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European logging anyone?

Started by pinefeller, February 11, 2018, 05:59:00 PM

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pinefeller

Ok im just a little one man crew (looking to put on a 3rd machine btw)  ;D and im a tinkerer and i really like  machines especially ones that make life easier in the woods... i have 0 ambition to do tree-length, chip and run a hot saw. i really like these European skidders, dual winches,(remote control no less), forestry cranes mounted on the roofs.(think forwarder and nice neat landings) i want one of those! a popular machine they use is an lkt 80 looks like the size of a 540 or c5. anyone run one similar? Thoughts? kinda just talkin out loud, dreaming, but the direction id like to work towards. maybe a mini excavator with a  shear for bunching pulp and firewood (small stems), TSI jobs.
heres a link ive been oogling over lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wrKGJlkT7s
for those who say "it cannot be done!" please do so quietly so as not to disturb those who are doing it.

teakwood

Count me in, i want one too!! ;D
National Stihl Timbersports Champion Costa Rica 2018

pinefeller

i wonder if the tires are loaded.
for those who say "it cannot be done!" please do so quietly so as not to disturb those who are doing it.

Skeans1

Tigercat had some 604 skidders setup like that in Europe, might look into HSM as well

pinefeller

tiger cats machine is perfect, just 20000# too heavy and 100hp more than i want to feed!!!! us small guys are stuck with 50 year old machines! maybe my expectations are too low, but a load a day is good enough for me and even a hard high-grade looks like a forest compared to where the big guys go. not to mention the residual stand is 20 years ahead of full mechanical ''forestry'' lol
for those who say "it cannot be done!" please do so quietly so as not to disturb those who are doing it.

Skeans1

Sorry meant the new 602 it's a little bigger then the 440C was but made just like what you wanted.

pinefeller

huh. i thought 610 was the smallest thing made looks comparable to a 640d or 518cat.....
aaa lot like a 518 cat ....ok wheres the nearest dealer lol
for those who say "it cannot be done!" please do so quietly so as not to disturb those who are doing it.

lopet

I imported a 25 year old Welte junior with all the whistles and bells in 2015 roughly for the price of a twenty year old forwarder. Plus shipping around 8.5K US from which was about 60% for trucking. I do not regret it but would I have known everything I know now or after, then I definitely would NOT be doing it again. 
I wanted something to make live easier in the woods with no electronics and simple to fix, so far I only needed a new battery pack for the remote controlled winch and a seal kit for the crane main boom.
I log and farm about 50/50 and don't work it hard or have to make a living from it, so I think it should outlast my career. 

The LKT 80 is a eastern Europe skidder and appears to be pretty tough, but all I know is from youtube just like most everybody else. Just thought if they would brake after every stunt those guys upload, they probably wouldn't be doing it.

A tinkerer as you say you are would just mount a forwarder crane  on the back of a skidder and the dual winches are available  for pto or hydraulics. A push down blade on the rear helps stabilize the machine while reaching over the sides. You need a bigger hydraulic pump or two and a bigger cab, because you have to be able to turn your seat around and have some legroom. Also with a clutch and a standard transmission you will be doing a lot of swiveling.   :D
You are young and ambitious, you can do this. :) Somebody has to take the lead and I kinda too wanna know if this is doable.  I guess we need some more members here to cheer you up. :D
Make sure you know how to fall properly when you fall and as to not hurt anyone around you.
Also remember, it's not the fall what hurts, its the sudden stop. !!

Southside

I have always liked those Euro machines and don't understand why we don't see them here.  For a while I have had the idea to put a loader onto the back of my Franklin, and build a forwarder trailer that could be towed behind it.  One machine could do tree length, cut to length, and winch.  Not to mention load and unload trailers. 

The cab is too tight to swing a seat, and needs to be longer for leg room if you did, would end up with a bump out cab for sure, but I think it would be worth it in the end. 
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

Skeans1

After seeing one what's the difference between that and a swinging grapple skidder or swinger track skidder? I'd also be concerned about pulling with the loader like some of the guys do it'd sure be hard on the squirts.

Southside

Never seen one in person so have to ask - can you load with a swing grapple?
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

mike_belben

If i live long enough, i will be building my final machine for similar reasons that lopet described.  There are few machines i havent E-studied at one point or another.  the timberpro 830/840 has become the design i most expect to clone.  I own the engine, tcase and pair of 5ton truck halves with toploader axles and the AM general walking beam system.  I will use XML's and shop built OTT tracks.      i believe the rotary manifold, slew, cab, boom and pumps will come from a case/drott cruzair rubber tire loader.  They are scrapped all the time now, i kinda have a verbal deposit on one. 

