1970 CTL

[lumberjack48]

This is old machine was a piece of work, one horse show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzPk99D3dKk&list=FLLrMZcmecJApDamempwT7kA&index=23&feature=plpp_video

 

[snowstorm]

back in the late 70's scott paper had some big tracked machines. they limbed the tree standing then sheared it. a beliot maybe?

[OntarioAl]

Lumberjack48
I guess I must come out of the closet.
  Hello My name is Al and I supervised these hydraulic monsters for 5 years in the early 80's.
The company that I was employed by worked these machines in groups of five double shift five days a week.
The bean counters wanted 3 cords per productive machine hour to meet  budget expectations. When they were cutting wood the size of the load  showen  in the still picture (about 7 cords) , a good operator could have that cut and forwarded and be returning to start another load in just around an hour.
But this was a Union job and 3 1/2 to 4 loads for an 8 hr shift (6 1/2 productive hours) was about all they would do. They made an exception when there was the potential to make good production bonus but then sometimes the machines suffered. The unoffical company record was 9 loads of black spruce in a nine hr shift (scaled 65 cords) The operator had the nick name of "fast Eddie" he was a very smooth operator (but not abusive of the machine). He was cutting parallel to the road so his forwarding distance was realatively short the black spruce was above average in size and 8 ft processed black spruce is just about the best for ease of handling with the wood clam when offloading and down piling (Eddie took pride in his piles).
The goal was to cut at least 1000 cords of pulp a week with these machines.
The logistical support to accomplish this was impressive;
2 Supervisors
10 Operators
1 Lead Mechanic
4 Mechanics
1 Welder
1 Moble Shop ( with a large parts inventory)
1Moble Tent (large enough to house the machine for repairs)
1 Semi trailer with Cat 24Kw light plant  spare parts hydraulic cylinders etc. and a 5000 liter bulk hyrdaulic oil tank ( these machines could go through 10000 liters a month)
1 service skidder with a 1000 liter hyd oil tank
1 supervisors truck
1 mechanics truck
1 welding truck
1 small bus
5 Koehring Shortwood harvesters.
Our machines were powered by Cat 3306's rated at 210 hp (some companies ran Detroits)
The machine had someware in excess of 250 imperial gallons of hyd oil in the system.
It had a number of independant systems that  had to all function in order to get processed wood to roadside.
Drive system paired sundstrand hydraulic drive pump drive motor driving a  4 spead funk gear transmission (two systems one for the front wheel set and one for the rear)
Tree boom felling head and tree transfer system
Processing system (tower delimbs measures and cuts bolts)
Transfer and storage system
Offloader system
Steering system.
The operator controled the tree  boom and steering with a conventional lever actuated valve bank (there was a similar one for the offloader)
Once the tree was transferred to the processing tower it was all automatic controlled by mechanical over hydraulic, electric over hydraulic and hydraulic over hydraulic controls and combinations of all 3.
Some times on night shift I would trade off with one of my operators and cut a load telling him that he was now foreman and it was  duty to swing by the camp to see what goodies the night cook was making and to bring some out for the crew  for our enfd of shift coffee/debreifing/
Al

[GRANITEstateMP]

Thanks for the insight AL, sounds like quite an operation.

Matt

[lumberjack48]

Al Thank you for sharing the info, now we know the rest of the story. I wish i would have known about equipment like this. After seeing equipment like this and knowing it was around in the 70's, makes me feel like i didn't know much about the logging industry.

The Internet sure has changed things.

[OntarioAl]

Lumberjack48
I forgot to add that these machines loved their fuel. They carried enough for about 3 shifts of operation we had camp fuel man with a single axle fuel delivery truck that was responsible for all the machines in the camp plus the 5 Koehrings. Fuel would be delivered at the end of each day shift if the fuel truck was out of service for more than 8hrs there was some scrambling done to ensure that no machine ran out of fuel.
You did  not miss out by not having these very expensive machines producing high cost wood operating state side.
Remour has it (might just be an urban legend) that one or more of these machines were demonstarted in someware in the southern states overheating and snakes over nighting and $$$ put an end to that.
The Pulp Mills and thier union agreements had Nearly All the public timber locked up.
Timber Sales whats that?
The government set the stumpage rates nuff said!
These machines were a direct responce to labour shortages and  union agreements that barred the mills from contracting their roundwood requirements. I some instances setting the limit on what percentage of supply could come from non union sources.
The mills had it their way they made agreements based on labour peace and just raised the price for news print and bleached kraft pulp annually to ensure a return on investment.
They had it made until market forces changed in the 1980's and the prices for newsprint and bleached kraft pulp fell.
The margins were no longer there and the price of delivered round wood had to come down that put an end to this method of shortwood relatively quickly.
The shortwoods were replaced by full tree harvesters (feller forwarders) with stroke delimbing and slashing at roadside which rapidly changed to tracked feller bunchers  and grapple skidders delivering wood to roadside.
The the collapse of the softwood lumber industry and loss of the lumber subsidized wood chips has closed lots of marginal mills and made full tree roadside chipping the major source of wood fiber  for the serviving mills.
And the mantra for the contractors from the company (Oh did I forget to say that the companies managed to induce contractors to take over the unionized operations) that are delivering from the public timberlands (which the mills still control) "we are looking at a delivered wood price decrease this coming year"
It use to be fun to go logging
Al

