Small tractor logging winches

[maple man]

I am looking at logging winchs for a small tractor. I have a kubota L3902 with about 30 HP at the PTO. 

My local equipment dealer sells Fransgard but they look a bit flimsy.. I am considering Hud-son which look well made but might be  heavy for my machine. Also have seen that Igland have a kick up lower blade which might be helpful with the rough and rocky trails on my lot. Most of what I will be using it for is pulling firewood but I also have a few 18-24 inch sawlogs each year. Any recomendations (or warnings) apreciated.

[thecfarm]

I have the Norse, igland. I like the swinging butt plate, but can be locked in a rigid mode. I also like the boxes for the chains.
Really the only reason we bought the winch was because of the higher pulley. 
We had some pine that was 4 feet across and some of brands the top pulley was not much for then 4 feet.
I can hear the butt plate bang on mine when I go over 
But I feel any of them works the same.
Make up some shorts chains, 4 feet, for the small wood. Much easier to pull only a foot of chain through a keyhole then 5 feet of chain.

[TreefarmerNN]

I have a Tajfun which so far has been very satisfactory.  https://tajfunusa.com/logging-winches/

Ryan Willock was the rep I worked with and he is a logger and knows and uses the product.  He's located in southwest Virginia but I'm sure would talk with people from anywhere and help them understand the product. 

[g_man]

I have a 30 hp L3010 that weighs 5000 lbs the way I have it set up. It has a Farmi JL290 winch on it.  I've been using it for 25 years for firewood, spruce/fir saw logs, and with an occasionally pine. The winch has a 6600 lb pull rating and is plenty strong. One piece of advise is don't buy a winch to big for your tractor. You have nothing to gain. Your tractor can only produce so much pto torque and that determines what you can pull.  That, and more importantly, the weight of your tractor - the heavier the better and safer. Plus a big winch is harder to maneuver and you can't lift it as high on a smaller tractor so getting the logs off the ground can be a problem.

My 6600 lb winch had no problem here














There is lots of good reading in this thread



https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=81025.0

gg

[DDW_OR]

i have a Mahindra 5520 4x4 51HP
Farmi 501 winch

wish the winch had the 2 inch receiver hitch
then i can tow a trailer into the woods, then load with tractor, then bring back to sawmill.

wish i had the wallenstein PTO skidder winch

[maple man]

Am trying to decide between the Igland 2501 with a 5.000 lb. pull weighing 290 pounds versus a 3501 that pulls 7,700 but weighs 480 lbs. With my 39 HP Kubota I am thinking the larger one may be too much. Any relevant experiences?

[thecfarm]

I have the Norse 450 on my 40hp NH.
Which is really made for 60HP tractor. No problems at all. 
Again, we needed the higher pulley to haul out the big ones.
That 3501 is in spec for your tractor, from what I read.

Ever been around a 3 pt winch before?
I hope you read that thread that was posted by g_man

[TreefarmerNN]

My Tajfun has an 8,000 lb pull and I'm using it on a JD 790 which is a 30 hp tractor.  It's a pretty good match although I did start using Pat's quick hitch to lengthen the distance between the tractor and winch to lessen the pto shaft angle.  That was also enough so I didn't have to cut the pto shaft which is good as the Tajfun has both Cat 1 and Cat 2 hitch points so I can use it on a larger tractor with the same pto shaft. 

It weighs 530 lbs without the cable which probably adds 50lbs or so as it has 190' of cable.  The tractor handles it fine. 

Like all winches, full pull is only when most of the cable is out.  That being the case, I'd go with the larger winch as a partial pull on a 5,000 lb winch may disappoint you.  In any case, snatch blocks will come in handy.  I have one regular and one self releasing and may add a third at some point. 

[NE Woodburner]

I have a Norse/Igland 450 like @thecfarm. I cut out a square hole in the butt plate and welded a receiver in with some reinforcement so it wouldn't stress the plate. Works great and did not take long to do. I mostly use it to tow my log splitter but I have a cordwood trailer I sometimes haul and it handles that with no issue.