My only struggle is how to power the tcase with the engine up in the cab counterweight.  Im thinking its gonna take a huge hydraulic motor and a planetary reduction.    I bought a torched off track frame hunk with the final and hyd motor from a linkbelt 2800A but i dont know if this is a great idea or not.  Id like an auto tranny but kinda dont want the complication.  Either one has more energy loss than a direct drive manual trans but the  you have a clutch and no real way to swivel the cab which seems critical to me.  If you want your forwarder to also be your knuckleboom loader it really needs a full swivel cab.   But im sure a hydrostatic drivenwill be really thirsty on fuel if the machine travels a lot.

In my mind anyway, it would be a traveling machine on commercial sites with good roads.  On sites with no roads it would stay at the landing and be my knuckleboom.  The rotary manifold on the drotts has plenty of ports for a hotsaw hookup and power blade or outriggers.   I would road the machine everywhere. 
Praise The Lord

pinefeller

    wow ! thanks for the responses... maybe JD and Cat will get the hint....there is a market for single guy logging outfits and Tigercat is apparently the only one on it available in America. I will be looking into those but for now im thinking the price point will probably be astronomical.
     I have 2 years more or less before the kids are both in school and i can go to work for real again. so we'll see how these next 2 summers go. ive been going through what it would take to build one of these and i may very well just buy a crane and mount it on my skidder and give it a try. I doubt the robustness of those little farmi loaders but it would be a good trial run.i dont know where to buy one or have any idea on the costs. next year at the logging expo i will definitely be looking in earnest for some real options. it mainly would be for decking logs (you  know, minus all the "pile humping")  ive been known to stand the skidder pretty much straight up on the arch building piles in small landings but i bet i could triple the amount if the logs were turned 90* and stacked up. i also use a single, owner operator to truck for me and he likes to plan the best routes for effiency which sometimes will back me up. im currently running two machines at different lots and if i put on a third i could let him bounce around and cherry pick his loads to make the best of his fuel mileage and daylight.
   Yeah, the standard transmission isnt ideal and youd just have to kneel on the seat to run the loader but so what? hell, im using my backhoe with a thumb to pile up logs driving around with my feet going forward running the wheels and my torso facing the back running the loader bouncing around. anything would be an upgrade!!!
ultimately a 5 ton excavator cab /swing house with a knuckle boom mounted to a skidder chassis would be the best if i could really have my cake and eat it too....preferabaly under 200k with a 20k+ hr life expectancy weighing around 20-25k lbs, dual remote winches, only consume 1.5 gal of fuel an hour max and 8.5- 9 ft wide :) you gotta dream anyway. oh, and i needs to exist on this continent.
for those who say "it cannot be done!" please do so quietly so as not to disturb those who are doing it.

snowstorm

Or just buy a good used 6 wheel forwarder  and be done with it. Once you load it just drive to the yard. No dropping the hitch and winching because  it to heavy. Or trying to bend a 60 ft tree around a corner 

pinefeller

too big no winch dont bend 60 ft trees around corners, cut them in half ;D
for those who say "it cannot be done!" please do so quietly so as not to disturb those who are doing it.

lopet

HSM has dealers in Quebec and BC.             http://inovforest.com/

The loading cranes are definitely not meant for pulling or doing a wheelie, put the new generation of Epsilon cranes are pretty impressive.
So when you go at it ? 8) 8)  It would make it my favored thread. :)
Make sure you know how to fall properly when you fall and as to not hurt anyone around you.
Also remember, it's not the fall what hurts, its the sudden stop. !!

pinefeller

well like i said, if i have a good summer ill be lookin for a crane:) i like the hsm's. ill get some literature and some prices, give me something to work toward anyhow. as the bigger pieces of land are smoked off theres a lot of fragmented little parcels and urban logging that haven't been worked over yet.
for those who say "it cannot be done!" please do so quietly so as not to disturb those who are doing it.

teakwood

I'm also very interested in this thread!

I know some day i will own a "euro" skidder, it's just the perfect machine for my situation. You can do about 5 different tasks with only one machine

Of course you can dream of a Welte or HSM and i could possibly bring a affordable one over to our continent but, but i'm afraid of the parts you inevitably will need some day! and forget cheap parts from europe. Those brands are not like deere or timberjack where you can find interchangeable parts between brands or just search some junk yards and find cheap used parts and put them in.
National Stihl Timbersports Champion Costa Rica 2018

lopet

Nobody ever said that there is lots of money to be made. ;D :)
Make sure you know how to fall properly when you fall and as to not hurt anyone around you.
Also remember, it's not the fall what hurts, its the sudden stop. !!

