Wicked Root Grapple V 2.0

Hi, I'm Ted from Everything Attachments and we're here today with our new Wicked Root Grapple from Everything Attachments. We're gonna show you how we went from a prototype and what we wanted to make in our main changes from the grapples we were using in buying to what we've ended up with today. To start with, only the...one of the changes we've made from all the root grapples that we're using is we're using a common pin that goes all the way through, this is a 17-inch long pin, goes completely through the grapple for maximum strength, goes through this tube, only has a few thousandths of clearance here. And this was our prototype, it's not even drilled for a grease fitting, the one that's going out is. We also ran the hoses to the top here just like everyone else pretty much does it. They make a cover that fits over this and then come out the back with the hoses. That was something I didn't like on the grapples I had been using, it's something I didn't like on this one and we've totally changed it on the other one, and we'll show you that.

And just for... You know, I used this for about 30 hours in a new piece of property I bought. We cleared some trees that were 24 inches in diameter. We hauled off three loads a trees and about seven loads of brush under three inches. We've got a few cellphone pictures showing us just moving some of the limbs that are fair at best. But what we did was we made these teeth out of...on our laser, so they're really, really sharp. And what we did was what we were trying to do is make a grapple that was just as strong as what we were used to selling, because we never have any problem out of the Construction Attachment's grapples, they're great grapples, but since we were designing our own grapple, we wanted to try to see what we could do to make it a little better for our type of customer, which is the compact tractor customer.

So what we did was the Construction Attachments uses the three-eighths on all of theirs, we use a three-eighths on the outside only, then we went to a five-sixteenths. And then what we did to kind of be able to check for the strength of it, we went ahead and made this prototype out of...this is old and pickled, which just means all the scale has been removed off of it to be cut on a laser. This is a minimum yield strength of 36,000 per square inch. And what that does for you, it...when you buy the better grade of, like, the laser quality metal, normally that will...a 36 minimum will normally be in the 45,000 pound range, can be up to 49,000 pound range and then it would go to A50. So it's gonna be the better grade of the different materials, it'll be a little better than the average metal per grade. But this is an A36, and so it's the same material we make most of our tractor attachments out of because you want a little give with some attachments instead of them being so rigid and stiff.

So even with this one made outta A36 and I did all the trying to destroy this grapple that I could. And with this mild metal I was able to do 2 things, I got 1 log that was probably 15 feet wedged in between these 2 [inaudible 00:03:41], I noticed it. There was no good reason of doing what I did other than trying to see if i could bend it. I had it in the trailer, I put it in as much bond of a twist as I could, using all the strength of the tractor even with it in gear, and I was able to spread one of these about three-eighths of an inch. So now instead of A36, we're using an A90, an 80 and a 90, 2 different grades in that. So we've got over double the strength in the steel and we've changed a couple little bit of the design because we learn by making it a little weaker than you need, we learn where the weak places are and we learn how much more we need to make it basically indestructible.

So with these two bends, and we'll show you a picture of where the...this is actually gusseted, it laminated on here these two pieces. So on this grapple here, you've got a piece of five-sixteenths in the center, 2 pieces of three-sixteenths on the outside, with a 22 degree bend at the end. Now the bend at the end was only about that long. So what we did was we've...now we've changed the steel to an A80 in the center and then a A90 on the outer, we've also increased the thickness from three-sixteenths to one-quarter of an inch. And we did that just to give it a little more strength. The last thing we wanted to do was put a big angle brace in there, which is what most of the other company does. And that certainly will give it strength out here on the end, but we wanted to be able to get that deep in the ground and push through, get the roots out without tearing up all the ground and be able to pick up the brush and just leave little lines in the ground instead of tearing up all the ground. So what we did on that one was we kept the 22 degrees but we moved that where we're bending it out just a little further to the very first plug hole. So when it gets to the plug hole and veers off, it gives it a lot more strength. So we gain more strength there, plus we've doubled the strength of the metal. So we don't feel like there's any way you're gonna have any problems out of the grapple in its final design. And we really like what we've done with the hoses there and I don't think anybody else has spent the time and the money and used them enough and been aggravated with the hoses enough to go through what I've gone through to make it nice for you.

We've put these nice industrial cylinders on here. They're easy for you to get, they're easy for us to repack if we need to for you. We've moved the cylinder's connections from the top, which you have to make a really large shroud over the top of it to protect them. We've turned them to the side and what we did differently on the prototype, first we did ours, this has just a regular JIC 90, it's thin right here, it's fairly vulnerable, it sticks out further. So we're gonna show you what we did on that one. Now this is only a 23-horsepower Bobcat tractor that we've got this on. This would normally use the 54-inch rake instead of the 66, but it works good to get things around. Come on down. All right, that's good right there. Shut her off.

