Skid steers to work around your mills?????

[woodbe]

How many of you use skid steers to work around your mills? If you are what type of machines are you using? I am looking at a Case 1835 with a TMD 20 for engine. It needs some help on the top end but the price is right. I would think that one of these would be quite nice for picking up brush or logs on small job sites one or two trees.
 Any thoughts would be helpful. Oh ya the Case has a working load of 1200 lb and has a weight of near 5000 lb so there is no problem with a lighter trailer and pickup. Thanks again.

Woodbe

[bushhog920]

I have a bobcat t200 it is a 80hp on 20inch wide tracks found it on ebay for $12500 with 2000hrs. it is one of the best investments i have made. get one on tracks cost more but well worth it will not bounce you as bad and can just about drive through a swamp.. i use a grapple to move logs and can gently set them right on the mill, no trouble with 1700lbs logs. also made a stump bucket that can uproot med size trees, i hear that a set of pallet forks on a skidsteer will run circles around a small dozer knocking trees down. really love the zero turning radius gets in and out of tight spots. 80hp 8000lbs machine is a good size for my operation had done everything i ask it to do.  the only downside is it is too wide to fit on a standard trailer had to get a 7ton flatbed to move it, the t190 60hp will fit on a standard trailer. attachments are unlimited get on ebay look up skidsteer attchments and you will be amazed what is out there.

[kderby]

I use the neighbors Mustang and like its utility.  I do not like the visibility when picking up lumber.  The forks like to "bite" the lumber.  He wants to sell me this one and get one with tracks.  It sure is handy for clean-up, moving slabs and loading smaller units of lumber.

[woodsteach]

I have a JD 317 skidsteer and for a small operation it handles everything I can throw at it.  The largest that I've put on the mill was a white oak 3'x4'x8'.  Sure the back tires weren't doing much 

woods

[woodbe]

Thank you for your input. A tracked machine would be nice. Do you find that it is essayer on the ground? I mean dose it turn the ground in to mush were you run over the same spot a few times? The case that I am looking at is an early 90’s and needs some help. I think that it is a 40 hp engine. I may just pass on that one and look for a tracked model.
Thanks for your input.

Woodbe
 

[ErikC]

 I sawed up a whole bunch of small pine logs and used a case 1835 on that job for moving the logs from the log deck to my mill deck. I liked it, but it was a small skidsteer so I would tip forward pretty regular,  a little bigger one would have been really nice. It had homemade hydraulic log forks, they were good too. I would grab 2 or 3 at a time for the most part.
 


 all this area was paved, so no trouble with mud here



I used it for sawdust and slab removal, and it was real nice there as well. I put on the loader bucket and pushed all the dust into a pit behind the mill at the end of the day, then it was hauled away later. The slabs were piled to the side out of the way and hauled off to be chipped. I used a 966 to load the bulk dust and slabs in trucks, but the skidsteer moved it away from the mill just fine.



Overall I would say this was too small of a machine to be ideal, but it did the job. I was using it to it's max, and sometimes needed a little more.

[red oaks lumber]

jd 326d tires 80hp will lift 5,000lbs have both bucket and pallet forks. if they took that machine away from me i would qiut, thats how handy it is . far as tracks go they tear the heck out of everything.

[flibob]

redoak,
When you have trouble with the tracks tearing things up.  Is that rubber or steel?

[ErikC]

 My observations on track machines--They can be pretty low impact if you are not working and turning in the same area regularly, and if you know how to run them well.  The rubber tracks are especially, and those are by far more common on skidsteers.  Turning any skidsteer, tracks or wheels, in the same area will work up the dirt, but it will especially if you like to go fast, lock up one side, and tear up the ground. Going easy and not actually skidding the skidsteer will lessen the damage some. If it's wet there's not much you can do. Articulating machines and flotation tires are probably better if that is your main concern.

[woodpeckerlips]

I have a JD 250 wheels(foam filled) and a bobcat 864G with tracks!    Bobcats are the easiest to work on. Open the back door and everything is right there!  Motor is siways with everything accessable!   JD is very hard to work on and exchange parts! Tracks VS wheels! Tracks are nice, but unless you need tracks in wet places and such, they are expensive to run! They last about 1000hours. You have to buy sprockets when you buy tracks! My bobcat tracks and sprockets are $5500 with me putting them on! If you play in the mud your probly going to do some roller repair. They are about $400 a pop then you have idler's in the front and rear too!   In short, tracks are really nice but you better need them to run them. I use my wheel machine unless I need tracks! You can get over the wheel tracks that you can remove. They are a little rough on the sidewalls of your tires!  Anyway food for your brain!

