High lead logging

[timberfaller390]

In this months issue of saw mill and woodlot magazine there was an article on cable logging for guys working small woodlots. One example showed a guy cutting firewood using a very small (24 horse) Kubota tractor with a two drum igland winch and some sort of homemade tower, that was all attached to the tractor. One line worked as the sky line the other ran the carrige. Is anyone else using such a set up on such a small scale or the same set up ( farm tractor as a tower yarder) but larger?

[Meadows Miller]

Gday timberfaller

Ive seen some small setups I think Farmy winchs has one and Brightwater logging equipment in NZ build a small 3pl 11meter tower machine  15m tower truck mount with loading crane to very large production models .and Timbermaster also built a 5 ,10 ,15 ton truck mount modles .
I have had a long running intrest in cable logging My opinion is if You are looking at doing it Id get somthing like S/H Thunderbird TYM 4O or similar small self propeld yarder it depends on the volume You want to get out in a day and alot ofther factors
Ill be intrested in seeing the replys to your post

Reguards Chris McMahon

[Maineloggerkid]

I too, have had an interset in tower logging. There are alot of hillls in this area which a skidder cannot traverse. I like the concept, speed, and the apparent productivity, but is is cost effective?.

Don't mean to steal the thread from Timberfaller, but just wan't to throw more on the table.

[Ed]

Koller makes a small yarder thats mounted to a trailer. There's a little info here: http://www.jlogging.com/koller.html

Pretty neat setup!

Ed

[thecfarm]

I would like to see that set up using a farm tractor too.I would think a bigger tractor would be better,but I suppose more people have a small tractor,30hp than have a 60hp one.I suppose you could not hook on to a 2 footer,16 feet long and yard it up the hill.I suspect it was designed,like you said for firewood.

[timberfaller390]

I don't know that I necessarily want to try it but I do know of some good places that it work beautifuly. I was just trying to find out if setups as small as I described are common in some places. I didn't know they made yarders as small as the one mounted on the trailer, I guess I always thought of high lead logging as a big undertaking.  I read a study not long ago about the possible use of tower logging here in southern appalachia which is unheard of.

[Ed_K]

 I have used a set up similar,using the tractor and single drum winch. On hill sides where i have many trees to pull up to the top, i find a big tree on top and standing on the back fender i chain a 6" pulley to the tree (it has to be a cut tree). i have 200' of cable and pull the cable down hook on and up they come. Once i have all the trees pulled or to many in the way, i unhook from the pulley turn around and grab one with the front loader/grapple back up some, cut to length, an stack along the path. When i'm done i hook onto the forestry trailer and haul to the landing. This is more economical than trying pull 2 or 3 trees out an go to the landing an process. I've done this with firewood,pallet logs and up to 20" w/pine. Big pine an 12'-16' hardwood i buck at the stump,pull each log up and load onto a modified haywagon chassie.

[barbender]

I posted a link to a homebrew mini-yarder once, it just used like a 5 horse engine. I can't remember where it's at now. I thought if a fella built a winch that could pull a fair amount, you could run your line back out in the woods with an atv, be a little faster

[Meadows Miller]

Gday

Cat D4 to 6 size dozer with twin drum winch alot of cable n chokers about 8 to 12  pulleys and a few bloody strong trees for spar poles and ALOT of commonsence You could bring out more timber than you could handel  8) 50 Years Ago before DLI got into things and We all had to start Idiot proofing everything  ;) :D :D ;D and still ppl get cought out : :'( .


Reguards Chris

ps Ive got a couple of BC Cable logging handbooks 1 early 60s and one 79 circa not lite reading bout 2/300pgs ea but has almost every question you could ask coverd

[timberfaller390]

Chris, could you pass along the names of those books, they sound like something I would like to add to my library.

[Meadows Miller]

Gday

Timbefaller Im getting those book names for You Im just Gotta find them Ive got boxs and boxes to go through to find them  :D like usual they will be in the last box I go through  ;) :D ;D I started colecting timber industry books and mags when i was about 5yo Ive got heaps of stuff this just gives me a excuse to drag all those boxes out and have a read ;) :D ;D I should have those names for you in a day or two mate

Chris

[timberfaller390]

much obliged Chris

[Maineloggerkid]

Oh boy- new logging books to spend money on!  I have started a small collection of my own.

