Moving Logs & Beams w/o Equipment

[quadracutter222]

Good Morning, green as freshly sawn fir here, so thought I would throw up another question.  I am a few days away from a potential mill purchase, with the hopes of getting every ounce of knowledge and mentoring from the seller as willing and seeing what the market brings.  Still keeping my full-time job, so will be learning and practicing when I can, and sawing jobs as they come.  Its time for a change and this is the start!  Currently, the local area has millers offering service, but 5 years out they will be retired, so the iron is hot so they say.

I keep coming back to how to move cut beams or cants around.  The mill is hydraulic so loading is handled, but am interested in what seasoned sawers are doing to move the heavy stuff.  Powered support equipment is not in the cards at this point, so have thought of the following ideas:

- friends and family help for projects on the homestead
- Client provided off bearers or equipment where possible
- building a boom picker or crane arm onto the mill with a stabilizer foot
- rent the services of the local builders with hiabs

My vision for logs is they are decked at our place mill side by customers or hired hiab/logging truck or the same is arranged if the job is to be out at a customers site.  I could see a parbuckle rig to get logs to the lift helpful too.

The locals I have spoken with all say "there will be work", but I have no way yet of knowing if that means one order of 4x4s once a year or multiple timber packages for framing a month.  I'm all about starting simple, small and low risk, with the hopes of growing organically with the demand.

Thanks for any pointers, pictures would be so so great!  Oh and its hunting season, so good luck if you're into it ;)

[barbender]

Do you have an atv? I made a little tripod boom on a trailer, with a chain hoist on top of it for moving logs around with. I have a skid steer too, but on cold days it was simpler to use this than fire up the machine.









You could mount a couple brackets down low to rest the load on to stabilize things. Just set the beam down on the brackets (like forks) instead of having the load dangling.

[Sixacresand]

A front end loader with forks would be ideal.  But there are simple and cheaper ways of moving logs and lumber.  I use this home made arch

 .  If the lawn tractor in the photo is not big enough, then I use one of the pickups. For thirty plus inch diameter logs I move the mill to the logs. 

[firefighter ontheside]

Hadn't thought about it, but my device I made to load log onto my trailer could be used to lift logs for the mill if backed up to the mill.  It's an aframe made of white oak and a 2 ton chain hoist.  There a 5000 pound winch to pull the a frame up and lower it down.

[charles mann]

it seems a log arch is you best bet, but terrain may prove to be challenging at times, so at a minimum, an atv should be in the forecast. an arch on 4 wheels could be built for a couple hundred $$$s if you have the equipment to build it. 

as with firefighter outside, i too built a log arch, so far, without putting a load cell on it, i est. around 6,000 pounds is my limit, mostly due to the winch failure, but with the legs being nearly 12 foot log, its putting a LOT of side loading stress,so i will be cutting them down to 8 foot legs. 

back the arch to your mill for cants and pull them on a trailer, or off the bunk and hoist them up, under the arch and drive away. for logs away from the mill, same thing, arch them onto a trailer or up, under the arch and drive to the mill.

im kind of in the same pickle, logs to heavy for my tractor pick up and load onto my mill, so i will drag them to the mill with tractor, and parbuckle them onto the mill bunk and winch them closer to the mill head if need be. 

I will say this about this site. there are a lot of people with a lot of great ideas and willing to share and pass on to others looking for help. take from many to build what you need to accomplish the mission by simply, improvising, adapting, to overcome the ever changing challenges.

[Mad Professor]

If you have to handle cants by hand try to pivot them near center of gravity to move them instead of lifting.

I worked in a mill years ago and "fondly" remember stacking 6" X 8" X 12' green hemlock all day.......I slept well when I got home.

For my CSM I use a 3pth with drawbar/chain, on a tractor, to move/stage the logs into a row in front of the mill.  It gets the end that drags dirty so I have to deal with that before sawing.  Wish I had a good 4WD tractor with forks and a thumb.

[opticsguy]

Many different methods can be used and also depending on what you are actually moving.

I use a 2-wheeled barrow for moving my beams around.  I slide or walk (pivot) the beam onto the wheelbarrow with the weight almost balanced. Then I simply lift up end of the beam on the handled end of the barrow and the barrow will roll and follow the route you choose to go.  This is done on paved surfaces and works really well. 

[Ljohnsaw]

In the same vein as OpticsGuy, I made this and use it all the time to take boards and beams off the forks of my SkyTrak and move them inside the basement area of my cabin build.  I've moved some pretty heavy stuff with it!


 
You have to be careful on uneven ground that you don't topple it - kind of top heavy!  I made it narrow (~32") because I was recovering some redwood logs from a residential backyard.  If I were to make it now, I'd make it about 6 or 8" wider for stability.  Maybe even cant the wheels out at an angle, somehow.

[SawyerTed]

I've been thinking of modifying a heavy duty garden wagon (one of those 1000# capacity wagons) by cutting it in half and welding in an extender to make it 12' or 16' long.  Then extending the tongue/handle.  

[DaveinNH]

For short distances you can do a lot with a Log Rite 6 foot heavy duty cant hook.

[mike_belben]

You mentioned a 5yr timeline and organic growth.. Thats my style.  Build a small forktruck over time from junk.

Old bolens tube frame garden tractors are the only ones i know that had a diff lock (so ive bought every one ive seen)  The driver side wheelhub has a big flat tab nut that you tighten or loosen to lock and unlock the rear end.  In 2wd equipment this is critical.  Keep an eye out for one of these rears. Itll also have 2 tabs for a sleeve hitch cast in.  This is the ideal place to build the pivot for your forklift mast.  You can cut up a big joe pallet lift or build your own.  

