Giant Cable skidders

[loggah]

Well since i been posting about early logging equipment  i figured i should step into the future a bit!! ;D .These  Big Clarks were owned by the Brochu  brothers of Stratton Maine,These pictures were taken a few weeks before they were to be Auctioned off. They had 3 machines ,one was used as parts, I considered buying one just to have for display. needless to say i didn't.They were being used for site prep tractors and replanting ,before i understand they were used at Stratton ski area for the long hauls with smaller skidders hot yarding for them. The specs i remember ,14 ft wide ,34' long, 12' high,  66,000 lbs.  They had 300H.P. v-8 cummins engines, 34.00x38.00 tires and a 50 or 60 ton winch. They are the biggest cable skidders i know of ,anyone here seen any bigger??? Heres the pic's I'm 6'4" and 285 so you can compare in size. Don

[clww]

From what I've seen and read previously, I am shocked that you didn't add one to your impressive collection of iron.

[loggah]

I really thought about it!  i don't know where they ended up ,i know there were some in South America pulling Big hardwood.I really liked the big clarks i had a 275B  7yd wheel loader about the same size as these it was  fun to dump 2 buckets and overload a tri axle dump.  ;D

[ST Ranch]

And I thought some of the tigercat 6 wheeled machines were big - the blade on the skidder in the top picture looks like it would fit an oldeer D8/D9 cat dozer.  Interesting that these were cable machines vs grapple - I can not imagine trying to untangle a drag of trees from a monster like this let alone hooking the chokers up in the first place. Don - were there any remains of the mainline and chokers on these beast and if so how big a mainline [3/4 +] and # of chokers? - Tom

[loggah]

the mainline was 1 1/8"  they had another fairlead welded down low between the fenders and from what i understand they had a giant bogharrow, Rome maybe, they would drive ahead laying out the cable ,then winch it to them.It must have been huge if they just couldn't pull it. The winches were Carco if i remember right with power in and out !! The blades were 14' across and about 4' high.

[loggah]

from what i remember they said the trees would fan out behind these as wide as the ski trails ,big hardwood tops and all. I can imagine how the yardman felt when they dropped the hitch, anywhere from 20-40 stems !!!!! ;D ;D

[rick f]

Wow , my 664 clark is just a baby to those.  Nice pictures that you post, please keep'em comming.

[loggah]

heres one more!! my wife said the pictures were taken in 2002!!! i thought it was just a "FEW" years ago !!

[PAFaller]

Those things are impressive, dont think I would want to try moving one down the road too often. My 240 with 23.1-26s is a bit over 9 feet and its a hassle, let alone that thing. Or put fuel in it can't imagine they are too friendly in that department.

[loggah]

My Franklin 660 i had was a big skidder back in 1990, 10' wide with 30.5 x32 s  and that was  a pain loading it on 8' wide lowbeds.

[coxy]

VERY NICE PIC loggah   wouldent want to pay the fuel bill at the end of the month with them lol  i have a friend that finds all the good stuff like u lol i couldent find a sack full of money if it was in front of me keep up all the good pic love to see them thanks 8)

[treefarmer87]

I bet that clark will bring a drag 8)

[KyLogger]

AAAhhhhhhh.............I am pretty sure it's almost as stout as my 440B  ;D

[Dave Shepard]

Those are impressive machines. I didn't know they made such a thing.

Ever see a Clark/Michigan 380 rubber tired dozer? I used to run one at a ski area with a 19' blade clearing snow. Biggest thing I've ever run. We'd start the 12v71 and it would smoke so bad they told me that the fire dept. had been called twice by people driving by on the road. :D

[snowstorm]

if they were used on the ski mt it must have been sugar loaf there is no ski mt in stratton. sugarloaf is south of stratton a few miles

[loggah]

Yup Stratton Mt, i knew it was right there somewhere!! When i first got out of high school i went to work on road construction ,Interstate 93 for R.G.Watkins out of Amesbury Mass, they had 3 big Michigan pushers ,a 280, a 380, a 480 !!!!! the big 480 weighed 70 tons, 16v 71 detroit . 625 H.P. Arthur Watkins used to run it. I was dumping trucks for him,we were laying down the sand cushion. I asked how he wanted them spaced  ,he said just keep dumping them one after the other up tight. So i started dumping them ,DM 600 macks,  after i had about a dozen or so lined up  ,i hear this roar and here comes A.K. about 20 miles an hour ,ROOOOAR right thru the whole line never slowing down !!!!! he had the wipers going to keep the sand off the windshield !!!!!! what a beast!!! ;D ;D

[Dave Shepard]

Wow, never heard of the 480. Hard to find info on them.