My winch pretty much lives on my tractor so it's nice to have the ability to tow things without having to take it off.

[maple man]

Thanks again for the comments. I have been using a pickup truck and a rope winch with nose cone. Mostly pretty intense crop tree release and pruning of a degraded stand for the past twenty years. That is going very well but now the trees I am taking down are big enough that I can't stand to just leave them on the ground and need to start upgrading to equipment that can bring out salable quantities of firewood and small sawlogs. From the comments above it sounds like the Igland 3501 is looking good. Any other info on installation, stretching the cable or other stuff I need to know would be helpful.

[John Mc]

I use a Uniforest 35E (predecessor to their current model 35M) on my 33 HP New Holland TC33D. It's rated at 7700 lbs pull. I've found it to be a pretty good match for the tractor. I probably could have gotten away with a smaller winch, but I have not found this to stress my tractor at all. (I have definitely overworked the tractor in other ways not related to the winch.)

[Rhodemont]

My Norse 350 has worked very well for me on my JD4720 (60hp).  I could have gone with the bigger model but glad I did not.  If my set up can not pull it I would only likely break something with a bigger unit.  

[thecfarm]

I posted on that thread that g_man made a link too. That is a great question and I am sure others will post what they do.
I only cut one PTO shaft. I had to cut it 2-3 times to get it right. 
Better to be a little long, then too short. Just don't put the shaft together and raise the winch until you know for sure it's the right length.

[WoodstockVT]

Tajfun makes the best 3pt hitch winches in my opinion. Check them out before purchasing another mfger, I think the quality is abundantly obvious, I've operated most makes and chose to purchase a Tajfun.  Their remote control is very much worth the money, especially if working alone. They're made in Slovenia and are the winch of choice throughout most of Europe.

There are a few details you wouldn't think about unless you've operated one.  For instance, most makes use a pawl system for the brake, Tajfun uses a hydraulic brake band (pump driven from the PTO, integral with the winch, hydro remotes aren't needed).  This allows you to release the brake should you need to in an emergency (log rolls off road down hill and starts to pull tractor, for instance) without needing to have the PTO engaged to release the pawl brake.  The internal hydraulics also make the remote control similar in operation to that of an electric winch, very precise.

[g_man]

I thought this was an excellent video on how to set up a winch on a tractor. It includes the pto shaft line cutting. It is for a Uniforest winch but most of it pertains to any winch. Worth watching for any new winch owner.

 https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-infospace-047&ei=UTF-8&hsimp=yhs-047&hspart=infospace&param1=ik72wnu94cd0iucq4zvmyv1g&p=hud-son+winches&type=ud-c-us--s-p-cvtyqrye--exp-none--subid-none#id=1&vid=f8ffd4642f0b9b1b21a801ec4c43b0ce&action=click

gg

[TreefarmerNN]

Tajfun makes the best 3pt hitch winches in my opinion. Check them out before purchasing another mfger, I think the quality is abundantly obvious, I've operated most makes and chose to purchase a Tajfun.  Their remote control is very much worth the money, especially if working alone. They're made in Slovenia and are the winch of choice throughout most of Europe.

There are a few details you wouldn't think about unless you've operated one.  For instance, most makes use a pawl system for the brake, Tajfun uses a hydraulic brake band (pump driven from the PTO, integral with the winch, hydro remotes aren't needed).  This allows you to release the brake should you need to in an emergency (log rolls off road down hill and starts to pull tractor, for instance) without needing to have the PTO engaged to release the pawl brake.  The internal hydraulics also make the remote control similar in operation to that of an electric winch, very precise.

I wish I could have gone with a bigger Tajfun but the 35 is a much better match for my tractor.  It's extremely well made- 2 pull heights, good operator protection and good controls even though mine is manual.  It will release under pressure unlike a pawl.

[barbender]

All I can add is I was watching a video of a Tajfun firewood processor the other day and was surprised to hear the name pronounced like Typhoon, which it evidently also means😊