Maine372

the problem with a 'does it all machine' is that when it breaks you cant do anything. and the more pieces you add to it, the more complicated, harder to maneuver, maintenance intensive, expensive to fix it becomes.

the more I think about my ideal setup the more I see having multiple single task machines that don't hamstring me when they break. crawler with cable arch: for road building, house lot clearing, punching in landings, etc. cable/grapple skidder clark or TJ with clark running gear: dragging prebunched wood or the big wood that you only need one or two trees to go with. small cable skidder: for the light footprint jobs. and a landing crane on a road legal truck preferably something stout enough to haul the other machines behind. if any of those machines breaks, even catastrophically, I jump in the next and keep on going.

mike_belben

The flip side is thats a lotta iron to maintain.
Praise The Lord

chevytaHOE5674

Also a lot of "do it all machines" will surely do it all, but they only do everything 1/2 as good as a single purpose dedicated machine will do it.

Skeans1

Quote from: Southside logger on February 12, 2018, 09:01:54 AM
Never seen one in person so have to ask - can you load with a swing grapple?
They aren't meant for loading, but a guy that's good with one can keep from skinning up trees in a thin or deck a nice pile they're popular out here on the 517, 527, D5H, & D4H had some as well. The skidders that had then normally didn't as long a lot of them got flipped with the rocking motion of the swinger.

Skeans1

Quote from: pinefeller on February 12, 2018, 02:17:46 PM
    wow ! thanks for the responses... maybe JD and Cat will get the hint....there is a market for single guy logging outfits and Tigercat is apparently the only one on it available in America. I will be looking into those but for now im thinking the price point will probably be astronomical.
     I have 2 years more or less before the kids are both in school and i can go to work for real again. so we'll see how these next 2 summers go. ive been going through what it would take to build one of these and i may very well just buy a crane and mount it on my skidder and give it a try. I doubt the robustness of those little farmi loaders but it would be a good trial run.i dont know where to buy one or have any idea on the costs. next year at the logging expo i will definitely be looking in earnest for some real options. it mainly would be for decking logs (you  know, minus all the "pile humping")  ive been known to stand the skidder pretty much straight up on the arch building piles in small landings but i bet i could triple the amount if the logs were turned 90* and stacked up. i also use a single, owner operator to truck for me and he likes to plan the best routes for effiency which sometimes will back me up. im currently running two machines at different lots and if i put on a third i could let him bounce around and cherry pick his loads to make the best of his fuel mileage and daylight.
   Yeah, the standard transmission isnt ideal and youd just have to kneel on the seat to run the loader but so what? hell, im using my backhoe with a thumb to pile up logs driving around with my feet going forward running the wheels and my torso facing the back running the loader bouncing around. anything would be an upgrade!!!
ultimately a 5 ton excavator cab /swing house with a knuckle boom mounted to a skidder chassis would be the best if i could really have my cake and eat it too....preferabaly under 200k with a 20k+ hr life expectancy weighing around 20-25k lbs, dual remote winches, only consume 1.5 gal of fuel an hour max and 8.5- 9 ft wide :) you gotta dream anyway. oh, and i needs to exist on this continent.

I'd bet that little Tigercat with all those goodies would cost half a million. Deere and cat got out of that market because how many little skidders do you really think get sold a year? How many one man operations can afford to buy a new skidder or heck a low hour used skidder for that matter plus there's getting to be places in the country where they're not allowed to run them. There's a deal out of Canada that sounds just like the ticket for you

pinefeller

what is the deal out of canada? is lopet selling his? (i do remember him saying "let someone else import one then buy it from them'' in his thread)  ;D

and as far as what do you do when your jack of all machines breaks? ....buy 2 duh.... :D or just break out the old treefarmer--- ; (this is why i have multiple jobs i bounce around on anyway) i'll never be to proud to pull a cable. the concept is simple as dirt and well proven. im all for safety and operator comfort though. 

ok then farmi,palfinger, and others how about a retrofit kit for us guys with paid off old skidders? crane and dual remote winch thats a payment i could probably and would swing. no pun intended
for those who say "it cannot be done!" please do so quietly so as not to disturb those who are doing it.

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