New use for loader forks
hardwood
Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 3583 iowa |
2011-04-08 177836
I've got quite a bit of soil to haul from a borrow pit to the builing site. It has been pretty dry here to the point that the loader bucket is getting hard to push into the pit wall to scoop up a bucket full.
I've got the Deere fork attachment for my 430 loader that I was using today to move some pallets. An idea popped into my head, maybe use the forks to rip the soil loose in the side walls of the borrow pit. That worked better than I had hoped. It took very little power to push the tines into the soil then lift them ripping a lot of soil loose in a little while for the bucket to easily scrape up.
Live and learn I guess.
Frank.
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New use for loader forks
earthwrks
Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 3853 Home Office in Flat Rock, Michigan Pics |
2011-04-09 177845
Frank I dug a hole the size of a regular schoolbus (not a short bus like you took to s'cool) using forks to lift out whole slabs of clay. Did it in a half an hour.
If you use one fork you can also trench with it. You need to clean it up by hand though. ....
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New use for loader forks
auerbach
Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 2168 West of Toronto Pics |
2011-04-09 177847
Didn't realize they had buses in the 1800s.
I'm sure this is old hat to you but I dump the bucket until the cutting edge is pointing down, drive it over a few feet of compacted material, force it down pull it back to loosen the stuff. ....
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New use for loader forks
hardwood
Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 3583 iowa |
2011-04-09 177848
Perhaps I should explain a bit better what I'm doing.
Think of a basement that has been dug but not had the cement walls poured yet. This is what I've ended up with after taking soil from it for a few years when the need arose starting with no hole at all just level ground. Without using a tapemeasure I'm guessing the dimensions to be like 30 X 50 X 4 - 6 ft. deep. there is a ramp like entrance to the pit on the shallow corner where I take the soil out a bucketfull at a time. My attempt is to keep the "Floor" of the pit somewhat level so I take soil from a wall of the pit down to "Floor" level. When we've had adequate rain the bucket edge will dig into the wall well enough to scoop out a bucketfull with one lift. Now with the soil really dry the bucket edge is just too hard to push into the wall but using the forks to loosen it makes things go lots easier for the loader to scoop it up and haul it out.
OK now EW if I'd go a bit deeper I could bury two modern school busses or four of my kind of busses your choice. Cheap as used school busses are this may be an alternate to building a 500K house.
Frank. ....
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