Log Rite Log Arch Trailer Loading info needed

[123maxbars]

I was doing some thinking today while on the mill. I am going to buy a Log Rite bucking arch in the next few weeks. I have a problem of getting free logs to my mill sometimes when someone gives me two or three yard logs. I have a 16 foot gator made utility trailer that I use to haul logs from the local log yard to my house. The trailer to haul up to 8k. It has two adjustable ramps on the front of the trailer. I use the trailer to transport my Kubota tractor. I was wondering first if anyone here had tried this and second if not do u guys think it might work. I have a winch on the front of my trailer. My idea is this, pull a lot over to my trailer with my log rite buck arch. Line the wheels up with the ramps going on my trailer. Hook the winch to the handle of the arch and pull the arch on my trailer with the log. After log is on trailer move it to the side and bring up as many as possible until i run out of room to bring my arch up the ramps. Just wondering if anyone has tried this before. Will be a few weeks until I order the arch so just throwing this out there. If this idea doesnt work im going to fabricate an overhead arch on my trailer to pull from like I have seen guys on here do alot. 

[zopi]

Yeah..I do some of that with my buttugly homemade logwrong arch...it works..to a point..and is a pain...if you have a winch on the trailer...maybe a fairlead or gin pole on the back third of the trailer...to lift the log end to the trailer, then unhitch the snatch block and pull it on up the trailer..easy..

[Magicman]

"pnyberg" even devised a method of loading his arch onto his LT40.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,7789.msg617292.html#msg617292

[bandmiller2]

Max,it would be doable but awkward.Better to  use the arch to bring them close to the trailer. A good winch mounted on the front of the trailer would pull them on.Near the rear of the trailer have a hinged upside down "U" that would lift and load logs with the winch, tongs would make it handier. Frank C.

[LorenB]

123maxbars,

I have done this a couple of times with my LogRite fetching arch and a flatbed trailer with a winch at the front.  It doesn't work too easily. 

I my case, it was easy to get the log to the back of the trailer, but it hung down enough that the end of the log caught on the back of the bed as the arch came up the ramps.  My son-in-law and I eventually got the log onto the trailer, but it was a lot more complicated than we originally thought it would be. 

Since then, I have built a triangular frame that sits on one side of the trailer.  It fits into two of the stake side mounting slots and rests on the bed, with part of the frame projecting about two feet above the trailer bed.  I connect a snatch block to the top of that and run the cable from the winch, to the snatch block (at the side of the trailer) to the opposite side of the trailer.  This allows me to loop the cable around a log that is sitting beside the trailer and roll it up ramps onto the trailer bed from the side.  Basically the trailer loads like a sawmill with a winch loading system. 

You don't absolutely have to have the triangular frame to make this work.  My frame holds the cable high enough so that it doesn't rub against the opposite side of the trailer frame, but if you aren't concerned about that then you can just connect the snatch block to anything on the side of the trailer.  You could even lay a 2x4 along the frame to keep the cable off the steel trailer frame.  Depending upon the diameter of the log, it will eventually be high enough to miss the trailer altogether. 

The log arch arrangement was more trouble than the new setup. 

-- Loren