Making One Turn with a Small Tractor

[g_man]

 Since it was raining again today I had time to play with the computer so I put together some photos showing one turn. I thought some of you might enjoy them one way or another.
My woods are full of old and otherwise undesirable balsam fir which I am slowly taking out. Most of it has brown cubical stump rot. I try to get saw logs. It is like trying to make a silk purse from a sow's ear. The mill down the road will take 10 footers and up with 5" min tops and pay $280/M. 8 footers and bully logs are culled as pallet wood and pay half that. I manage to make about $10 an hour which is a good paying hobby  ;D

So we bring the tractor down into the woods and back it into where the skid out will start and there will be a good winch path. Then we go in the woods and drop the first tree with the top headed for the tractor. Limb it and cut off over 4 feet of rot.



 

Then move to the left and drop the second tree parallel to the first. This one has less rot.



 

Winch out the first tree, top first. Now you can see the tractor, bearly. The second tree is being winched out pretty much the same path.



 

The next tree is closer to the tractor and leaning the wrong way. I don't trust a wedge in the rotten bases so I use the winch to tip the tree the way I want. I move the tractor lower and set up a snatch block and put pressure on the tree to pull it back with the winch. Tractor end



 

Tree end with choker high as I could reach



 

I cut the tree and pull it over with the winch into the open area. Trim the bad rot on that one and limb it. Then let it lie for later.



 

While the tractor is down there I cut a forth tree right behind it. Cut the rot off and limb it. Then I skid it back up to the original spot and drop it. So that I now  have three trees in the road and the one in the woods which I winch out on the hook.



 

I put the other three on sliders and bring them to the tractor.



 

Then we skid up about 200 yards.



 

At the landing. Drop the hitch.



 

And head down the loop for more.



 

This is how I amuse myself and know that I am a lucky man.

 

[Holmes]

Thank you  Great story and pictures

[Handymark]

Nice looking poles. $280 seems like a good price for small logs. Best I have received here for hardwood is $400.

[sprucebunny]

My balsam is the same but it looks like you have good ground to work on and I live in the Granite State  :D
I end up just leaving lots out there because many are too far gone and have fallen on their own but sometimes I use it for fill between the rocks.

Thanks for the pictures !

[thecfarm]

Looks like a fun day.

[barbender]

Your landing is way too neat  Nice looking work.

[WDH]

Very neatly done!

[g_man]

I try to leave the mess in the woods where it will do some good and keep the landing clean. On this one I have extra motivation for neatness from the better half because it is in her back yard full of nice flowers. The two little piles are 10 footers and 12 footers which I can haul on my 1 ton dump truck. After I make up the saw logs I bring the cut ends to the fire pit for fire wood.




 

[Dakota]

Nice Job!  I like your grapple.  Can you tell us about it?

[Mooseherder]

Looks great, thanks for posting.

[Hilltop366]

Nice Job!  I like your grapple.  Can you tell us about it?

Me too!

[treefarmer87]

nice logs, great pics

[logman81]

I have the same grapple on my loader very handy

[g_man]

Nice Job!  I like your grapple.  Can you tell us about it?

Thanks.
Grapple is an ATI Grapple Kit. Fits 4' to 5'-6" buckets. Easy to install. It comes with two end plates that bolt or weld onto the bucket. They have pipe hubs on them. The tube comes loose and is long. Insert tube in hubs then weld tube to hubs where you want. Cut off the extra tube on each end.
For hydraulics I bought a single spool valve with power beyond and mounted it  on a plate above my loader valve. Plumbed it into the loader PB circuit. If you have hydrauliic remotes you could use those. I made a control lever similar to the loader lever. I made it so it could swivel sideways with the loader lever doing curl and dump so I could operate both with one hand. I put a little spring between the loader lever and the grapple lever to keep the grapple lever off to the right and out of the way when I am not using it.
I also welded some short pieces of re-bar on the tines for teeth.
.It works good for what I do.
To take it off just unbolt and and remove Quick Connects




 



 



 



 

[Dakota]

Thanks so much for the information and pictures.  Your tractor looks like mine (L3010).  That looks like a good winter welding project.  I'll document the buid.  Thanks again.