[loggah]

Dave, I may be wrong but i think Michigan only built  8 of them, or maybe 30 and only 8 675 wheel loaders, either way not many. Its hell getting old and trying to remember things i knew 40 years ago .  :( Don

[Dave Shepard]

That explains the difficulty I'm having in finding info on it. This machine was a pivot machine, had a big piece of 2" plate on the back on a pivot pin for another machine to push it, as it pushed a pan scraper. That must have been a sight to see! Sadly, the machine went to the port last year, and not for a sight seeing tour. :(

[loggah]

The 480 was a straight frame as was the 380 and 280!! the 380 you ran was a newer one ,they were big machines. Michigan was never afraid to put iron in their tractors. Watkins had a couple 988A cat loaders and they kept them in the gravel pits,they had a 275 Michigan loader and that went into the ledge cuts !! I believe the 480 was built in 1968. As far as i know the 880 Clark were the biggest skidders michigan built and they didn't make many of them. Maybe the big Letourneau cable skidders were bigger ,i'll have to look thru my letourneau brochures.

[Dave Shepard]

I posted a Letourneau skidder video in the Internet fun stuff thread. They were a different sort of critter. They were some big, but I'm not sure how they would compare to those 880's. Fun to get a glimpse of these machine. Probably no Wagner's up your way are there? :D I think they were just PNW.

[deastman]

Loggah, do you know what year those big Clarks were? I remember as a kid my father taking me in to Chadwick-Baross in Bangor to see one of those, they had it sitting out front in the parking lot so everybody driving by could see it, i think there was even a picture of it in the Bangor Daily News

[loggah]

I never saw any up here,there design was a bit different with two sets of operator controls in the cab,you want to back up just rotate the seat!!! you dont know how many times i wish i had that in my Grapple ! ;D ;D

[loggah]

Im not really sure  1970's i believe. I have a spec book out  in my museum i will check tomorrow.

[oldseabee]

I was working in the Clark Engineering Lab and we built the prototype in 1970, The dozer blade had tilt capability for road building. The plate in the back was used as an anchor blade when winching in a large turn of logs. The Carco G80 winch would drag the machine backwards without it. There was a lower set of rollers and a sort of wishbone on the rear frame and a mating piece that was connected to the chopper hitch so if the machine hit a soft spot and started to get stuck you could drop the chopper, get across the soft spot then winch the chopper back to you. The last one that I worked on was at Crown Zellerbach in Bogulusa, La. Took the 4 speed trans mission out and put in an 8 speed transmission out of a 280 dozer. 307 HP 903 Cummins engine.

[loggah]

Oldseebee that must have been a great job working in the lab!!! did you get involved in the 675?? there is quite a video on the production of it. Clark never was afraid to use heavy steel in there machines. The 275 B i had was a tough old bird. Don

[ClarkF66]

I was buying a large cable skidder in 1992 and was looking at a used Clark 668 at the Clark dealer in Redding, CA. I am from Norway and over here the typical skidder was a John Deere 440 or a Timberjack 225, so I was amazed by the size of the 668.
The dealer told me back in the early 70's they had a Clark 880 in for demonstration. It would pull anything they threw at it so they hooked the wire up to a huge redwood to see what it could do. At first nothing happened, then they floored it and there was a bang! and the winch came off and sat up in the arch by the rollers. The guy was 10 years old back then(family business), but he never forgot that bang!

I ended up getting a Cat 528. Never lost its winch.

[oldseabee]

Yes it was a great job. Built the 880 in the Forestry lab in St. Thomas Ontario Canada along with the first 667 Grapple skidder and tree harvester, and later transfered to the main lab in Benton Harbor Mi. where I worked on the 675 project, actually did a field assembley of one at Drummond Coal Jasper Alabama, it came in on 9 tractor trailer trucks.

[loggah]

I would have not forgot it either ,someone must have not had all the mounting bolts in place. I doubt if it could pull a winch off if it was mounted correctly. ;D

[loggah]

A friend of mine used to work for Ossipee aggregate ,they had a few 475s over there ,they loaded  a couple hundred railcars a day for Boston sand and gravel. To get back to the 675's did the first ones have the twin 16v-71's or the  twin v-12 cummins?

[thecfarm]

The only thing I would hate is trying to unhook all that mess. ;D  I take it they must of been felling by hand? A grapple would of been much easier if they would of had a havester. But maybe the wood was too big for a machine to cut.

[loggah]

the sales brochure i have is a 1976 and the cost was $117,000 back then!!!!  they were designed to pull really big wood. i believe at the ski area they were putting big chokers around the bundles the smaller skidders were yarding. This was told to me from a person who worked for the Brochu's.

[Okrafarmer]

Hooking up the smaller skidders' loads wouldn't have been too difficult. The small skidder holds the front of the logs off the ground, and they pass the cable right under the entire twitch, throw it over the top, hook it to itself and cinch it up. I wonder how many 440 or 540 loads the 880 could haul at once?

[loggah]

Probably half a dozen 440  hitches. 540 a few less.

[reride82]

The only time I have ever seen a 16v-71 was in this tractor:

http://www.williamsbigbud.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=46&Itemid=68

It was built in my hometown, and its home is about 35 miles from where my mill is. Looks like it is currently on tour in Iowa.

