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To increase your forest management tasks, Use the hydraulic grapple rake, a versatile new loader/tractor/skid steer attachment, which has a combination of strength, control and flexibility.

From logging and national park conservation to fire prevention, property and habitat protection, too many forest management tasks are still done the old-fashioned way: with shovel, chainsaw, and backbreaking sweat. Even when equipment is used to pick up, move, or stack trees, logs, brush or other fire hazards, there are drawbacks whenever these tasks require control and efficiency.

Traditional bucket attachments, for instance, tend to scoop excess dirt, have trouble holding unwieldy loads, and are largely ineffective at tasks requiring fine control such as raking limbs or debris. In response, those responsible for managing private and public forestland are adding a versatile new attachment – the hydraulic grapple rake – to their loaders, tractors, and skid steers. Since it’s much more efficient than manual labor and more adaptable than the bucket, the grapple rake, which hydraulically opens, closes, and moves its jaws of spaced metal tines, is becoming indispensable. It can remove trees, logs and brush or surface rake limbs and debris without removing needed topsoil or piling up unnecessary dirt. It can dig out roots and stumps. It can securely pick up, move, and stack logs, trees, or irregular loads up to several thousand pounds. With intertwined teeth, it can also grab and place material down to 3 inches, and reach within inches of desired forest habitat without disturbing it to rake, lift, drag, or haul loads. It can even create piles and pick them up from the front or lift them from the top, which is especially helpful when loading debris piles onto trailers or tending the piles for burn disposal.

Bob Chapman was faced with the unwelcome task of removing over 300 trees on his 70-acre, Steamboat, Colorado property due to beetle kill. Due to the enormity of the task, he hired a commercial timber company to do the work.

“It looked like a war zone with logs, branches, and stumps everywhere,” says Chapman. “I wondered how they were going to clean up the huge mess without destroying habitat for the living trees and adjoining grassland. I was so impressed with the way a skid steer mounted grapple rake navigated living trees while removing huge loads of debris that I talked the timber company into letting me operate it for a few days.”

The timber company used the hydraulic grapple rake manufactured by Anbo Manufacturing, based in Colville, Washington. Anbo specializes in high quality designed products for tractors, loaders, and skid steers. The grapple rake operates like a bucket because it can be raised and lowered, and rolled forward and backward, but it has a third function that makes it unique. It open and closes its jaws.

Bob Chapman decided to buy a grapple rake for his multi-terrain loader. By doing this he could handle the ongoing beetle kill and fire preventions tasks on his acreage. Anbo built the grapple rake to fit on Chapman’s loader. It was a 6-foot grapple rake with 6-inc tine spacing. This was to allow dirt, but not brush or debris to sift through the rake’s tines.

Previously, Chapman had used a 4WD tractor with bucket attachment to remove debris with unsatisfactory results. “Because the bucket lacked finesse, it left holes and skinned spots that removed topsoil and made it difficult for decorative grassland to grow back, he explains. “Since the grapple rake just scrapes debris off the top and can back rake with accuracy, the grass grew back beautifully in one season.”

Now Chapman put the hydraulic grapple rake to good use on a five acre, Nederland, Colorado property for fire mitigation. Before when Chapman tried to remove flammable juniper ground spread still trying to preserve the delicate aspen. He found that the juniper grew among rocky outcroppings making the task very difficult.

“I’d hired a crew to remove the juniper, but it was basically pickax, shovel, sweat and cuss,” says Chapman. “You couldn’t put a chainsaw to it because it grew among rocks and dirt. The needles went right through leather gloves. After two weeks of backbreaking labor, when they’d cleaned up less than 1/10 an acre, they finally quit.”

“Using the grapple rake, I was able to pull up the juniper by the roots so it wouldn’t grow back — right from its rocky outcroppings,” says Chapman. “My loader has a push force of about 6,000 lbs, and several times I stalled it pushing on big rocks, but the grapple rake was fine. It’s strong enough to handle whatever you throw at it.”