Dakota

[Okrafarmer]

If you can do all that, and not feel any pressure about it, then you are right, you are indeed a lucky man.  ;D

It takes me back to my days of tractor logging balsam fir, popple, and firewood in central Maine. No winch, no loader, no 4X4, no power steering.

Yes, you are a lucky man!

[Hilltop366]

Great, thanks.

[JohnM]

Your tractor looks like mine (L3010).

:D  I was thinking the same thing Dakota, only mine is the 3710.

That is a really slick/neat looking set-up gman, all the way from tractor to woodlot.  I'd love to have a grapple like that but my hydraulic engineering skills are lacking at best. :(  Some day maybe. :  Just curious, what kind of winch is that?

JM

[g_man]

Your tractor looks like mine (L3010).

:D  I was thinking the same thing Dakota, only mine is the 3710.

Just curious, what kind of winch is that?

JM

It is a Farmi JL290. I don't think they make that model anymore. And the tractor is indeed a L3010 DT (gear transmission)

[John Mc]

G-man, I like your set-up.  The Kubota L3010 is one of the tractors I was considering when I was shopping 10 years ago.  I ended up with a New Holland TC33D... very similar size and specs. I chose it over the Kubota mainly because of the outstanding NH dealer in my area (since then, they bought out the area Kubota dealer, so the choice may end up different if I were shopping now).

I went with a Woods loader on my Tractor, since the NH offering was somewhat limited on capacity and dump/rollback angles (high dump angles are a plus in the clay soil her ein the Champlain Valley). 

My loader has similar capacity to what yours has (about 1000#, if you have what I think you have for a loader).  I've been debating adding a grapple to it, but wasn't sure how much use I'd get from it, and how much lift capacity I'd use up from the weight of the grapple.  How have things worked out for you with that grapple?  Have you lifted much hardwood with it?

[thecfarm]

If I had a few dollars I would have a grapple on my NH. If I was doing that my landing would not look like that. Start pushing logs onto a pile with a loader and the ground pays for it.Now I have to get off and put a chain on the log,pick it up, and carry it to the sawmill,get off and unhook. : I'm tired just thinking about it all. Many other uses beside logs too. I can think of a few just about every time I'm doing something with the loader.
gman,does the tines go back anymore? In one picture you have the bucket tipped down. Probably the tines would not hit the ground if the bucket was rolled all the way back to back drag.

[g_man]

I went with a Woods loader on my Tractor, since the NH offering was somewhat limited on capacity and dump/rollback angles (high dump angles are a plus in the clay soil her ein the Champlain Valley). 

My loader has similar capacity to what yours has (about 1000#, if you have what I think you have for a loader).  I've been debating adding a grapple to it, but wasn't sure how much use I'd get from it, and how much lift capacity I'd use up from the weight of the grapple.  How have things worked out for you with that grapple?  Have you lifted much hardwood with it?

John I have the LA482 loader which is spec'ed at 1060 lbs at the bucket mid point and 1225 at the pivot pins. I always role the bucket all the way back as I pick a log (as in the pic). I figure after I subtract the bucket and grapple weight I can lift a 700 lb log that way. So if your talking hard maple a 15" diameter log 10' long is pretty iffy.
The only hard wood logs I have really done were 8' or 10' fire wood and w birch or popple tie logs. That stuff is no trouble. I don't have the trees (yet) for big hard wood saw logs and would want a bigger tractor anyway.
Don't worry about finding uses for the grapple. It is one of the handiest things I have. I use it all the time. Brush piles, picking big rocks, stumps, moving wifes whiskey barrel planters, and on and on. It will grab lots of stuff.



 

[g_man]

gman,does the tines go back anymore? In one picture you have the bucket tipped down. Probably the tines would not hit the ground if the bucket was rolled all the way back to back drag.

Mr C, I am not sure I understand your question. To me it looks like the grapple is all the way open in the picture. I can dump the bucket further forward and back drag with the tines to rake rocks and limbs or cut sod. Whatever. If I want to back drag with the bucket I close the grapple and it is out of the way for any bucket angle I use.
Did that answer your question ?

[thecfarm]

Yes,you did. I like the dragging the tines to back drag too. I gotts get me one of them.