[redlaker1]

I know mechanics that still have nightmares about those koehrings,   glad that was before my time. 

heard stories of them blowing huge hoses and dumping hundreds of gallons of hyd oil out in the bush,   and having to pull out the blown mile-long frozen hoses with the skidder. 

as well they said those machines made ruts in the bush big enough to swallow a pickup. the tires were like 8 feet tall...    I forget how many tons those things weighed

[OntarioAl]

redlaker1
It is unfortunately all true.
You had to be there.
The oil stained ground is still decernable at the old moble garage sites.
When a 25 ft #20 hose blew you coupled the new hose to the old  (at the pump) and pulled it through with the service skidder it was the only way.
I found my service data handbook and the system contained 250 imperial gallons of Hyd oil and had a capacity of185 gallons of diesel fuel.
The machine had a shutdown system part of which monitored the hyd oil level so it would first warn (high float level)the operator he was losing oil red light comes on (about 25 gallons down) the machine was set to shut down (low float position ( around 40 gallons down). At this time the motor would shut down but some operators would hit the override and race to the nearest road trailing oil behind specally on night shift as they did not want to walk out in the dark.
Al

[Taylortractornut]

Your description of the line removal remind me of stringing  new cable in the gantry of a large crane.    Juse un hook the cable  from the drum and     use a cable  trap to hold the new cable butted to the old and pull it back throught the sheaves. 

The support machinery for one machine sounds like a nightmare.     being used to the excavators of that time  Id like to see  how the cab controls were set up. 

[SwampDonkey]

Fraser Papers, the University of NB and FERIC did time studies on these machines. I imagine these reports still collect dust on the libraries of forestry schools in eastern Canada. I saw many of them operate in the 80's. At that time it was feller forwarders, mowing down hardwood, debarking and chipping roadside into trailers destined for pulp mills. Logs and all, never separated. I came upon one trout stream while doing regen surveys on one block (200 hectares - Black Mountain) that was so torn up and rutted that trout were trapped in pools of water, no way to navigate up or down.

[lumberjack48]

Thats terrible that was allowed, it don't surprise me, early 80's is when they ran the loggers out of business. Mills took control of the stumpage, they bid more on the stump then they payed delivered. It was bad around here, equipment was worth pennies on a dollar. The banks didn't even want it, i lost everything. The bottom yet right out of logging. [thees were sat times]

[jr-transport]

Glad to see that my interest in these machines is somewhat shared. It really is terrible what these machines could do to the land, simply to big to operate in the summer if there is any moisture in the ground. I spent last summer working NE of Dryden, On which is where the short wood harvester was developed. Many of the Blocks that they cut are still all rutted up and in many places, even after it is grown in, the ruts are still visible from a plane.

Nowadays, it seems to have gone too far the other way though. Where we were working we had to spend nearly 20 grand to put in a 200 foot causeway for a slight depression that had no water in it all year. perhaps the pendulum will swing back a little to where consevation is important, but the loggers are allowed some leeway.

But I digress, it is fun to learn about these beasts, but they were not efficient enough to work today.

That Video Is one that I have posted on my youtube channel. I got it from a fella in scandanavia, and that picture is from a Koehirng Ad circa 1970.

If anybody has acsess to the FERIC reports, I would love to see them. I have tried to contact FPI (formerly FERIC) and have had no luck tracking them down.

[Tramp Bushler]

Thats a cool vid . So , how many operators did the machine require at the same time . Seems they would need 2 . 1 to drive and run the feller and 1 for the processor . . Lot better black spruce than what we have here . Ours look like a bent wore out bottle brush  :-\

[jr-transport]

just one operator

[Tramp Bushler]

He must have one really busy guy !

[jr-transport]

Not really (although, an extensive bank of knowledge on hydraulics was required, The only manual operations were felling, and unloading. Once the tree was gathered, the operator would swing the boom to a certain point and the rest was automated; pressure swtches ran everything. the opereator would continue till there was about 7cd of wood on the back, and then go unload.
Of course, the whole thing could be done manually too if required.
Quite an impressive machine. Over a mile of hydraulic hoses in that beast!