work with.

As you'll see, Construction Attachments uses a one-piece tine, which is a lot more expensive than using two pieces here and welding it to that square bar under there. It uses a lot more steel out of a plate to burn that than it does just using bar steel, but it makes it about twice as strong, and by making it twice as strong, we can make it a lot lighter and leave you a lot more capacity in your midsize compact tractor.

So these grapples are independent, and that's what you want to be the best. So if your load is irregularly shaped from a large load to a small load, you're going to get the same amount of clamping force on both ends, but the grapples may not always work perfectly together. One may open a little before the other does, but that's what you want it to do. When they work independently, you're just able to get a lot more pinch on your load, and this grapple will go right to the very tips of these instead of way back like some I've seen and won't let you pick things up as well. So we really like the new design of the Construction Attachments Root Grapple here.

Now, on this one, this uses a third-function auxiliary hydraulic kit. There are a couple different ways you could do it. If your compact tractor happened to have rear hydraulics, you could simply run longer lines to the back of your tractor. You would have to remove your hand from your loader handle and go back to your remote handle to clamp your jaws and then go back to your loader lever. With a true third-function valve, you're able to use your loader up and down and you're crimping at the same time, so that really makes it convenient.

So your hydraulic lines are run right up here to the front, where they couple up. This particular unit uses a standard skid-steer quick attach. It can come with other different attachments if you need. And where Peanut is sitting up here, the hydraulic valve, which is operated electric over hydraulic, is mounted right behind here where you can't see it, and the hoses are simply wire tied down the boom to the center to get your hydraulics there. This one little wire you see here that's on the main hydraulic lever, he's got a rocker switch right behind this, where he can open and close his jaws while he raises and lowers his loader at the same time. It's much more convenient than reaching behind here to get to the remote if you run the long lines.

So we just wanted to show you some of the benefits of the grapple and how they work and the hydraulics that you're going to need. They go to the trouble to index all of their slots and everything in their main, you can see where that weld is right there. All the gussets and all, this thing is put together kind of like a Tinker Toy and a jig, and they're just the best quality on the market for the money. they're hard to beat, the Construction Attachments brand.

So if you need any help sizing this for your tractor or the type of hitch you need, give us a call or an e-mail at Everything Attachments, and we'll be happy to help you.

We're going to let Peanut crank this thing up and run it just a little bit so you can kind of get an idea of the way that the grapples are going to work. So they didn't close exactly the same, but what you want is equal pressure on both sides to make them the best.

If you need any help sizing your root grapple for the tractor you have or getting your hydraulic hook up connection, give us a call or an e-mail at Everything Attachments, and we'll be happy to help.