Making it through another year, '23-'24

[Hilltop366]

Something that would go from stump to home so you reduce handling would an improvement which got me to thinking that if your just down the road a bit would loading it on the sxs and bringing it directly home work? It would reduce handling in half which would be an improvement.

Even with a small loading boom it is going to take a lot of time to load and unload several times so reducing the amount of times this has to be done is helpful which brings me to the "one and done" option.

I have a small 4x4 tractor so my idea would be similar to what I do for some of my firewood. I put racks made from pallets on the rear forks and when I split the wood I place it on the rack and move it to were I want it with the tractor, the racks holds around 1/3 of a cord and are simply 4 boards fastened to the pallet with a horizontal board across each end and a piece of rope threaded through holes in the top to prevent spreading.

So building on this idea and using what you have: a small trailer for behind the sxs (I think a regular ATV might work better) that will hold a wood rack so you load the rack directly at the tree. make the trailer so it has 2 rails that will tip enough that the rack will slide off and now you have only handled the log once. Could add a small swing boom and a winch for the larger pieces if needed. Handling reduced by 75%.

[Resonator]

I see mini track loaders come up for sale on the auction sites, the kind where you stand up on it to operate it. A lot of foreign copies similar to the Toro Dingo but priced much less, don't know how good the quality would be. You could also check with rental places and see if they have one to rent for a few days and try out, and see if it works for small scale logging.

[beenthere]

The answer is to STOP lifting and placing, loading and unloading. You already have the solution at hand.   

[Old Greenhorn]

OK Beenthere, enlighten me, what did I miss?

[21incher]

You need one of these
At 20k I'm getting  one to do my dirty work.

[chep]

I use jet sleds for everything year round. I've worn them out. Brush, wood, compost, chips, g we gear, rocks, kids    you name it. I would by a new on and put a couple runners on the bottom for the woods work. 2 rigid poles attached the sxs would keep it from passing you on the downhills. They make some pretty big ones. Easy to put on the buggy for the ride in, then hook it up for the ride out once you've turned around 
It's the cheapest idea I can come up with for you. Doesn't eliminate lifting but definitely easier to load then back of the buggy. 
The mushroom logs I sold logging, I moved 20 footers with the forwarder gently. Grab them in one spot. Bucked out that spot for firewood on the landing. It Took a lot of extra care to not bang them up. If I had a lot to do I would pad the grapple somehow , but thankfully the mushroom market hasn't come knocking yet...

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah Chep, I have considered the sledge/sled/ stone boat idea quite a few times and it is a partial solution and easy to make happen, but one issue with that is pulling into a hole and turning around. But still it's a workable thing. As you mentioned it still does not do anything for the lifting issue, and that is the nut I am trying to crack. Yes Chep I have moved bigger ones with a grapple and just loped off the scarred section for firewood or it went to the mill. But I don't do a lot of bigger trees.
 As far as 'promises from Tesla' go, I'd rather buy a lottery ticket and pray for it. He's a snake oil salesman. I'll be long dead before any of that comes to reality, and I don't plan on dying soon.
 Resonator hit on an interesting idea that cut to the point. Bill just bought one of those little bobcat tracked mini-loaders last year, and everybody laughed at his 'little toy. But the truth is, it's never in the yard, it's always on a job someplace. It gets used like crazy and I have not been able to try it out for more than 5 minutes. I should work on that a bit and try it out, that could be a game changer. Right in front of me and I never thought of it! Now let's see if I can get my grubby little hands on it.

[Old Greenhorn]