[Kansas]

They must have changed bobcat designs. Used to be, you could only get to it by opening the back door, or raising the drivers cage. Nothing from the side.

We run two New Hollands. L185 and L190. Best thing I ever did was switching to those.

[ladylake]

 Skid steers work great with 2 downfalls, poor visabilty and they tear up your yard but I wouldn't be without mine as I use it in the woods also.  In the yard I'd take a Terex type machine like Bibby has any day.  Steve

[spencerhenry]

i had an extending boom forklift, 2 of them in fact. while they are awesome machines, a skidsteer is far more versatile and much more handy. i have a set of rubber tracks that bolt on in place of the tires, and a set of tires. i run tires and chains in the winter, and tracks in the summer. with the tracks on it, it will push my 90" bucket right through a dump truck load of topsoil.
 while it is true that most skidsteers have poor visibility to the rear and some to the sides, they all arent that way. my mustang 2109 is about as big as skidsteers come, but also has great visibility out all sides. the cab sits higher than the motor, lift arms and everything else. with the tracks on it, it weighs 13,200 with tires it is like 10,500. it has a 4.5 liter turbo perkins putting out 115hp. my low flow hydraulics are higher than some high flow, it think they are like 29 gallons a minute, my high flow i think is around 55 gpm. i use it with forks for moving logs and lumber, a grapple bucket for moving slabs and slash, a snow bucket for snow and sawdust and any other loose trash, a 10' snowblade for the road, and a snowblower for when there is no place left to put the snow. i will get a skidding grapple for logs soon. i cant believe i didnt buy one sooner, one of the best machines i own.

[Norm]

I run a JD CT332 at our place. Has tracks and a 85hp diesel.

It does tear stuff up if you turn too sharp, pain in the rear to get into and out of, poor visibility, tough to see the forks unloading semi's, and hard on your back. Wouldn't trade it for anything. 

[red oaks lumber]

mine is joy stick control so to go right turn the stick to the right and you go right  there is no slow go about it. also the name skid steer is just that it skids one side when turning. i have 14.5 x17.5 tires it gives me 11" belly clearance, no need for tracks if the mud is that deep i'm moving to another area or doing something else

[woodbe]

Well Norm that sounds like a dream. The 1835 is starting to look to small and I haven’t even pulled the trigger on it. I think I will stick with the loner that I am using for now. It is just too big for me to move if it is needed at a job site. So far there has always been some sort of equipment at the sites to help in loading the logs. Or we were there to do some dirt work and had a track ho or back hoe there. None of the equipment is mine at this point. Isn’t it nice to have good friends? Thanks a lot for all of you comments. We picked up 2 truckloads of Fir here a week ago and used an excavator to load them. I gess we were lucky
Woodbe




 

[Chuck White]

Someday I'd like a Bobcat on tracks with "quick-attach" bucket & forks!

Saw one working at one of my job sites last summer and it really looked like the cats meow! 

[oakiemac]

I run a Bobcat 873f, 72hp with rear wheel weights. It can pick up well over 3000lbs. I have bucket, pallet forks and grapple bucket. Like what a lot of others have said, it is indepensible. Extremely handy for moving sawdust, logs, lumber, snow. It doesnt do good on concrete and you cant lift like you can with a fork lift so I bought a 6000lb forklift for stacking lumber and lifting the occasional log that the bobcat cant pick up.
I bought over the wheel steel tracks which are great in the snow. I have a steep hill which I could some times hardly get up but with the tracks I can go anywhere. They do tear the ground up quite a bit if it is soft so I take them off in the spring. I try to only use them for winter.

[taylorsmissbeehaven]

I have a 1979 bobcat 743 with 4in1 bucket, grapple bucket, and forks. Old machine but we have taken good care of it and wouldn't trade it. Visibility can be an issue but not a huge problem. If its a big concern I use my compact new holland tractor. I dont want to operate either one right up on the customers house and always get them to move the cars if they are anywhere near the work area. It only takes a second to do years worth of damage 

[ely]

bobcat 773 is my machine its a 99 model i think. i have had great luck with it. have a bucket with teeth, grapple, and pallet folks. i use it all the time, wouldnt take for it.

its rated for 1700 hundred on the sticker i think, but it will do lots more, like they said sometimes you are just standing on the front tires.

i always wanted tracks but they are high price. i went to the military tires that are cheeper. they changed the angle a bit but now im used to it.