f4-dion

[northern2bodies]

a few members have asked me a bit on my tracked 5 ton fowarder.
its a 90hp with a 5 speed man.transmission and a transfercase for rev.
all 4 tracks have power and the picker has lifted all the logs i tried with the biggest at about 40in and 8 ft long.
here is a movie of one on u-tube
www.youtube.com/watch?v=F72Ka1ehKB0
and a short write-up on the forest and logging journal
forestnet.com/archives/Sept_02/harvesting.htm

i would be happy to answer any other questions on one like this,mine has 5500hrs and was new in 1999 when i bought it at a price of $145000.

[stumper]

Sweet machine.  I would have loved that when I was horse logging.  We could have establishe one or two central skid (forwarder ) roads, and used the horses to bring the wood to the road.   

How is the turning radius?  It looks  like it could be tough to turn tightly or to turn around.

[thecfarm]

Now that is quite the rig. Do you fell with a chainsaw? I don't think I have ever seen one.

[northern2bodies]

Sweet machine.  I would have loved that when I was horse logging.  We could have establishe one or two central skid (forwarder ) roads, and used the horses to bring the wood to the road.   

How is the turning radius?  It looks  like it could be tough to turn tightly or to turn around.

you drive it in both ways as you can drive it backwards as good as frontwards as there are 2 seats face to face with controls on both sides.i cut with a chainsaw and the fowarder goes most times right to the tree and u pull in the tree lenght and cut logs as you bring the tree in.also i have pick-up behind prossers.btw its only 5.5 ft wide

[PAFaller]

whats the cost on one of them? is it quite a bit cheaper than a conventional forwarder? I like the concept for sure, but if its got a super steep price tag then you had better be selling yourself as a small scale limited production niche kind of logger.

[SwampDonkey]

"Logging and Sawmilling Journal" have done a number of profiles on this same machine. A local contractor used one since the early 90's and was profiled quite a number of years ago as well. It seems to get a lot of attention in woodlot magazines. It may have been in "Atlantic Forestry Review" as well. One set of tracks tested on the F4 by FERIC was the Martin Track and the results showed this track was not suited to forest conditions, the rubber was too soft. The local guy that used one, produced small volumes from single tree and group selections. Some I would also call high grades to be honest, but landowners seemed happy.

[thecfarm]

northern2bodies has not been active since the end of April.  :(