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Loader truck

Started by furltech, January 07, 2016, 02:38:39 PM

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furltech

I have been running the skidder for a couple of weeks and was wondering if having an old loader truck is an asset on the landing or a waste of capitol .we cut mostly 100 inch wood and wanted to pick the brains of the guys doing the same does the truck make the bucking and piling at the landing that much better

starmac

We are comepletly different as far as logging operations go, there is no 100 in pulp going on, bu tthere are some similarities to. The loggers here that have a loader at the landing not only use it around the operation, but they can hire trucks with a better payload.

From as far back as I am hauling, they will not let the self load trucks haul at all, if that makes sense. I don't know if that would be a benefit in your pulp operation or not.
Old LT40HD, old log truck, old MM forklift, and several huskies.

furltech

I would not be loading any trucks but i guess in the future if i wanted to i could buy a truck and could load it myself .i mostly just was thinking i would pull th snig up alongside the truck and buck it up and swing it over to the other side to pile .i dont know maybe i am overthinking this

Woodhauler

Quote from: furltech on January 07, 2016, 03:29:55 PM
I would not be loading any trucks but i guess in the future if i wanted to i could buy a truck and could load it myself .i mostly just was thinking i would pull th snig up alongside the truck and buck it up and swing it over to the other side to pile .i dont know maybe i am overthinking this
One more piece of equipment to start everyday and maintain! If you are bgood on the skidder you should be able to put up good piles with the blade. I myself wouldn't do it.
2013 westernstar tri-axle with 2015 rotobec elite 80 loader!Sold 2000 westernstar tractor with stairs air ride trailer and a 1985 huskybrute 175 T/L loader!

furltech

well there is that i suppose. never thought of it that way .truck isnt very expensive but that does translate into repairs .

chevytaHOE5674

UP here its hard to find anybody to haul wood out of a job that is piled up with a skidder. Truck drivers don't want to have to climb up and down off there loader to move half a dozen times to get a full load. A cheap slasher/truck/or loader is a great way to sort and pile wood.


Woodhauler

Quote from: chevytaHOE5674 on January 07, 2016, 06:25:59 PM
UP here its hard to find anybody to haul wood out of a job that is piled up with a skidder. Truck drivers don't want to have to climb up and down off there loader to move half a dozen times to get a full load. A cheap slasher/truck/or loader is a great way to sort and pile wood.
[/quo   But you guys haul half the forest off in one load! ;D
2013 westernstar tri-axle with 2015 rotobec elite 80 loader!Sold 2000 westernstar tractor with stairs air ride trailer and a 1985 huskybrute 175 T/L loader!

coxy

I would not want to be with out my loader or my skid steer they both come in handy the loader with small landing (skid steer for big landing move wood faster further ) jmop

BargeMonkey

Small loader or truck mounted picker will pay for itself in no time, couple guys around here have a worn out 120 on an old R model, cheap and easy. Being able to stack wood is so much nicer, I started a small job this summer on a dead end rd while another job was too wet, blade piling with the skidder, wanted to scream because I needed 2x the area and didn't take long before I was out of room. I know a couple guys who use a skidsteer to pile, which is nicer if your cutting good logs, just don't have the ability to stack as high as a truck mount.

coxy

true about skid steer and piling but the right landing you can move wood faster if you got mud forget it but then again  have heard people skidding logs with a skid steer and leaving 12in ruts  :) I want one of them

Corley5

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Ohio_Bill

Bill
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LT 40 HDD42-RA   , Allis Chalmers I 500 Forklift , Allis Chalmers 840 Loader , International 4300 , Zetor 6245 Tractor – Loader ,Bob Cat 763 , Riehl Steel Edger

furltech

had my share of forwarders lol i like working with the skidder just trying to make it a tad more user friendly

BargeMonkey

 I went down this road the painful way.  :D  added a timbco to up production on FW / pulp jobs, then would spend days sitting on my hood slashing and putting my truck in holes, got good at putting mud flaps on. Bought this 230 because I have jobs I can't access the headers, worked good but slow, slash, load, stack, wasn't the answer unless your doing CTL right on the stump. On an average 1/3-1/2 mile skid I try and get 75-90 trees a day out, then slash for 2+hrs every night before I go home in the dark, finish anything left the next morning when stuffs warming up. My point is, a loader in an form is beyond handy, I will go back to cutting by hand, cable skidder, won't give up that loader and saw, such a huge time saver, less wear on saws, sharpen it 1x a week.

grassfed

I have a loader truck and I love it but I have found that as a one man cable skidder/chainsaw operation it is best to buck the logs right off the back of the skidder before I unhook the hitch.

If my pile gets too big I can stack the bucked logs on the other side with the loader but trying to buck tree length piles by using a chainsaw and climbing up and down the loader was slow and inefficient. I can usually make a 10 cord/5000 bf pile of bucked logs with my skidder where my truck driver can load with 1 move or less.

I really like the idea of being able to drop tree length on the landing without having to fire up the saw and buck but I have tried that and I spent more time and energy bucking later with the loader.

