The Forestry Forum

Morbark makes a Stac Trac
There must be a way to build one using the hydraulic bottle Jack from an engine crane/ cherry picker and a Heavy Ballast Base

I'll bet there is also.

Like this but for Rough Terrain
Vestil CBFC-1000
Counter Balanced Floor Crane

I've never seen any in a mill.  I've seen automatic stackers.   I saw a used one in Canada for $12.5k,  You're going to need a pretty big building to swing the lumber around.  If you are sawing 16' material, you'll have to pull an arc of 20' for lumber and machine. 

they have one at the mill im set up at they work really good :)

I have an older stac trac that works well . it will handle up to a 12x12x10 foot but that pretty much maxes it out.i mainly stack 3x12 up to 12 foot with it.ties stack real easy with it.mine cost about 9000.00 a couple years ago.

Do you use it only for heavy blocking or for lumber, as well?  We always stacked our heavy stuff off the end of the mill.  There wasn't too much handling, and we had a Logrite there to help.  For the really heavy stuff, we stacked with the loader.  The biggest thing I sawed was a 20x20x10.  We also sawed 23' switch ties.  We could stack them by hand without much difficulty.  We ran a green chain, which helped quite a bit.

ron as I am getting older I use it more and more for the 3x material and tie size cants.the lumber I stack by hand.i am just a one man show.