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It may not be a Giant but it is my new to me Bobby! Comes with a bucket forks and a small push box. Not too bad of a start I dont think.
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We had a rather unpleasant experience two days ago. Subbed a 33 ton for the day and lined up two jobs. The first went flawlessly and got to the second where it was a 38” metal-ridden, nasty black walnut. The ho set up with his neighbor so we could plywood the crane on his neighbor’s front yard. I had previously given a quote for his neighbor for a rotten 24” sycamore and he said “too much”. I think i said $650 with the crane at the same time.
We set up and the neighbor asks if he can bring some brush and small pieces of wood for us to chip and I say “ok but no roots or dirt”. Start taking big picks because we had a real nice, big landing area and I’m about 3 pick into this walnut when the same douchbag neighbor comes up while I’m in the tree and tells me I’m gonna remove that walnut and a bunch of brush in his back yard for $300. I’m like “no”. He throws a fit and starts swearing telling me “you got that crane already set up it will take you no time, I can throw you off my property if I want”. I think carefully about the consequences of coming down and punching him in his weaselly face. I tell him I’ll do the tree for $400 and no brush because I don’t have time for that garbage.
We finish the job and leave the place immaculate. Here’s a pic of the second to last pick of that garbage sycamore. so much for diplomacy.
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It will dump a pile out but with a 20 ft bed it seems like it stretches out some. It will only keep coming out so much until you move forward. Sure works a lot better at our wood lot to stack it out with the grapple truck on either side. We also try to sort it by type as it saves us a lot of time later when were cleaning up. If you were going to the city dump, I'd definitely want a dump bed as it would be faster. I use the wood to fuel an outdoor wood boiler so I don't take anything to the dump normally.
 
I've thought about using a material handler truck converted over to a grapple. Lots of side reach and usually a pretty heavy duty truck. Just build in the bed or buy a shipping container and cut off the top. Problem I see with that do us is we like to drive into the yard and load the grapple truck. We'll put down mats for the bucket truck, take it down, pull the bucket out and load the grapple.
 
Thing I just noticed about the rear mounts grapples is that configuration allows for a hitch to be mounted fairly flush on the back. Not sure that could work with a dump. Being able to tow a chipper or other class A trailer might be the deciding factor if I ever did get one.
 
You could also load a trailer with a rear mount. Some times with our behind the cab mount its a pain to load off the side at the street because of the powerlines. With a rear mount we could stage the wood in a lane instead. Also you could back into a driveway to load if the driveway was big enough. Having a rear mount that dumps would just about be ideal.
 
Nice saw \above\
Today I removed some lower leads that were over the customers house, next job= remove leads over wires/driveway, 3rd stop= remove 90' white oak which spread out over 3 trailers at a trailer park and remove another 80' white oak. Got the last tree to just a spar, chunk him down and grind the stumps to start tomorrow off. First job it was still raining, no great tie in points for a false crotch. I hate the old cut, catch and throw method over structures/objects when everythings wet. Tough workin in the PNW I would think with all the rain ya'll get up that way.
 
Nice saw \above\
Today I removed some lower leads that were over the customers house, next job= remove leads over wires/driveway, 3rd stop= remove 90' white oak which spread out over 3 trailers at a trailer park and remove another 80' white oak. Got the last tree to just a spar, chunk him down and grind the stumps to start tomorrow off. First job it was still raining, no great tie in points for a false crotch. I hate the old cut, catch and throw method over structures/objects when everythings wet. Tough workin in the PNW I would think with all the rain ya'll get up that way.

Busy day!
 
8 hour day, I'm only half the speed of my boss's... hints why I can't stop to take pictures. I'm a better weather man tho, here I am sitting at home and it's dry outside. But were workin tomorrow when it's supposed to rain till noon... In my book you don't call it a rain day till the morning. That way you can get a look at the radar and really see how much/far away the rain really is. Rather then calling it the day before...
 
Had a wind storm blow through. Got a few jobs from it. It came a day after we took the chipper and cab over out of service to scale/prep the underbody for painting.
Looked a a job for a HOA and after I gave my price the guy balked and told me my competitor was going to do it for 600 a tree. These were 28-30” red oaks that needed a crane. One was cracked. This is the same company that stole a job from me after I had them look at the set up to see if I could contract their 60 ton. Whatever. I’m tired of this racing to the bottom.
I also bought a Lincoln precision 225 tig/stick welder from a friend. I never did tig before. It was a very humbling experience. Very.
 
Tig is an awesome process. You can do things with it that are very hard to get with anything else. Try to find someone that knows how to Tig and see if they will show you some stuff. Also get them to watch you so they can tell you what you are doing wrong. Get steel down first before trying to weld aluminum. There's a ton of YouTube videos that may help as well. Jody at welding tips and tricks is very good.
 
Looked a a job for a HOA and after I gave my price the guy balked and told me my competitor was going to do it for 600 a tree. These were 28-30” red oaks that needed a crane. One was cracked. This is the same company that stole a job from me after I had them look at the set up to see if I could contract their 60 ton. Whatever. I’m tired of this racing to the bottom.

Walk away with your head held high brother....
 
Tig is an awesome process. You can do things with it that are very hard to get with anything else. Try to find someone that knows how to Tig and see if they will show you some stuff. Also get them to watch you so they can tell you what you are doing wrong. Get steel down first before trying to weld aluminum. There's a ton of YouTube videos that may help as well. Jody at welding tips and tricks is very good.

Just watched some videos. Yea. I was pulling instead of pushing.
 

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