Clamp on Forks Pictures for Bonehead

I'm with California on this...his forks are simple and effective and virtually no $$$

For $500 you could buy youself a brand new Miller AC/Dc stick welder and make yourself an impressive pair with free steel you would get for the asking from your friends and family. You could buy a Lincoln AC buzzbox from home depot for $350 that would probably treat you just fine. The used market would also be a great place to buy.

If you have enough land to justify a tractor you have enough land to hide your steel collection. I really don't see how you can have a tractor without a welder. It is not hard to stick metal. It is a little bit harder to make it look pretty, but its a fricking tractor!
 
shinnlinger said:
I'm with California on this...his forks are simple and effective and virtually no $$$
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Thanks shinnlinger! Finally - a Kubota owner here who doesn't repaint the loader bucket after every use! Welcome!:D
For $500 you could buy yourself a brand new Miller AC/DC stick welder...
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Or, a 235 amp ac welder (Montgomery Wards from a yard sale). And a hitch assembly to weld onto the back of the box blade. Plus a 4 ft disc, replacement wheels for the overworked ones on the front of my tractor, and a tiller. (I just got the tiller set up and it works great. I'll post about it shortly.) Gotta admit this is more a retirement hobby than a profitable farm but I'm having fun at it. Sounds like you are too!
 
For years I was "storing" an AC Lincoln "Tombstone" for a friend out in Oregon and got quite proficent with that 6011 "farmers rod" keeping the cobwebs off it. When I moved back here I had some cash and bought a nice MIG setup, but wouldn't you know it that damn old buzzbox actually had better penetration and I would feel more comfortable welding the thicker structural steel with it. I keep hoping a good yard sale find like yours will fall in my lap (I am NOT looking very hard), until then I will suffer with the mig, beveling my edges and mutiple passes.

I touched up my skills taking a class at the local community college 2 nights a week for 6 weeks and It was well worth it...you can also get a ton of info online.

Some one earlier in this thread said they spent $600 on a pair of pallet forks and was wondering what the drawbacks might be (besides the $$$ spent on it I guess).

My buddy has a new JD 50 horse 4320?, He is really disapointed with thetractor itself, but he has those pallet forks. THey ARE nice and move logs as well as my homemade forks, but because they are seperate from the bucket, he can only have one of them on at a time, so he has to make a decsion when he is going somewhere as to what to bring. Sometimes he will bring it over to work on the sawmill and he will actually drive his truck over ahead of time with his chainsaw and bike in the back and then ride his bike back 3 miles to his house to get his tractor. The truck is only used to carry his chainsaw and fuel for it. Now if he had the cheaper, easier bucket setup he could put the saw and fuel in there and not have to deal with his truck and bike.

He could also take me up on my offer to just use my tractor, but that is just not the New England way.
 
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When I built a set I used a different method to anchor them to the bucket. Instead of a clamp I welded a short length of chain to the back of each fork which wraps around the bucket and I use a chain binder to bind them tightly to the top of the bucket. I like it better than the clamp on system.
 
justneedit said:
When I built a set I used a different method to anchor them to the bucket. Instead of a clamp I welded a short length of chain to the back of each fork which wraps around the bucket and I use a chain binder to bind them tightly to the top of the bucket. I like it better than the clamp on system.
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Pictures ... pictures ... we want pictures! :cool:
 
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