Levi

[reride82]

My mistake, it is a 16V92T detroit.

[oldseabee]

As far as I know we only built the 880 with the Cummins VT 1710 675HP engines, 2 per machine. Some may have been repowered with Detroits or built on special order.

[Okrafarmer]

I love that old Big Bud, Reride. It's lonely at the top, isn't it? That tractor was one-of-a-kind, even the tires were designed and formed for it alone, iirc.

[ClarkF66]

loggah, I am sorry to intrude on your post, but I got my scanner working so I thought I would try it out with an article on the 880.



 



 

[lumberjack48]

  I looked at a skidder that they had been using on the iron mines over by Hibbing, MN. It took me half a day to get clearance to get in to look at it.
It had a blade on each end, winch, arch, 170 hp Cummings. The canopy was about 6' by 6', i could just about stand up, it had controls to go forward or backwards, the seat spun around.
The tires were bad, so i couldn't drive it. When i saw all the hyd hoses and hookups to drive ether direction, this scared me and needing four tires so i didn't buy it.
I don't remember seeing any name on it. 

[loggah]

Lumberjack, That would have been a Wagner,dual controls front  and rear.clarkf66 great article ,that outfit had some iron. That is the first actual article i have seen about the 880. and  anyone at any time can jump into any of my topics ,were here to visit and learn. ;D Don

[torqueporting]

 I like reading about heavy machines and a hard days work.

[DigDug]

THose are nice big machines !    I sold my Mack dump truck to Brochu about 15yrs ago.   

[Okrafarmer]

Welcome to the Forum, DigDug! Where in Maine do you live? I grew up there until I was 16, and lived there a couple times afterward too.

[DigDug]

Im in New Gloucester , it is about half hour north of Portland.    Where did you live?     doug

[Okrafarmer]

Im in New Gloucester , it is about half hour north of Portland.    Where did you live?     doug

I lived in Clinton. Exit 138 (old Exit 37).

[OlympicYJ]

Heres an old Cable arch with a construction cat the loggin 8 is behind the shop... No neither run lol



The big chokers are back from the steam days.

[Okrafarmer]

Nice. I sure wish I could have seen that puppy in action in the days of its fair share.

[OlympicYJ]

Those puppies would yard a pretty good sized turn. Enough for a truck most times. Workin on gettin ya some footage lol

[loggah]

pretty neat old iron, those big tracked arches pulled  a bunch of wood. we only had the wheeled ones around here. Those are "REAL" chokers!! ;D Don

[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.

[Kodiakmac]

the loopholes in Canadian immigration policy are big enough to drive an 880 through. :D

[celliott]

Did anyone see the 880 they brought to the Rangeley logging museum this summer for the parade and logging festival? I got to see it. Wow, photos do not do them justice. What a big machine! 
Looks like it's been awhile since it's been worked.

[Walnut Beast]

Absolutely impressive. On the subject of big. Big Bud tractors have come to life after 40 years and they have a new 700hp one out. A guy on Facebook posted in the comments that back in the day with the massive implements they were farming 32,000 acres and doing 2,000 acres a day. 

Here is the new one
https://agupdate.com/farmandranchguide/news/state-and-regional/new-big-bud-700-tractor-unveiled-at-con-agg-show/article_b041c54c-d20d-11ed-898b-b374c178f1d7.html

[thecfarm]

Walnut Beast, thanks for the update.

[reride82]

Absolutely impressive. On the subject of big. Big Bud tractors have come to life after 40 years and they have a new 700hp one out. A guy on Facebook posted in the comments that back in the day with the massive implements they were farming 32,000 acres and doing 2,000 acres a day.

Here is the new one
https://agupdate.com/farmandranchguide/news/state-and-regional/new-big-bud-700-tractor-unveiled-at-con-agg-show/article_b041c54c-d20d-11ed-898b-b374c178f1d7.html

It's only been about 30 years, I think about 1991 when their last tractor rolled off the assembly line. The most common tractor they produced  for our area was the 525 which used the 1150 cu in Cummins motor. Usually they pulled a 65 foot cultivator at around 6mph which would give you about 45-50 acres/hr or about a 1,200 acres a day. In the 70's through the 90's when there was a bunch of prairie in eastern Montana and the Dakota's being broken up into tillable ground, it wasn't unheard of to have 2,000 acres a day being plowed up and ready for cropland. Usually there was a fleet of 4 of these tractors running with plows having spikes, shovels/sweeps, and harrows.
I have a few friends that work for Ron Harmon, and that tractor was finished at the Expo, nothing like the last minute :D Ron has made a great name rebuilding the old tractors as they were fairly component based. They had a big fire a few years ago on their rebuild shop and managed to move into a local fabrication shop recently. John Deere and Case have made it difficult for the average farmer to repair their own equipment, which has made a comeback feasible for Big Bud. Which is good since Ron is running out of the old Big Buds to rebuild. Partnering with CAT also gives them an impressive drivetrain that meets the more stringent EPA regs that has been an issue in later years.