Loader hook makes tractor more versatile

The hook that’s welded to the back of the bucket on my front-end loader increases my tractor’s versatility and my ability to lift all sorts of unhandy items with it. Why the loader didn’t come from the factory that way is a mystery. Fact is, I never knew there was any need for such a hook, not until my son needed me to move something for him and he knew exactly how to make it happen. He welded the hook to the bucket and showed me how to use it.

I doubt he invented this, but I also doubt that its use is very widespread; correct me if you know differently. I think most folks use the boom pole, which is okay if you don’t have a loader. But I have both and I know that a driver can maneuver the front end of a tractor a lot better than the boom.

To illustrate how precise you can be with a chain from the bucket, I present photos of the way I put the wood rack on my flatbed trailer - the rack I built to haul firewood. Getting that heavy rack into a position from which the side stakes will drop straight down into the holes on the trailer is no easy skate, not unless you lift it with a chain from a ring at the rack’s center of balance.

Among the most frequent uses I make of this front-loader hook is the snaking of logs to be cut for firewood with grabber tongs. Often you can hitch onto a log without dismounting from the tractor, and once you get the end of the log off the ground just a little bit you can pull a surprising piece of tree with a little tractor like mine.

Sponsorship for this essay is provided by wood-burning stove suppliers.