Pics of my 1st Caterpillar

Nice looking tractor!!!

Nice tractor.

Without ROPS be aware of loose / dead branches in the tops of trees. They have a nasty habbit of find you on the way down when they are nocked loose. One of the more important lessons that my dad tought me, that has been reinforced a couple of time.

Tim

Ditto on the lack of a canopy and falling stuff. You might want to cut the trees down first leaving a stump a 3-4 feet tall, then push 'em out. Just watch out ya don't get hung up on the root ball. .been there, done that. . .once😆

I agree, cut them high, I was hit in the head and got a few cracked ribs from not quite a widow maker but it could have been. Coolest setup we used was a 955H with a 4 in 1 Drott bucket, Grab the stump on top, shake it like a dog with a bone and pull it
Be safe

Yep!! A ROPS is always good---even when parked!

Hi, The FourhtHorseman.
Useful-looking little jigger. Thanks for sharing. I would echo the advice given above about being VERY careful clearing without a substantial canopy to protect your hat. Protecting your hat is VITAL 'cos, if anything falling from above damages your hat, there is nothing to stop it from damaging anything - and EVERYTHING - under said hat.

A good tree pusher bar is also a good investment when clearing trees as it gives you much more leverage over the tree thus making it easier on the tractor. How-wevver, and probably more importantly, it puts you a little further back from where all the 'action' is likely to be if limbs do start falling.

Whether you aware of it or not, there IS a price on your head. Just like with a motorcyclist's helmet, the value of your head is exactly equal to the value of the protection your put over it.

Reverse gear is NOT very fast in those little jiggers, even AFTER you have managed to select it in your moment of need should that situation arise.

Just my 0.02.

Hi, Dependzic.
Would it be safe to guess that the operator said to the boss, "I didn't do it, Boss. Honest, it just fell over. I think it was my magnetic personality."?

What does a tree-pusher bar look like?

Thanks for the compliments on the tractor and thanks for the advice.

I plan on wearing a hard had and at some-point, making a light canopy for it.

Thankfully, Red Cedars in Kansas don't get real tall. Most of them I would say are about 8 ft or so. I plan on cutting the bigger ones down to a manageable size.

I bought my Cat after clearing some of the Cedars with a Bobcat. It got the job done, but you sure get the heck beat out of ya' by the dang ol' safety-bar. Rented the Bobcat for 4 days over a Labor Day weekend, worked about 12 hr shifts on it...wound up sore and beat black and blue.

I have about 100 acres of Cedars to clear, so I bought a Cat 😊 I have been slowly messing around with it...will get serious come Spring. Wish there was a way to make money off these Cedars 😊

Some brief info on my cat: the blade is off of a big International? I think... The guys I bought it from apparently narrowed a much larger blade and installed it. They said it was a pipeline crawler and it originally didn't have a blade, but it did have some sort of back-hoe? attachment on it...wish it still did.

The pony fires on about the 2nd pull...but I am thinking about riggin' up some sort of Okie-Starter on it. Since it is far from original and I plan on working with it on my farm, I'm not too worried about modding it.

Hi, TheFourthHorseman.
What does a tree pusher bar look like? The ones in these photos are designed for larger trees. If you have lower, scrubbier vegetation, I would suggest a tree pusher that covers the full width of the blade to catch as much of the width of the tree as possible to keep it away from the front of the dozer.

Wow Deas--never heard or saw a tree pusher bar! Very interesting---keeps the machine further back from the stump hole and also raises the point of contact to get more leverage.
That pic of the tree is on my D3B---had parked it there and when a storm came up blew the tree over perfectly to hit the ROPS>