Now I would love to have a bigger loader and a slasher that could handle tree length. I have a Prentice 110 with a pulp bucket and handling 50 foot tree length and bucking with a chainsaw is just not productive.

Having a small loader on a truck will not really help with bucking on a landing unless you need it for stacking and sorting but it is better if you can skip this step and work it out with your trucker.

I still think that a old loader truck is a great thing to have around. It can help with many things and if you can get a good one at a fair price do it, but if you are really thinking about production a loader slasher with pull through limber is the ticket.
Mike

coxy

that's what I also have a 110 its slow but beats doing it by hand  :D 8)

Plankton

I would love to have a loader truck on the landing except for the headache of permits and insurance etc.  It would be wicked handy to put a lot of wood in a small space.

I don't have any experience with 100" wood but I'm cutting 16s and 12s right now and can easily pile it with the skidder so the guy with the self loader can fill a semi without moving. The job I'm on now has a small landing and I stack with the ends of the logs facing the road I find I can fit more wood into a small space like that opposed to parrellel to the road.

I guess what your cutting is shorter length maybe make 2 rows? I think if your going to pay for having a log truck on the road just to sit on the landing a better investment might be a skidsteer with forks or a forwarder. Unless you plan on trucking your own logs then its worth the cost.

furltech

there are no pemits of any kind it will be floated to the next lot same as skidder .since we cut very few logs and mostly studwood, pulp and firewood all 8 feet long i just figured it would be faster and neater than trying to keep all the piles with the skidder .i have been piling parallel with the road also .looked at a truck today and going to look at an old chev dump truck that a guy put an old truck loader on tommorow .it is fairly cheap.skidsteer might work ok just thinking truck might work better for me .dunno we shall see wont be the first thing i tried that didnt work out .lol.i do appreciate everyones help and ideas on here though 

Maine372

I don't know what markets are in your area, but another advantage of the loader is being able to feed a chipper. with pulp markets collapsing more wood is going to the biomass market and being able to utilize that market would be handy.


Logger RK

You could also get a Hahn Harvester. It delimb's & cuts it in length at landing. Plus ur limbs & tops r in a pile ready to b chipped. But then you'd need a grapple on ur Skidder. But then you're talking a much bigger investment. I kinda think if a guys cutting with chain saws the most versatile machine would be a short wood Skidder. Woods cleaner & u can sort at landing.

starmac

One of the loggers I haul for has a hahn, he did tree length logs with it when he used it, but it hasn't been run in years.
The way he talked it was alright when he was export logging and running a big crew, but just takes too much support equipment to use for a small operation.
I have been eyeballing it, thinking a guy might be able to convert it to one heck of a firewood processor. lol
Old LT40HD, old log truck, old MM forklift, and several huskies.

timberlinetree

For us having a loader on hand is real handy! We started with a log truck then a forwarder.

Piling with the skidder is tuff on the clutch,the wood sometimes get dirty, and getting the stack high is difficult and there's always the log that doesn't behave.

Pilling with the skidder needs a bigger landing and gets muddy quicker.

Pilling with the skidder makes the pile harder for the self loading log truck to load but with skill and hard work it can do a good job.

With the loader a smaller landing is needed, the wood can be piled high and neat and the skidder isn't  clutching back and forth.

If you run into Vermeer it can be laided out.

Sorting log from pulp is a lot easier.

Can load trailers.

Helps with installing chains on the skidder/repairs.

Helps keep the truckers/viewers( the ones that like to write the paper about how bad logging is?)happy.

We try not to use the loader if we can( for pulp/firewood we pull 44' ers out With the skidder cut in half and blade stack because they are to long for us and stack well)because it does use fuel and bearings don't last forever.

We used to have a guy with a transport plate move the log truck and lowboy moves the forwarder.
Work safe out there!
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jwilly3879

Having worked both with and without a landing loader I would not go back to not having one. As a two man operation it is invaluable, my son (or grandson) pulls the tree length up next to the loader. I can move the trees to help unhooking the chokers which speeds thing up and lay them out. I then mark the logs and pulp using a tape and paint, buck every thing out as far as the loader can reach, the stack and pull the tops up. Usually I have everything picked up before the next hitch. If not I stack the tops so the skidder can still pull next to the loader.

I think it is a lot safer than bucking on the pile, keeps a neat landing and everything is sorted for the trucker. One hauler uses our loader to and charges less to haul logs and pays more for pulp than the self loader.

This is a job from last winter where we worked in the front yard and had to keep the driveway open, pulp behind the loader and logs across the driveway.


 

Another job where the road had to be kept open. 


 

A nice big header.


 

Woodhauler

 Well if he really wants to make it easy, then buy a big loader and slasher. Bring out a bunch of wood then take care of it.
2013 westernstar tri-axle with 2015 rotobec elite 80 loader!Sold 2000 westernstar tractor with stairs air ride trailer and a 1985 huskybrute 175 T/L loader!

BargeMonkey

 JWilly- those are some nice pictures of a clean job, like you said, once you have one you won't go back. I'm itching to post some pictures off this next job, ideal header for moving the loader every few days, won't truck the wood till summer so I hope to have 5-700 cord in a nice neat roadside pile.

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