Oops! forgot to address the daily update. Another rainout today so I went to town and got some wiring supplies and picked up some stuff for Bill on his account. Trying to get parts and stuff ahead of when I need them, but needed a spool of wire to get started.
 Came home and started in on the wiring for the inside of the trailer. When I finally hooked up the battery I released a big smoke cloud in the back corner of the trailer.  Figured I screwed something up, but the other lights were fine. The smoke was distracting. Turned out, it wasn't me. The prior 'light installer' was a little sloppy and had done a poor job on the butt connectors with some frayed wire sticking out, then when he/she did the heat shrink, they overdid it and those little wire ends poked through the shrink tube. Then they bundled it all together tightly and secured it with a tight wire tie. I hypothesized that since those lights were never run off of mush more than a small booster pack as I had been doing, they just drained it a little. When I had a direct wired full battery on, it burned right up.  I replaced the light with one I had bought, but later repaired the light, turned out the inside wires were fried also.
 Anyway, that little bit of nonsense filled my day.
 Tomorrow is more rain. I'll call that sot when the sun comes up and see what I am doing when I decide what that is.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well it took me a little while to run Resonator's idea through my head last night (nobody ever accused me of being a fast thinker, although I am not really slow either, I am in the middle, I guess what you could call a "halfast" thinker, but I digress).
 As it happened Bill stopped by on his way home around 8:30 to pick up the parts I got for him and I asked where his MT100 was. As suspected, it is 15 miles away at a job site.  But when I asked if I could try it on some logs, he thought that was a neat idea and immediately started coming up with ideas to soften the grapple grip on the logs. Turns out they have already ground off some of the teeth on it because they create problems for them. I was thinking of thick industrial felt, but he came up with the idea of torching open a 55 gallon drum and using the halves to provide smooth lifting surfaces. I like that, but then this morning, I thought of using short 12" blocks of 2x6 bolted in with carriage bolts between the grapple flanks. that would be 'wood on wood'. Anyway, this late in the season, it's hard to know if that machine will be back in time for testing. I can get the bolts and try the wood block idea in just a couple of hours, also easy to remove.
 SO that is something to work on going forward.
 If it does work and save time, I would then look into a purpose built woods trailer that is narrow (around 48") and could hold just 25 logs or so, this would cut down trips with the mini track.
 I did some looking around for those machines and they ain't cheap. Bill's MT100 is going for around $27-39k used. You can find smaller Chinese made ones for $4k, but I wonder how they might hold up.
 Anyway, it's a good idea and something to work on as I can get time and play around.

[Resonator]

Glad I could give you an idea!

I'm curious how big of a log one of those could lift and carry, and if it would work as a mini skidder for dragging logs out. I've got several trees on my land I want to get at that are hard to access, wondering how well that machine would work.

[Old Greenhorn]

I'm not sure what it will drag, but we were impressed, based on it's size. He wasn't interested in the machine at all but the Admar guy dropped in his yard for a week last spring and after the laughing dies down, they found it was pretty handy indeed and lifted a lot more than one would expect. They started to come up with ideas where it would pay for itself, and it never left the yard except for jobs. Keeping the implement weight low is helpful with this thing for sure. They use it doing septic systems in yards, some tree removal work to save lawns, carrying in loads of pipe, between that and the toy excavator he has, they get a lot of work done with very little extra ground damage.
 It's a neat machine for the right work. 

[Plankton]

Ive used those helping a stone worker friend out a few times in the past. They are impressive but when you get to cocky with how much they can lift the ride gets a little exciting to say the least hahaha.

[WV Sawmiller]

Hey, what's life without a little excitement (said the man with the concussion and 4 broken ribs).

[thecfarm]

You should be able to get by with a small machine. Seem like what you pick up by yourself can't weight much?? Not like you need to pick up 300 pounds at one time.
But I know how it is, pick up a little and you will want to pick up more.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yes Ray of course. For a machine what I lift is small and I would like to get at least 3 logs for a lift and carry to trailer or truck. For reference, a WO log 8" diameter x 40" long is neat 90 pounds. Tha same log in 9" is about 110 pounds and I do a fair amount of these. The small logs are more in the 30-50 pound range. Sometimes I can grab 2 at a time, most ones not. It's all easy work for a small machine, not so easy for me.
 The good news for me is a have a young fella who just remembered he owes me 8 hours in labor (as barter for milling) and will be helping me collect all these logs on Sunday. That will be a huge help and I might, repeat might, finish this season of I prep it right and the rain holds off.

[chep]

