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Small excavator in the woods

Started by Quebecnewf, March 11, 2021, 05:23:29 AM

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Joe Hillmann

If you are working by yourself it is nice to have a winch that you can control without having to climb into the cab every time.  I have used several winches.  One couldn't be used unless you climbed into the cab, sat down, waited 10 seconds, and then you could turn on the pto.  Another one could be operated by just standing next to the operator station.  And the third can be operated totally from outside.  It can even be run from a distance by tying a rope to the handle and keeping pressure on the rope.

The one that required climbing into the cab felt like the constant climbing up and down was the most strenuous part of the job.   After 50 times in and out of the cab those steps to climb up there start looking bigger and bigger.

You may also want to look at bigger options.  When I first built my winch I planned that the biggest log I would move with it would be about 10 inches in diameter and 20 feet long.  But I keep using it to pull bigger and bigger logs.  The biggest so far was 26 inches at the big end and 34 feet long.  I had to use 2 snatch blocks to pull it, which took a lot of time to reset up for each pull.

mike_belben

Bigtime on the stairs.  I can hand pick and place 4ton of flagstone on pallet in a day no problem but what really wears me down to an elderly snail's pace is those 50 trips up and down the 7ft loader steps. 


A remote winch is worth the trouble.  And honestly a $75 ATV winch will move most any softwood log ive seen in the pics.. Theyre just slow. 
Praise The Lord

Bruno of NH

That's what put the finishing touches on my knees was in and out of the tractor loading the old Thomas mill. As my tractors progressed they got higher and higher.
That can wear a man down.
Lt 40 wide with 38hp gas and command controls , F350 4x4 dump and lot of contracting tools

Quebecnewf

What type of small dangle grapple is available for this type of machine . Maybe with a quick connect would be great . 

Quebecnewf 

mike_belben

Praise The Lord

47sawdust

Small Dangle Grapple-
Pickens Farm Equipment
Waterloo,QC.
They will ship. Ask for Brad Charby

 

This is the smallest one. Made by Farma in Estonia .Has a rotator as well.
Mick
1997 WM Lt30 1999 WM twin blade edger Kubota L3750 Tajfun winchGood Health Work is my hobby.

Brandon1986

$.02 from someone who uses an excavator for logging 95% of the time.. I use a 50,000# excavator so take that for what its worth..

It works really well on an acre, if you have to shuttle more than that, its just to all fired slow.  Ditch the fancy grapples tongs and thumbs that won't grab more than a log and dangle 1 or 2 cat chokers off the bucket, yes you will have to get out of the seat, but you can skid way more per trip than you can carry.. Carrying large handfuls of logs tends to twist and crack the boom if carried in a thumb without any sort of hinge to let the load swing.. On our thumbed hoes we are always welding cracks on the top strap, assumedly for this reason.  There are some other possibilites for this repair, but that's one of them.. Be prepared to buy undercarriages, and buy as narrow of pads as possible.  Putting wide pads on stumps twists the rails and wears them out that much faster..

If you have to skid more than between 100-200ft to your landing, buy something more forestry oriented, if not... an excavator is in my opinion the MOST versitile piece of iron you can have for what we do.

Good luck deciding!

Satamax

Quebecnewf.

Have you considered a GAZ 71 with winch and crane? ;D

Well, i would get one in a pinch, if i had lotsa dough. I love the look of the thing.
French CD4 sawmill. Latil TL 73. Self moving hydraulic crane. Iveco daily 4x4 lwb dead as of 06/2020. Replaced by a Brimont TL80 CSA.

Ed_K

 That looks just like mine that I built in 2001 but I didn't put a rotor on just used an 1 1/2" bolt where the rotor goes, I can swing the log or logs by letting the low side touch the ground or wood pile. It's worked great for then till now.
Ed K

Quebecnewf

Quote from: 47sawdust on March 23, 2021, 07:34:05 AM
Small Dangle Grapple-
Pickens Farm Equipment
Waterloo,QC.
They will ship. Ask for Brad Charby

 

This is the smallest one. Made by Farma in Estonia .Has a rotator as well.
Been looking at their site . They are in my Provence . That's good . Will be visiting them as soon as Covid permits .
Still pricing out small excavators . The search continues .
Quebecnewf 

OddInTheForrest

Quote from: Quebecnewf on March 28, 2021, 07:04:12 AM
Quote from: 47sawdust on March 23, 2021, 07:34:05 AM
Small Dangle Grapple-
Pickens Farm Equipment
Waterloo,QC.
They will ship. Ask for Brad Charby

 

This is the smallest one. Made by Farma in Estonia .Has a rotator as well.
Been looking at their site . They are in my Provence . That's good . Will be visiting them as soon as Covid permits .
Still pricing out small excavators . The search continues .
Quebecnewf
Im wondering how this all went !

47sawdust

Odd-
I am always trying different methods to see what works best for me.
I sold the grapple after one season of use.
I now use sacrificial bunks to get my logs to a comfortable bucking height.The bunks are spaced 7-8 feet apart so I can push the cut rounds out of the way with the tractor pictured
Mick
1997 WM Lt30 1999 WM twin blade edger Kubota L3750 Tajfun winchGood Health Work is my hobby.

DCT2021

New here but wondering how this ended up working out. I have logged hundreds of acres in Oregon with a John Deere 50 and 135 size excavator and people saying a winch won't work on an excavator need to look up tether,tong thrower or yoders, we put winches on excavators and log loaders all the time. You can also run a mainline from a stump to the end of your boom and raise the boom for lift and use your single winch to pull a gravity carriage but 2 winches do work better for it.
Always chasing more production.

barbender

Those tong throwers are pretty crazy. I read about them somewhere, I didn't believe it until I went and watched some videos.
Too many irons in the fire

DCT2021

I'm definitely not good at tossing chokers with mine. I really like seeing how you guys log on the east coast and Canada it's so different from the west coast. I'm a 1 man operation and I have a leveling buncher, processor and shovel with a winch. 
Always chasing more production.

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