To satisfy the need for strength, AnBo uses a special type of steel that has twice the yield strength (resistance to bending) and a much higher Brinnell hardness rating (resistance to wear) than T1 steel. This makes the grapple rake light enough for mini or compact skid steers or tractors and also adding strength preserves that give more lift and payload capacity than similar products.

Chapman states, “I don’t know how I’d have done the job any other way.” With the grapple rake, by himself was able to clear a defensible space around his property. He adds, “I ended up taking out 215 cubic yards of slash and debris, and loaded it onto trailers in about 100 hours. It’s great at back-raking, grabbing, stacking, piling, whatever you need. Not only did I save over $10,000 in labor, but also lowered my insurance from $23,000 to $4,000 annually.

With thousands of trees toppled when Hurricane Katrina hit on Tom Hauptmann’s property about 60 miles from New Orleans, it took him and his wife three days to make it to their mailbox from their driveway. Cutting and moving downed trees. While others were dragging trees with a tractor and chain, Hauptmann used a front-end loader with a 4-way clamshell bucket to accomplish the task. The inefficiency still frustrated him.

Describing his problems, Hauptmann adds, “I could pick up logs, but it was always dicey.” Explaining why he continues, “Because the clamshell bucket had no teeth or curvature, I could pinch the logs but not really grip them. The load would slip out when it got imbalanced, so it was slow going and I had to be careful. When a load slipped, it not only took extra time to pick it up, but also to clean up the debris left behind.”

He was also dissatisfied with the bucket’s inability to rake limbs, leaves, and debris from the ground without scooping up dirt. Because the dirt mixed with debris in piles to be burned for disposal, the piles burned slowly, incompletely, or with too much smoke.

Discouraged Hauptmann turns to AnBo for their 6-foot hydraulic grapple rake with 6-inch tine spacing.

The grapple rake was strong enough to pick up and carry 40-foot sections of tree up to 18-inches in diameter, Hauptmann estimates weighing up to 4,000 lbs. “My limit is blowing out the tires on my front end loader.” By picking up the trees before they were cut into pieces made it faster and easier than cutting all of the logs into smaller sections, then dragging or carrying them separately. He adds, “The grapple rake is strong enough to pick up anything your machine is capable of.”

Because his control and grip are better with the grapple rake, he’s now more efficiently cleaning up and managing his property. He’s using it to pick up trees, logs, limbs, brush and debris, and even uses it to dig up stumps and roots.

Explaining what Hauptmann likes he states, “unlike bucket jaws that essentially pinch,the grapple rake wraps around a load. Its teeth and curvature are better for grabbing and grasping. It operates like a hand and give much better control and holding power. You can grab so much more with the grapple rake.”

Accidently Hauptmann built a burn pile of trees and logs for disposal under a power line. learning about the grapple rake’s efficient capacity.

Knowing he had to move the pile, Hauptmann says, “With the bucket, such a job would’ve taken me 20 loads to finish.” But, “With the AnBo grapple rake, it took me five loads to move the entire pile. It made a two-hour project into a 20-minute one.”

He also finds the grapple rake useful for quickly removing “nuisance trees and brush,” which tend to have shallow roots. “I simply put the teeth down and rip out the roots and all so they don’t grow back,” he says. To gather limbs, he simply slides the grapple rakes’ teeth along the ground until there’s a big enough load to carry to the burn pile. “I could never do that with a bucket because things would slip under and go every which way,” he says.

“I can pick up and replace items in the burn pile, shift ashes, whatever necessary to kep it buring properly.” This is how Hauptmann finds the grapple rake’s flexibility by placing and shifting objects in the burn pile for a cleaner, less smoky and more complete burn.

The grapple rake is making traditionally, tedious clean-up tasks faster, safe, and easier with its unique combination of strength, control, and flexibility. Whether you use it for logging, national park conservation, fire prevention or forest management. Those responsible for such work are finding that substituting its technology for costly, time-consuming labor is a good investment that continues to pay back, year after year.

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