Mini skids are great in yards. They are not great in the woods. The terrain will buck you and try to throw ya. Ask me how I know. Rocks, tiny stumps and roots are a rubber tracked machines nemesis. 
For backyard and woods edge harvesting I don't think it can be beat! It's a great idea! 
But please keep it out of the woods. And if you decide to take it in the woods, familiarize yourself with how the track tension system works and be prepared with the right tools to out a track back on. Yes they look like they would be great skidders but riding on your tiptoes on the front idler wheels will destroy them. I promise!  Practice carrying loads low and slow. I have flipped them before and it happens very fast! 
Just a little warning from a "pro" on what not to do. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Thanks Chep, those are good points I hadn't thought of not having much time on this machine at all. I can promise those thoughts will be up front in my mind. The section I am cutting now, which I don't think I will get this machine on (because it is on another job) is a 'mild area', meaning any stumps are cut at ground level, it's not really rocky like most other sections here, and it's fairly flat. So it should work fine, but as I said, that test may not happen here. I am really trying to wrap this up by Monday. I have to move on.
 With the extra pair of (young) hands my plan is to buck up more stuff tomorrow and leave it lay just like the other 30 logs I already have in there. Then maybe get another couple of big trees, lay them down and buck them too. Sunday when I get my help, we will pull all the logs out with the cutting work already done. It's a bunch of shuttling because I can't get a truck or trailer in there. Hopefully I come up with enough to hit the goal. Then Monday I will go back in and dress up the area wherever it needs it. I like to leave it looking nice and there is a lot more brush to dice up.
 This whole business is just a whole bunch of little challenges and the only thing I can brag on a tiny bit is that I improve a little bit every season and I seem to be cutting(selling) more logs every year. If I were younger I would be really excited about the prospects, but my body is degrading too quickly to do anything but pray I can get it done.

[WV Sawmiller]

   This is off the cuff and not carefully thought our like most of my posts ( ) but if lifting is the problem how hard would it be to fabricate a tripod with a swing arm with a counterweight to lift and swing the logs into a trailer or bed of a SXS  or whatever you are using? I know design committee dictates use of top grade imported high cost materials but I'm thinking low grade lumber and a couple of bolts to build such a contraption. Use a hook or choker to attach to the logs. Looks to me like such a rig could be broken down and assembled on site as needed.

[Nebraska]

Those robot things remind me  too much of the Terminator stuff from my youth.  

Also an old car hood would make a good sled, least they did back in the day behind an old 4wd pickup in the snow in a field.  Canoes do as well but that's another story. 

The mini skid steer sounds like a good option, could you pad the jaws with towels or blankets from a thrift store?

[WV Sawmiller]

   On further consideration to my earlier design suggestion, instead of a hook or choker which might damage the logs you might make a sling or cradle you lay beside the logs, roll them on to it, hook the other side, lift and swing, unhook and roll them off and repeat.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well Howard, I am sure if you had thought that one through you would have seen that it is a non-starter because it adds way too many handling steps for very little return and great expense of time. Moving the thing around and carrying it around in the woods would give you enough reason to toss the idea, then you have to repeat the process to get stuff from the Mule to the truck.
 If you think back to 2021, you may recall I made this rig up:


 That photo is the first day I used it on a cut and I made some small improvements to the process since then. The crane on the trailer allowed me to lift a full bundle out of the Mule (about 10 logs) and place them in the trailer. Then with a full trailer back in the yard, I could reverse the process to unload. This did save time and my back. I only had to hand lift when I put the log in the Mule and on that job I rarely had anything over 8". But there were issues placing bundles in the corners of the trailer and I still did a bunch of hand work.
 Back when I came up with this you may recall the design committee had a lot of input on it, so we don't need to repeat all that, do we?
 I haven't used it since that year, and I may just give it a try again in the right situation. Where I am cutting now is not that situation.
 I know it must sound like I am blowing a lot of ideas off out of hand but if y'all spent a few hours doing this in a few different terrain situations you would understand it pretty quickly. Anybody is welcome to come spend a day with me and get the 'feel' for it. I won't even charge ya!

 I mentioned a few posts back Nebraska that I am thinking some pine blocks in the grapple would put softwood against hardwood and should work fine. Easy on an off too. But I need the machine here to do a test. It was in the yard 3 weeks ago and I drove past it dozens of times and never thought of it. It had a very big log grapple on it (almost too big for that machine) and that turned my brain off to thinking any further. My bad. I have to measure the root grapple and see how wide that is, I know I can get almost a dozen logs in that and little or no padding required because I never clamp, just lower the jaws to keep it all in a bundle.