Okay, so the first two things we accomplished instead of...this is your main flat, your flat four by...three by three, excuse me, right here, same as the other. And what almost everyone does is they stick the lines aiming towards the tractor. And then the tractor people will normally use a bracket that is firmly mounting the hose that angled towards the implement. So at one point you've got these 2 fittings only 8 or 10 inches apart, they're aiming at each other with over 3 feet of hose in the middle, so you've got a big mess. So what I've always been doing instead of using these rigid, I like to leave them soft, okay, for a couple of different reasons. But now if other manufacturers were to make their hookups like this, there's no good reason why that couldn't be solid, in fact, it would be even better. But until you convert to all my attachments and I've got it always available, that may still be the best way because hoses that are too short are the worst thing, they're almost as bad as the hoses that are too long. So when you roll this completely over, this has what's called a hose saver on it, which is basically a big spring and it will let all of this fold over.

Now how does that... And what we've also done instead of these JIC fittings that are weak and move that over to the side, we've used what the hydraulic people don't really like because it's old school, but if you know what you're doing with it, it works. We're using pipe thread on everything. Why? The pieces are bigger, they're stronger, they're easier for you to get if you have a problem, you can get them at any hardware, you could even get them at some plumbing places. The hoses, even if you had to get to a...if you blew a hose for whatever reason and it's on a Saturday or Sunday and you need to be able to finish and you've got a pipe thread, chances are you can go to any NAPA, Tractor Supply, you make it one that's six inches too long or too short but you'll be able to get the hose, get the job done until you can get the correct hose to put it in here.

So we've used all pipe fittings and which are the reason most of the hydraulic people don't like them is because they're the hardest to get to seal properly. We're using the proper Loctite glue, everything seals fine. It's just the old way of doing it, even though I think it's better for what we're doing. Okay, so on this right here to even make it better, when you get over to here instead of this looking like just a standard fitting, that is actually a swivel fitting. And no one else is doing this in the industry that I know of. Each fitting is about $5 more, there goes 20 bucks, but it's something that you get in the value of the implement you're getting. As this lid goes up and down, these hoses are gonna turn, okay? A hydraulic hose is real flexible, but if you hold it rigid, the one thing you can't do is twist it, it's very rigid, some people even use them for drive shafts on fertilizer spreaders and stuff. So every time this lid goes up and down it lets these hoses swivel, which is causing a lot less stress on that hose, gives it a lot more life.

We were putting the hoses through this gusset right here, but it chafes the hose there a little bit and I didn't really like that. So we went in behind there, aim the fittings up, which is the opposite of what everyone is doing, but made it easy to pull back over, with the swivels it's really nice. And if you can see, the gussets here a little...they're spread a little wider, that's your quarter-inch gusset instead of three-sixteenths. We've added all these holes here to reduce the weight. This is a 66-inch grapple with the pallet, it just came off the scales at 430 pounds, so we think we're about 412 pounds, maybe 15 with the hose saver, couplers, everything. So don't judge an implement by its weight because when you're on a compact tractor what you want is something that doesn't bend or break of course, but the less it weighs the better it is. So this is more like the common weight that you would be used to of your standard bucket, instead of sticking a 600 or 800 pound grapple on a small tractor and it doing...it taxing your tractor more than you're able to do the load.

So raise these grapples all the way for us, Peanut. All right and tilt it up. Okay, right there. So go and shut it back out for a second. To protect the hoses from limbs and stuff, we welded a piece right here behind the hinge so nothing can get back here to get to the hoses. We've welded a piece in front of all of those fittings, and those are laser indexed where they go there, that way all of the spring mechanism there will let it work and it won't let any of your limbs catch on it there.

So the razor-sharp teeth really help me pull a lot of the stuff out of the pile [SP] to get it loaded up. Getting it in there, getting it loaded, getting it from where it goes is the most important thing. We've shown these pictures on TractorByNet, and a few people were concerned, would that keep it from being able to dump the stuff off of it? Well anything bigger than that you'll never know the difference except how well it works for you. When it got down to the really small stuff, smaller than your pinky, the little bitty limbs would kinda catch in there, but if you've got any weight connected to that at all, it pulls it right off and or you can back up out of it.

If you're worried about this being so sharp and the people that may be around it, if you're a municipality, a city or something, you're worried about these sharp edges, if you requested, I believe we could put a piece on each side, the center would still be the same, but we could make a piece for each side that was more rounded like what's on the Construction Attachment's grapple, just to kinda make it to where it's not quite as dangerous. Me personally, I don't plan on being within six feet of these grapples and one as sharp as grapple as I can to do the work, that's up to you. If someone orders it that way, it may take a week or so to get it, but I believe we could do it for you without any problem.