[timberfaller390]

It's funny that after posting this thread because of nothing more than curiosity that I would get a job that would be perfect for a small high lead setup. I may be starting a small clearing job for a friend of mine later this month that's only about 5 acres but 2 acres is on a pretty steep grade. It's mixed hardwoods the biggest trees are only about 28" DBH the rest average around 16-20" DBH. It will be cut strictly for my mill since I haven't built up a good log supply yet. What I was thinking was rigging a skyline from a tree at the landing to a spar in the woods, then using my jeep's winch as the mainline. I know it won't pull the biggest trees but it should take care of the smaller stuff? What size/grade/load rating cable should I use for my skyline? Barbender I too posted on the "yankee yarder" it would be a pretty handy toy (which I thought about for this job) but I think the cheaper the better on this job.

[Kevin]

Will the logs slide on the ground up the hill where you won't need a braking system to hold the log in place while you lower it?
10M messenger strand has a rated breaking strength of 10,000 lbf (44,480 N).
You'll need some way to tension the line.

[Ron Wenrich]

I worked on high lead and yarder operations a long time ago in Oregon.  These were the big rigs, and I was supposed to go to balloon logging, but other things came up and I never made it.

Many years ago, the Forest Service did some experimenting with a yarder type system on the back of a JD 540 skidder.  Not much was made of the system due to the economics of running high lead and yarder type operations.  They aren't really designed for select harvesting.

If you're going to do something like this, you should have a 2 man system where one guy hooks up and the other guy runs the winch and unhooks.  You'll need some way to communicate to each other. 

Out west, I only saw this where they pulled logs uphill.  The tower gave the lift to get the butts up in the air so they wouldn't dig in.  On balloons, there wasn't any tower, since the balloon gave the lift. 

[Tillaway]

There is a big difference between high lead and skyline systems.  High lead is much simpler system however it is much harder on the ground, does not work in selective harvest and requires more horse power.

Cable systems in general require training and experience to be both productive and safe.  Select the wrong tailhold, use the wrong guyline stumps, not paying attention to line tensions equals expensive lessons or worse.

The economics of cable logging is roughly this, the cable side breaks even or in fairly rare occasions makes a meager profit.  The yarder gets you the job so that the small area, around here anyway, that can be ground logged with the equipment you all use is the profit center.  Want a yarder... I can scare up two or three used ones pretty much any old time.  They are too expensive, require a crew to operate ( I have seen two guys run a system but its not real productive), break down often, and a minor screw up will only cost about $10,000.  The radios alone to work the carriage and the whistle will set you back well over $8,000.

I saw a wrecked trailer mount Koller 501 a few years back... a couple of bolts sheared that held the tower up, it was totaled.  The yarder engineer some how came out unhurt. They replaced it with a skidder mount Ecco about a week later... tube crumpled, this time it took an hour to cut the engineer out of the cab.

If you really want to learn, take a trip out west.  I know one local outfit is hiring, they have ten yarders and I think only enough crew to run 6 or 7 of them.

[Maineloggerkid]

Do you know anyone hiring a timber faller? ???

[Tillaway]

MLK... maybe, but you usually have to have worked the rigging before you can step up to cutting.  Particularly with yarder settings, fallers sometimes do double duty laying out cable corridors and have to figure out how to log the unit and where lift and jack trees need to be located.  Once they are felled they are pretty hard to stand back up.

If you are serious, PM me and I can give you some names.  It never hurts to try but if you are not a known commodity it will be tough.

[Maineloggerkid]

I might  be sreious down the road a ways, but not right this second.

[timberfaller390]

Hey, Chris any word on those book titles yet?

[VT_Forestry]

Just to toss this is there...yesterday in harvesting class we went out and worked a small scale yarder that the school owns.  Trailer-mounted, 22ft tower, 18HP briggs motor running 2 drums.  Took about 45 minutes to set up.  Carriage operated with a stop on the skyline...when the carriage came down and hit the stop it released the chokers on the mainline.  Capacity was around 1000lbs on a turn.   Longest span it could handle was around 500' due to the size of the drums.  It was originally built by the forest service for fuel reduction purposes.  Pretty cool little machine to operate.  They said they had complete plans to build another one for an estimated $20,000.  It definitely had a "cool" factor and was a neat little toy to play with, but I wonder if you could make it pay doing small scale operations with it?  Just my 2 cents

[Tillaway]

If everything goes right, you could get maybe 1 to 1.5 loads per day that is if nothing breaks.  I can't imagine line speeds would be fast enough to get any more than that.   It would take at least two people to run the yarder.  You would need to gross around $1000 per day minimum I would think.  You usually need to average about one load per person per day as a rule of thumb for yarders to stay in business.

[VT_Forestry]

We could usually run around 1-2 minutes/turn, but that was on a 230' corridor.  Wouldn't take long to run out of wood on that, then you have to move the yarder and set it up again on another corridor.  I would think you'd be able to make it work, but you'd have to have no real mechanical failures and really be moving to do it