My friend that lent me his skid steer is doing a clearing job and needs his skid steer for a month.
I might have my forestry trailer sold and will end up with some money.
I found a Thomas skid steer with very low hours in almost new condition.
I will need to come up with more funds to buy it.
It's not as big as I wanted but will get me through for some time.
Business has been the best I have ever had this time of year.lm getting lots of repeat customers and new ones.
I hope this deal works out.
I don't want to loose my momentum.
That said anyone know about the Thomas skid steer?
It's Kabota powered.
I know they don't make them anymore.They only make mini skids now.
They used to make them down town. That's where Thomas began. Most of dad's farm equipment for tater farming came from there. McCain (the french fry empire) bought them out and ran it into the ground and sold the patents to Korea.
Always ran good, first one dad had was gas powered. Had it almost 30 years, even used propane on it at the end. Then got a diesel and ran that until retirement. They was always good machines when built here. No idea where yours was built.
The one here is from the 90's and has a 6 cyl. Kubota. It has been a good machine
There is a 90hp one for sale in Pa.
But it's out of my budget.
It would be a better fit because it lifts much more.
It has 2 times the hours of the one in looking at.
They seem very simple with out a lot of fluff you don't need.
I was told a few years ago from a Bobcat mechanic.Keep it it simple, keep to manual hand and foot controls. Good luck!
This all works only if the trailer sells and how much I get at the end.
If the trailer doesn't sell , I might have to shut down for a month.
Paying full rental on a unit for a month won't make financial sense.
They get a lot for one month.
It will hurt to lose my momentum I built after I got the new mill.
@Bruno of NH (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=26349) have you thought about a used all terrain forklift.They have strong hydraulics and are much more stable than a skid steer especially when moving pallets of lumber or logs .Also the are much easier to get in and out of to operate.I am sure you can get one for under 10 k.
Zeke
All terrain forklift is what I'm really looking for, or even one of those old school forklifts that look like a backwards tractor, smallest one I've seen is around 6k pounds, and the largest (a john deere) at around 11500, will drag logs out of just about anywhere, ontop of being great for pallets of lumber.
The Thomas loaders we used was mainly for shovelling. Loading potato hoppers and cleaning up dirt. If your going to move lumber, they just don't have the weight to counterbalance.