The bolens is hydrostatic with a pump integrated to the rear end.. If you just spin that shaft the right way, you got forward, reverse and a charge pump takeoff line to supply hydraulic pressure.  Its around 600 psi stock but can be shimmed to 900 or so in a minute or two.

 A john deere "H3" valve has 3 spools, one with detent float, theyre $150 or less on ebay.  This would give you a spool to steer, a spool to lift and one to tilt.  Mount chinese LED lightbars to the roof and youve got a mobile light tower too.  

Be sure to plan the framework out so you can dual the drive tires for stability.  This may not lift every log but with a tilt fork rack and good parking brakes itll roll them.  And save you a boatload of backbreaking labor offbearing beams and slabwood.  Just bring a few pallets.

My bolens yard donkey will pull a car trailer with a car on it.  It jockeys a 5000lb pintle backhoe trailer.

[mike_belben]

This is bolens 1600 based and the open diff is its only weakness.  Not that it gets stuck, but going down hill and rocking can make it just take off.  If one drive tire looses traction, no brakes..itll oscillate to the bottom loosing traction in a left right left freewheel.  So i turn around (reversible operator station) and "back" down hills.  It climbs out of the woods great, more load the better. The bed is for pouring concrete, thats why the funny spout shape.






These are pines. It wouldnt do this with oaks but it illustrates old garden equipment can do real work.  






Make it as heavy as possible, traction is the limitation, not HP.  12-16 horse, 3-5gpm and 2200 psi is perfect for a 1400 to 1800lb machine.  Make good cleated ramps so you can bring the machine in your truck bed when hauling the mill. Or build a removeable platform section at rear of the mill.

[boscojmb]

I keep coming back to how to move cut beams or cants around.  The mill is hydraulic so loading is handled, but am interested in what seasoned sawers are doing to move the heavy stuff.  

Many times I use my saw head to push beams off of my mill and on to a truck or trailer of similar height.  I just lay my peavy across the two front posts of my saw head and gently push the beam off the mill and into the truck.

If the truck or trailer is a lot lower than the mill, your beam will try to flip up and hit the blade or anything else in the way (be careful).

[Brad_bb]

If you're milling at your place, and you're making beams....you're going to need some kind of equipment.  A front end loader tractor with forks, or an actual rough terrain forklift.  A skid steer could work, but generally more expensive than a tractor forklift or a tractor with front end loader.  If you find a skidsteer that is cheap, it's cheap for a reason.  It's probably going to need a lot of work/repair.

I prefer a tractor forklift.  It's a tractor turned backwards with a mast etc.  I found mine for $4400 plus a 200 mile haul. I've probably put $600 in it over 3 years.

There's not manual way to move beams around that isn't very slow and a pain.  You will need to move logs around too.  Even if they try to drop them where you want them, they're always going to need adjustment or moving.  You don't want to be regularly moving your mill around your yard.  It takes time to re-set up.  It's just not efficient. To have a shot at making any money, you need to be efficient and keep improving.

If you're always mobile like Magicman, then you can make it a requirement that the customer have support equipment and 1 or 2 offbearers.  Speaking of offbearers, if you're milling at home, you'll need one if you're milling boards.  My offbearer has learned to drive the forklift too what's nice is that he'll jump on the forklift and help remove your slabs, or beam, and load a new log.  With two of you it goes much better.  He has other jobs in the shop when there's a lull in the milling action.  He does things like debark, polish, and shellac live edges,  Make stickers (bigger stickers for beams), de-nail barnwood,  Keep the burn barrels going with bark and sawdust, cutting scrap into kindling on the chop saw, checking and re-baiting the mousetraps in all the buildings,and sweeping, shop clean up, refilling the mill water jug...  

[Mad Professor]

Brad,

I did a big circle mill (300 hp 440V 3 phase) as a stacker, usually by myself, until I moved up to edger.  Hardest work I ever did besides haying.

When we did hemlock it was 6" X 6" or 6" X 8", X 12'.  The edgings were 1 X 4" pallet.  All needed stacking and stickers.

You can move cants/beams pretty fast if you can move them by pivoting near the middle.  I had to move them off the chain line, onto carts, sticker, then band them.  I'd get backed up, then the sawyer would sharpen, edger would clear the crap offal in the chipper (another 440V 3 phase).

Winter, at the big open air mill; owner was an old farmer, who worked hard all his life. "If you're cold, You ain't working hard...." If a POS was just watching, and getting paid, you'd hear " DOWN THE ROAD!" Meaning collect your pay and leave.  Owner was a gem though, if you worked hard you moved up fast, and so did pay.

Point being for a small mill work smart.  Have a method that keeps everyone moving but does not exhaust a person in the slow spot. Rotate the hardest work to give workers, a sort of, "rest".  If it's hot as hell and everyone is beat, take a break. 
I still use a logosol CS mill by myself.  Built a ramp w/steps, can load a 15' X 20" log by myself using a peavy/log cant ( a little over capacity on a M5).  Yes slow but I get good lumber, for myself.

Have a place to stack in advance, stickers, and a cover for the top of the stack.

My 2 cents.....

[OffGrid973]

Listen to Brad here...I am on the fence of going from standard slabs to beams and the reason I don't is simply equipment to move them, and well yes space.

Getting a saw, rails, logs and everything dialed in to make 10x10 timber frames is fun, then try and pick up one end, or even shove off the rails (ughhh).   Figure out the true end game, then buy appropriate toys unless you have folks picking up the timbers right next to the mill...if so a few industrial rollers may do the trick.

[ScottCC]

The most basic way to move heavy stuff is with two hand trucks and people.  One under each end.  Use to move logs over 1000 pounds easy.  Just can not make any real money or time, but it will inspire your creativity.