Giant Cable skidders

[OlympicYJ]

I had to drag em individually into the company F150. Some shovel operator drug em out to the road or else I just scared some tweakers off of em as I drove by. I'm amazed they were still on the spur. The unit they were in was around 4 years old. They reach all the way back through the arch to the drum on the cat. Each bell probably weighs 30 pounds... give or take, emphasis on the give. They are Esco's, high manganeese content as they are non magnetic. BTW you have some very cool old iron yourself sir... at least some of it's functional  :D

[ClarkF66]

Found a brochure on the Clark 880 from 1973. I bet that Detroit sounded nice!
Sorry about the quality of my scanned pictures.



 



 

[62oliver]

When I was a kid in the early '70's my dad took us to see a couple giant skidders that a local company had bought, KBM in Thunder Bay Ontario. They were supposed to be the biggest in North America at the time, they were bought to do scarification work as I recall. I just asked my dad about them, he said they were Clark machines, he thought maybe 880, but not sure. I remember they were BIG!!

[oldseabee]

The 70's were a great time to be in the engineering lab building prototype equip. in Canada the Govt. paid part of the R&D. I built the very first grapple for the new 667 skidder, we also built a mini skidder on tracks with hydrostatic drive, didn't work out very well, tracks were made of rubber blocks and kept falling off,no fun in a swamp. we built a tree harvester that would cut the tree and lay it on top of the machine grabbed by a cable pulled delimbing head that would delimb and top off then drop it into a bunk on the side of the machine, when it had enough to load a skidder would drop off the logs and go on, once the tree was grabbed by the delimber, the operator would be cutting the next one. it would do two trees a minute. Machine had two Cummins 378 V6 engines, one just for hydraulics and the other to run the transmission and steering, dual 30.5 tires on the front singles on back. Did field tests in North Saskatchewan and North Ontario, -40 degrees was tough working in.
Also built the first 880 skidder, 903 Cummins, 275 size axles, Carco G80 winch, 13 1/2' tilting dozer blade. did field tests in Virginia pulling a chopper.

[loggah]

oldseabee, Do you have any  idea how many 880 clark skidders were built? ive never find out much more about them. Michigan definitely made some big iron back then. Just about every day i wish i had kept my 275B loader,that was a great old tractor. Don

[Mountaynman]

Pretty cool stuff for sure never knew they made them round here the biggest I ever seen was a 660 jack with a 300 hp cummins from the factory arch was round 9 ft high contractor stretched the frame 3 ft before he ever put it in the woods loaded all 4 35.5-32's had a huge lot 900 acres with a 2 mile skid down an abandoned town road bunched to it with 2 360 jacks and a CAT D5 TSK grappler with a swing boom never seen one of them round here either the little Frenchman they had runnin it couldn't have been 5'3 his head didn't even reach the step on the machine he made unbellin them cable chokers look easy the guys bunchin were settin them for him moved a lot of wood 4 bunches behind him every trip

[Northern Logger]

Interesting how the industry has changed over time.  Big to smaller, back to big.  JD is now making a 948 skidder that weights in at about 50,000 lbs and Cat makes a 555 about the same size.  I operated a 648 and 748 grapple for about a year and, like my partner, much preferred the lighter, more maneuverable 648, regardless of the load.  The 748 was a monster with weight and power to spare all the time, but I can't imagine running a 948.  Yikes!

[Adrian lucas]

G`Day mate  I worked for an american company in Papua Guinea   who had two of those on long haul generally about 3 -5 miles with 7 d5 cats feeding them of the slopes great things to watch and quick too
Summercutter 

[oldseabee]

Loggha, don't know how many were built. I tried to call an old buddy that may know but I guess he's off on holiday somewhere, I'll try again next week. I'm thinking around 50 were built.

[ScottAR]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGb6MY-BMQc

Longish vid moving a yarder with a dozer and an 880 skidder escort.  About the 10 minute mark you can see some scale shots of the 880 to the yarder.

[BargeMonkey]

Wow that's some rugged country. Impressive video.

[loggah]

Yup , thats some hard going,thats a lot of strain on that FR30 winch cable. The 880 must have been running pretty good no excess smoke out the stack ! ;D I dont believe i would like trucking off that hill, you would want a rig with a really good jake on it ! :D great video. Don

[coxy]

I would like to see it going off the hill      thanks for the video

[tj240]

Those are some SERIOUS, cable skidders. They are huge. Nice pics!!!

[Okrafarmer]

Just now saw that video-- amazing!

[AlexHart]

Just home eating lunch and blundered across this ad/pictures.   I've never heard of these machines, never seen anything like it, and honestly don't even understand how that cable thing even works but I think this instantly has become THE most giant cable skidder I've ever seen.... and maybe ever made.   It looks like you could pull about 4 giant redwoods per hitch.   

http://www.supplypost.com/equipment/makes/morgan?p=2&ps=1

I wonder what the engineering reason is for having those huge bogeys in the front instead of the back like on big Tigercats or whatever.   I imagine that (within reason) there isn't much that stops that monster from going where it wants to go.   It looks like there is a 5 step ladder system to just climb into it.

[Okrafarmer]

I'm not sure but is that really for forestry? Looks more like shipyard haul-out machine.

[Ox]

Raise the front axle for climbing trees for pushing them down?  Interesting machine.

[coxy]

I saw 1 pic of it on CL a year or so ago never new the wheels lifted off the ground            I want one if nothing else a good story teller  :D

[loggah]

Odd looking rig for sure,swamp logger tires have to be used in big swampy areas,or sand!

[coxy]

I showed a pic of it to my wife and told her I wanted it she looked at me and said I'm taking you to the mental hospital  :(I cant believe she said that  >:(  :D :D

[AlexHart]

Just put it on the credit card and have it delivered Coxy.   When she comes out to give you a whuppin its probably too high up into it for her to climb to get at you    Heck the door probably even has a lock on it.   That'll buy you some "cool down" time.   

I've seen YouTube videos of Franklin and John Deere skidders over in Europe with that type of.... whatever you call it.   Rigging/butt plates.   A lot of those guys seem to run two winches.   Its easy to find videos of them on YouTube and my assumption would be that is the general idea of how that big SOB works. 

[coxy]

I learnt a long time ago not to     a Connecticut female  :D they are mean

[sandsawmill14]

I learnt a long time ago not to     a Connecticut female  :D they are mean

its easier to get forgiveness than permission  ;D ;)

[dogone]

   Just watching a show called Jade Fever. They had an 880 running to tow a bunkhouse. The operator mentioned they were used in Africa. Didn't say how it ended up in northern British Columbia.