Timberjack 230 forwarders?

[BargeMonkey]

 For a firewood and decent log job thats flat you cant beat a forwarder. We figured it takes about 12-16 trees to fill the bunk depending on size. Another local guy has a 6 wheel franklin and a new timberpro with a 650H bunching, he does some of the nicest work you cant tell 1 year later.

[logman81]

The land around here is pretty flat, some hills but nothing to serious. I'm thinking it's worth making the change then. Might as well join the band wagon so I can be competitive with the other loggers. Guess all that's left to do is wait to see if he's going to sell it and if I can afford it. If he does decided to sell it and it's in my price range I'll be selling my 230D to buy it.

[logman81]

Bargemonkey what was the reason for going to joystick control? Was it hard to do ?

[BargeMonkey]

 Cost about 2k by the time I was done. It had a 5 lever set up, which I was fine with but my dad wants everything set up the same. Was worth it, took a little doing to get it all right. The 5 lever isnt bad either, my valve was about worn out so it was time anyway. Unless your on awesome ground I wouldnt replace a skidder with a forwarder, yeah shes a great machine but not really great when you get off the wood roads.

[logman81]

Ok thanks

[MUDDY]

I ran a single bunk 230 for a couple years on our hand cut jobs. The machine was a five lever, manual transmission, 4bt motor. It was a strong running machine. Very tippy. Can't believe I never rolled that thing over ;D. The Serco could lift most anything. On the real big stuff I'd have to back up to the log empty and drag er on. I forget what kind of grapple it had but it sucked for grabbing multiple sticks of firewood. It would just pinch them instead of allowing them to roll. The machine always seemed to have a problem with the brakes and never really had much of a pedal. The thing was a tank and i was glad to see it go.

[BargeMonkey]

 Once you figure out how to roll the grapple it gets easier, if your used to a regular "rotobec" style grapple your going to curse for a while. More like a scoop than a grab style motion. 

[logman81]

I'm still for trying to switch to a forwarder, kind of forced to really. Most of the jobs are being given to the small private loggers like myself that have forwarders. If I had one I would be working right now instead of twiddling my thumbs for the past two months.

[BEEMERS]

I like the skidder/forwarder combo.get what you can get easy with the forwarder,pull the hard stuff or hard to get stuff to a small landing(small opening) just big enough for the forwarder and a few trees.Use forwarder for the long hauls from small landings.On hills or slopes...I don't mean mountain sides like some of you guys work..I pull out the rubber tire backhoe with extendahoe and use like a mini-yarder.  Pull them to the top then buck them into logs and stack,pull out the backhoe,pull in the forwarder load and go.

[logman81]

Wish I could afford to have both but I'm a broke logger!

[BargeMonkey]

Wish I could afford to have both but I'm a broke logger!

Ive never met a rich logger....  8)    can you line up some more wood and get a small note on the machine ?  I wouldnt go without a skidder, forwarder speeds it up but it doesnt do it all.

[logman81]

wish i could but i cant even finish the job im on without a forwarder. or i have to continue to wait for things to dry out if it ever stops raining. most people dont want skidders on thier land around here they want forwarders. so i can only afford one machine, thier is a few guys around here that only run iron mules hand cutting and do very well with just the one machine.

[Corley5]

I wouldn't go without a forwarder  ;) but a cable machine would have it's place  ;D

[Ed_K]

I've been toying with the idea of a small dozer w/winch and my forwarder trl. You may need a dozer to pull the fowarder after all this rain  ;D .

[ehp]

we had a 230 forwarder with 353 power , on flat ground it worked ok but once you got off a nice road it did not work so good , it had 24.5 by 32's on it so that I'm sure was some of the trouble as it just did not have enough power or I guess I should say enough power to get itself moving , sure once moving it was not to bad but if in just abit of mud it was done . It worked real good at feeding the firewood processer but as far as forwarding logs out of the bush we were not to happy with it , now we had a couple old Volvo 6 wheel forwards and to tell you they worked alot better in our ground and were faster out on the good trails . If we had to do real long skidding which is common up there we had a JD 740 with 2 winches on it and scrapped the stock motor and put a 283 hp motor in it , worked alot better than stock, in stock form the 740 could hardly get out of the way from its own shadow as it only had 170 hp and the machine just weighs to much for that low of power . The only thing with the 283 hp motor was first you had to drive it smart and not like a fool as it could break  U-joints which I never did but they put a cowboy on it and it did lots, second is it burnt more fuel but you skidded so many more trees a day it was worth it

[BargeMonkey]

 

 
Load with the landing loader, run out and go again.

[BargeMonkey]

 

 
That gives you an idea how much it will pick. Our hemlock pulp is 90% 17' long. Nice couple days sitting there.

[logman81]

Thanks bargemonkey that puts things into perspective, that is some nice wood. Would like to see a vid of that forwarder some time.

[BargeMonkey]

 Im just about 3 hours from you. If you ever wanna come run one, or out this way your welcome to come check it out.

[BargeMonkey]

 

 

Thats the worst machine ive got to move. Just hooked trailer up and finishing chaining her down. Thats got 22ft of well and she just fits.

[BEEMERS]

Ed_k..check out my post a couple pages back.".logging photos this winter"..shows how I use my dozer and get the butt ends a little off the ground without a winch..it can be done!! Easy!!Id love to have a winch on my dozer but I get by with my little setup very well.
Small dozers you want in the woods a very rare around here with a winch.Its usually very big ones and/or quite old.And beat up cause it was probably an oilfield rig.
Logman..let me level with ya..I said skidder but I meant my dozer...cause I cant afford to go buy a second logging machine either.It does do a great job in my application.

[Ken]

Logman81 as has been mentioned a forwarder is great but they certainly have their limitations.  They need considerably wider trails than a skidder and you have to get to the tree with the machine as opposed to a skidder with a long mainline.  My TJ 610 with nearly 30 000 hours is the pretty much the same as the older 230 and is a great machine but they are not the panacea of forest machines.  Although the machine has very high hours it works reliably day after day as it has been very well maintained. 

 

[BargeMonkey]

 The 230A and 610 are nicer than the straight 230. If your a big guy the cabs cramped. Like you said its hard to make 1 machine do it all. Most guys hear 30k hours and cringe, Nortrax had a few loaders up north with 50+ on them still going strong with proper maintenance.

[logman81]

Thanks every body you've been a big help so far and I'm learning lots !

[timberlinetree]

Can you put duals on it to make it more stable? While running our 132 franklin it seemed tipsy. Don't know if power loss or drive train holding up would be an issue?