Okay and another added feature we wanted to put into our grapple, a lot of the grapples where they actually close are quite a bit back from the end. And I've had a lotta people say that they weren't able to pick things up right on the end of the grapple. Now this is end to end, it touches tip to tip, you can actually pull...rip a piece of paper between those, that's how tight it's touching out here on the end. So we've brought these grapples all the way out to the tips instead of bottoming it out in here which is much easier to do, you don't have to be as accurate, we're bottoming it out to, so they've gotta be perfectly right. So you will be able to pick up a one inch twig or whatever you want off of whatever your...whether it's cement, asphalt, grass, gravel, whatever you can pick up all the way on the tips with our grapples.

Now I was looking at the opening on another manufacturer's grapple today and they were actually using the measurement from the bottom of the grapple to the top of the grapple. So after using a tape measure and measuring it in the actual opening, and they were listing that in the opening position, actually measuring the opening, we were wider than they were, but at first it didn't appear that we were. And you can see now with this common pin, which we're able to do all this in-house, we're not having to send this out and get it plated, with our laser we can make these tear drop things that fit perfectly, we weld 'em on to our shaft that goes all the way through the grapple. And then when we weld this piece in here for the lid, it adds a lotta structural strength in here so it isn't letting that twist. This piece that's on the end is also laser cut, it's very sharp, it's gonna grab a hold of your wood really good to pull it up out of the woods. And we've tried to keep as much as...of the just dead weight out of it as we could and put the things in it that matter. And just by not having all this gusseting in here is really gonna make it go through the ground a lot easier for you and be able to pick up your limbs and so forth.

Peanut, let it back down, I just wanted to show 'em the same thing John asked me about why the grapples work independently. Let 'em down and I'm gonna show 'em. And we're getting ready to do a... Go ahead and close them. We're getting ready to make a rake-style grapple, which has a one-piece lid. Somebody on TractorByNet had a good idea, why wouldn't you make it where you could unpin it, make it independent lids, I think that's a great idea because you're loads are not all the way...all the time equal. But just to kinda show you, as you see, one went down before the other one, it's a...fluid is... Leave it running, please. Fluid is always gonna go to the least resistance. So I can simply hold on this one and that one's gonna open first. Now when that one bottoms out, I can't hold that one down but it's as simple as that. I can hold up on this one and that one's gonna close. So that's how easy it makes the difference.

Cut it off. But between all the engineering that we've done on this, and it's...there's a lot. This hole right here, this piece of center that lines up in here, it's actually one of the pieces that came out of the hole here to give you more surface area. We're not having to buy those Bosses , we're not using twin pins to add weight, we're not having to add a separate teardrop place down here to give you a support across there, we're using the pin piece as the support. So just everything about it, when you get it complete and you get it with your hose saver, you get it with the swivels, you get it with the laser-cut teeth, you get it with the A grade 80 and 90 material limit, it's twice as good as any of the competitors that I know are currently using. And I think just this is the most valued grapple on the market. We're not the most expensive, so if you wanna go by price. You know we're not the most expensive, but I think we're flat offering the most of the customer at the end because it's coming from us, the manufacturer, directly to you, which in no other good quality equipment that I know of that has an actual name brand is doing it that way. So that's how we get the value to you and give you the best product.

If you've got any calls, give us... And also, we are gonna make this in a 54, 60, 66 and 72. And what's funny is when it got down to a 60, I was going to lighten up the weight on it just a little bit more, I was gonna take the main rail down from five-sixteenths to quarter-inch, and the outer plates from quarter-inch to three-sixteenths. But had a customer that ordered a 60, he had a 50 horsepower tractor, a 60 was all he wanted, so really he needs the thickness of this grapple. When we do the 54, we definitely are gonna make it with thinner metal and we probably will be offering the 60 in a heavy or a light version because if you want to put a 60, say on this tractor, you would definitely want it on the light version, and if you want to put it on a 50 horsepower tractor, you would want it in the heavy version.

So we're gonna be able to custom build a lot more things at Everything Attachments than the average manufacture's gonna be able to do for you. So just give us a call or an email and we're gonna make sure that you get the right thing for your tractor. We will also be offering this with a John Deere hitch. We're not gonna be doing at this time, custom, but we will be doing the standard quick attach, which that's what I hope you have, and like it or not, we will be doing the John Deere quick attach hitch also. Give us a call or an email, we'll be happy to help.