Dozer beak: An old fashioned way to load

longtime lurker · July 15, 2019, 03:33:23 PM

I've mentioned a beak on a dozer a few times here over the years as way to load logs, but never had any decent pictures of one because.... thats old school and not much used anymore. The pictures I've had are always trucks loading rather than the equipment itself.

Today I found some pictures in an auction catalogue so thought I'd post them for reference. You need a ramp pushed up (or a hole dug for the truck, or a sidecut, whatever suits the site) to get height on the dozer, and its more suited to long single logs than loads of CTL.

It works: I've done it a time or 50.

Pine Ridge · July 15, 2019, 08:43:33 PM

Its interesting to me the different ways there are to logging and the tools we all use or have used in the past. I've never saw anyone load with a dozer, but i can see how it would work. We used to load with a winchtruck and a set of log tongs, not the best, safest or fastest way but it was what we had to work with at the time.

mike_belben · July 15, 2019, 10:33:13 PM

Beats having every person in the village pulling a rope!

LeeB · July 16, 2019, 02:51:38 AM

Looks like it could be real handy for lots of other stuff.

Skeans1 · July 16, 2019, 03:11:52 PM

Interesting idea, you guys didn't use the line heel boom or snorkel/super snorkel loaders?

longtime lurker · July 17, 2019, 09:04:31 AM

Quote from: Skeans1 on July 16, 2019, 03:11:52 PM
Interesting idea, you guys didn't use the line heel boom or snorkel/super snorkel loaders?

The what or what style of loader? I had to google them. Interesting, but probably not practical with our low stand density selective cuts... too much machine to be moving regularly.
Here we pretty much went from parbuckling them onto bullock wagons to pushing them onto trucks with dozers. Then dozers with beaks or a crawler loader.... then wheel loaders. Now it depends but its either excavator for the regrowth/ plantation type operations or wheel loaders for the rest of us.

jwilly3879 · July 18, 2019, 01:15:41 PM

A fellow around here used to chain a hardwood pole to the blade arms with a set of tongs on the end and would load his truck from the rear. It was quite something to watch, with a 20' pole he could lift quite high.

Plankton · July 18, 2019, 05:27:07 PM

Quote from: jwilly3879 on July 18, 2019, 01:15:41 PM
A fellow around here used to chain a hardwood pole to the blade arms with a set of tongs on the end and would load his truck from the rear. It was quite something to watch, with a 20' pole he could lift quite high.

That's nuts! Ingenuity and working with what you have. Very cool