info/ advice on small grapple loaders for one man operation.

[shadpeters]

Hello there! I have been scouring the internet and while I have found lots of useful information, I am hoping that I can get some people with experience to weigh in to my specific situation.

First off a little background info: I have a very small milling operation, but I handle almost exclusivly very large logs. I have been building guitars for about 10 years and thats how I got into milling lumber was by looking for trees that would be valuable for instruments. I mainly look for trees that will have lots of figure, or some type of unique character that makes them desirable for instruments, or for items that would make good bowl blanks and live edge slabs. I am very particular about the logs that I take becuase I have to make it worth my while, but usually the best logs are large, mostly 36" diameter and up and hard difficult to handle. They are also almost exclusively in urban environments.

for a small operation handling these large logs is a pain, I have a couple tractors to use at the mill, but only one big enough to handle the large stuff, and it struggles at times. additionally taking a tractor to pick up one log,  loading the log, leaving the tractor, going back to the mill with no easy way to unload the log, and then going back for the tractor is not practical, not to mention just not possible in some situations. I have been dreaming of getting grapple trailer of some kind for a while. I first saw the wallanstein trailers a while back, but the loader capacity is laughable. I've looked at metavic, hardy, and bailey's loaders, and they have descent capacity, but are still not really able to handle the really big pieces that I want to be able to handle.  The cost is also somewhat prohibitive for a one man show like I've got going on.

I've seen a some different loader for sale, the prentice 120 seems to come up often, but I can't find much information on it. I don't know how much the unit weighs, or if it would be feasible to rig one up on a trailer that could be handled by a one ton truck. Does anyone know how much these units weigh? what type of hydraulic flow they require? I wouldn't mind having one that is well used, I don't need to be productive in terms of moving high volumes of timber, I just need to be able to lift some big ass heavy things.

I've also found a ramer 3000 graple loader like what a lot of the trash trucks around town have for around 5000 dollars. the unit weighs around 5500 pounds has a 18' reach and will lift 3000 lb at 16' this unit seems like it could be a really good fit for what I want. does this seem like A descent buy?  I figure i could mount it on a 16-20k trailer, and still have somethinkg like 9-13k pounds in terms of payload.


My plan is to get a loader and build a trailer around whatever loader I get. I have most everything I need to build the trailer, so thats not a real big deal. I'm going to build a gooseneck with tandem duals in the 8-10 ton range.

thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

[BargeMonkey]

 Even a 120 Prentice isn't going to like 3'+ stuff unless it's real short. I've seen some smaller loaders but never a "larger" truck style loader mounted on a small trailer. Possible but alot of time and money. I would buy a bigger skidsteer and a trailer to load them on ??? Before I tried to mount a 120 size loader on a small trailer. Loader itself weighs 5-7k lbs. I'm personally a Hood loader fan, I've got 2x Hood 7000's and the one has moved more wood than most men will cut in their entire lives, getting ready to be rebuild again this yr.

[barbender]

     Welcome to the forum, shadpeters! It sounds like you have an interesting operation. I'm sure you could make a smaller truck loader work on a trailer behind a one ton. Swinging big logs takes a decent sized loader though. If your just needing to load a few and save on hauling your tractor out, do a forum search on the DanG-deadheader log loader. Simple and effective, there's a current topic on one.

[barbender]

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,90845.msg1398878.html#msg1398878

[North River Energy]

If you're going after one or two high-value logs per trip, you probably want a crane, not a loader.
Something like this:

Geared toward capacity, not speed.
Medium duty trucks and Hiab type knuckle booms show up frequently on Craigslist in my area for short money.
Where are you located?

[shadpeters]

That "dang log loader" looks pretty perfect for what I'm doing, I'm glad I posted hear before commiting to the expense and involvement of making a forwarding trailer. I've already got the perfect trailer for the winch loader type setup, and I've got a 10500 pound hydraulic winch with mobile power pack that would work great on the trailer.
I have looked through quite a few threads on these DanG loaders and I haven't seen anyone using the arch locked in the upright position. I understand the necessity of having it rotate in an arch for acutally loading the logs, but wouldnt it be beneficial if you could lock the arch upright and use it as a pivot point to winch logs from a distance up to the trailer, and unlock the arch and let it down to actually load them? Thats something I'm thinking about incorporating into mine.

[woodmills1]

Welcome, you should post where you are located.  Sounds like you could get away with a single axle log loader truck, but I don't think a one ton is big enough.