 In the big picture of this 'thing' I believe there is no single answer because slight differences in terrain and conditions make some methods useless and other methods viable. I believe this best way is to have several methods available to use and apply the one that works best for that day. As time goes on and we imp[rove the property, clear trails things should become easier. This started out as Bill lending me a hand and getting rid of junk trees that are no use to him. Now that he is seeing improvements, the options are opening up and he is taking a slightly wider view so more trees are becoming available. Every time I think I am 'out of trees' he takes me to a new section and in 5 minutes we have 8 trees marked. Add in the storm damaged trees that just 'pop up' and it makes for a lot of logs available. There is a whole other 12 acre section he wants me to get into and he has no access trail yet, so we will have to take a bunch to open it up. Next season, or maybe summer cut if I get orders. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   Is that a purple mule in the picture?

[Hilltop366]

Something that would go from stump to home so you reduce handling would an improvement which got me to thinking that if your just down the road a bit would loading it on the sxs and bringing it directly home work? It would reduce handling in half which would be an improvement.

Even with a small loading boom it is going to take a lot of time to load and unload several times so reducing the amount of times this has to be done is helpful which brings me to the "one and done" option.

I have a small 4x4 tractor so my idea would be similar to what I do for some of my firewood. I put racks made from pallets on the rear forks and when I split the wood I place it on the rack and move it to were I want it with the tractor, the racks holds around 1/3 of a cord and are simply 4 boards fastened to the pallet with a horizontal board across each end and a piece of rope threaded through holes in the top to prevent spreading.

So building on this idea and using what you have: a small trailer for behind the sxs (I think a regular ATV might work better) that will hold a wood rack so you load the rack directly at the tree. make the trailer so it has 2 rails that will tip enough that the rack will slide off and now you have only handled the log once. Could add a small swing boom and a winch for the larger pieces if needed. Handling reduced by 75%.

I don't see the economics of a expensive machine for this job that is why I was thinking of ways to use your mule with a special built cart for the "one and done" idea of loading the logs once on a rack and delivering the rack to your home, probably still won't work in every situation but not much would except maybe a expensive mini forwarder.

If instead of a tip cart if you made one with pallet forks it could be used to palletize your fire wood too and be able to move it around with little effort which would also save time and back pain. Pallets/wood racks could be made narrower ( 32" for 2 rows of 16" wood) to keep the cart narrow enough for woods work. I'm thinking that a rack that would hold 1/4 of a cord of mushroom logs would be moveable on most ground.

The trailer with forks would be a simple enough to build, the forks would only have to go up and down a few feet so a small winch with single block to double capacity would do the job and double as a boom winch for slinging the larger logs on.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well Hilltop, I am not exactly following this trailer with forks thing and picturing how it would look. "Simple to build" is a relative expression. If I had a set of forks and frame laying around, perhaps, but I don't.
 This comes down to 'use or what you've got' for me. That expensive machine is of course not economically feasible, of course, BUT if it is 'just sitting there' then it makes a lot of sense.
 The distance from where I cut the trees to where I stage them for delivery is about 2.5 miles, that's a 5 mile round trip carrying only a small number of logs in the mule, between 12 and 25 size dependent. I would have to unload in my yard then return for more. This consumes a lot of time and fuel and just doesn't pan out. I have nothing here in the yard to unload with, so it is always by hand. I could however make several pallet rack units and staged my logs in the woods until I have a bunch, then make a day of moving logs from the woods to the yard and borrow a machine to unload in the yard for a few hours. That would only work during more massive order periods of winter cutting. Any logs cut in other seasons need to get from the stump to inoculation within a week, so I handle those logistics a little different. But the off seasons draw smaller orders (40 logs max) so it is easier to do.
 Right now for instance I am cutting in a very tight access area. So my method is to drop all the trees, buck them to length and let them lay until they are all down and cut. (Hopefully today.) Then I will go back in (this time with a helper tomorrow) and make a work shift of doing nothing but shuttling the logs one Mule load at a time about 300 yards out to the trailer. If I fill the trailer, I will then fill the truck and bring them all back to the yard and unload onto bunks for pickup.. Repeat as necessary. Then look at what I have, what I need, and where I go next. This one spot could finish off what I need and that is what I am (desperately) hoping for.
 The whole process is just something I never stop thinking about and tweaking as I go. Eventually I will trip over something that makes a change in the game, but only if I keep looking. The pallet idea, in general is one we have talked about for a while and is still in the running. I jsut haven't nailed down the pesky little details yet.

[Ljohnsaw]

I remember from way back when @Kbeitz had a funky little trailer that would pick up a pallet load of firewood and be moved by his little ATV. Try searching for that. He is a master of making something from nothing.