“I’ll be breaking these rocks until the kingdom comes, it’s my price to pay,” once sang David Bowie by way of Tom Verlaine. Indeed, dealing with rocks is a tough task for construction and demolition crews. Hard, heavy, and unwieldy, excavators often need specialized attachments to deal with these otherwise immovable objects. Enter the rock grapple—precisely the specialized attachment your excavator can benefit from when working on difficult sites. Your construction equipment should already boast an extensive arsenal of grapple attachments for your excavator. Here’s what you can do with a rock grapple attachment once you add that to your arsenal as well.
Clearing the Way
Perhaps the most obvious use for a rock grapple excavator attachment is encountering a boulder and needing to move it out of a construction site. Rock grapples come with a wide range of specifications, with varying constructions such as 360-degree rotation, removable tines, and extra-strong steel. When simply trying to shovel a large rock out of the way isn’t an option, the tines of a rock grapple will use their incredible gripping strength to help you maneuver this obstacle out of your way.
Running the Riprap Game
Rock grapples are particularly adept at handling riprap. No, not riffraff, but riprap—the name for the assortment of medium-sized rocks that landscape architects will place along the edge of a body of water to protect against erosion. While not as pretty as a sandy beach, sometimes these rock formations are necessary. Rather than lugging them into place by hand or relying on a bucket to carelessly dump them along the shore, a rock grapple will allow you to place riprap with precision for maximum efficacy against the elements.
Placing Armor Stone
Stone terracing doesn’t just look like a flourish of classical design—it’s a principle that has stood the test of time. Building retaining walls from large bricks or stones can, like riprap, guard against the tides. This can bring some much-needed stability to sloped land. Handling it, however, can call for a rock grapple. Of the many different excavator attachments you could choose from, a reinforced rock grapple is the one that can handle armor stone with the least amount of wear and tear.
Wood—Don’t Even Wait for It To Be Petrified
Lumber and timber can be just as heavy and obstructive as rocks on a work site. You might be surprised that handling them is also part of what you can do with a rock grapple attachment. The same principles that make a rock grapple adept at picking up rocks make it suited to handling logs and other large pieces of wood. Its durable construction means that its tines can stand up to the rough edges of timber exceptionally well.
