Tractor logging with winch

[Hilltop366]

Never adjusted it.

It's probably due for an adjustment.

[thecfarm]

As hilltop said.
I've never had to adjust mine, so I am no help.

[John Mc]

I can think of a few possibilities:

• The clutch needs to be adjusted
• You got grease or oil on the clutch - If you are lucky, you can get by with disassembling and thoroughly cleaning it. If not, you may have to replace clutch pads.
• When I had this problem on my Uniforest winch, it was a corroded/frozen bearing. The 4000# hydraulic winch on my forwarding trailer would EASILY pull things that my 7700# rated PTO winch would not budge. I replaced that and it's now working fine.

[AndyVT]

I finally took a look at the clutch on my Norse and you guys nailed it. Free play on the engagement rope was 12 inches and recommended is 4 inches. I followed the diagrammed adjustment instructions in the manual and got it back to spec. Then went back to the woodlot and felled a good sized hemlock on the far side of a pile of slash and hooked onto it full length and also another smaller log and the winch just yanked them in like it was nothing 😀.
Thanks to all of you.

[g_man]

I finished my crane last week and mounted it on the Farmi JP290 winch. This is the top mount, bottom mount, and hinge pin.









The boom is a 3-1/2 X 2-7/8 channel made up from 3/16 bar. This is the under side. You can see the bottom pulley, 4 slider hanger hooks/ cable support, and the top pulley and cable guide.





It weighs about 80 lbs. This is how I mount it. Slide it off the truck and place the hinge post on the ground. Back the tractor up to it.





Rotate it up and place the hinge post on the bottom mount.





Adjust the winch angle with the hydraulic top link if necessary to align the hinge post and mount holes. Then drop in the tapered hinge pin.




Feed the cable thru the pulleys, hang the sliders, close the cable guide around the cable, and hook up the trailer.




 
gg

[g_man]

^^^^^ No idea what I did to make a big font

gg

[g_man]

I gave my crane a field test Friday. I picked up wood in 3 spots. Each spot had bigger wood, getting a feel for things as I went. I knew that the boom hinge post needed to be plumb. If it is at an angle the boom will seek the lowest point and rotating it from there is like pushing up hill. When released it will rotate back down on it's own. I use this to my advantage when traveling. By tilting the post back the boom will drop to the back and follow behind the tractor. I use the tractor TnT hydraulics to plumb the post. I was surprised how quickly the cylinders drifted and I needed to continually readjust to plumb. I see some check valves in my future. Other than that there were no nasty surprises. I picked up a strong half cord.








I took a video. It has 2 parts. The first spot where I started with small wood and the third spot with bigger wood after a little practice.


https://youtu.be/rzH5xUCxyiY


I hope to use this set up in a section of woods that is isolated above a vertical ledge. The narrow trail up to it slabs the ledge and make a sharp hair-pin turn at the top. I can't skid any thing longer than 8 or 10 feet down thru there. Plus it is almost a mile away from my wood pile. But, there is a ton of beech with BBD up there. Perfect firewood.

gg

[thecfarm]

Looks like a great idea.
I wonder if you could put a holder for a level on it? Then you could just look at it as you would plumb it.
A trailer is a lot easier on the woods.

[beenthere]

Very helpful and almost essential to have the two-way hydraulic tilt cylinders on the 3ph arms (when they don't drift on you).
Operation looks a bit slow, but  you are doing what otherwise is not possible for one man alone in the woods loading logs on  a trailer. Good design and fabrication. Thanks for the show.

As many times as the video shows you trying to roll a log both on and off the trailer, you could use the short LogRite cant hook a good number of times. Makes all that "rolling" of logs very easy.

[B.C.C. Lapp]

^^^^^ No idea what I did to make a big font

gg

Probably something ya ate.       Nice work on that crane gman. Saw that you have some weight out front. Good thing. I know I'd need it on my Kubota.
That was a good load you took out.   I need to incorporate a trailer like that into my tractor logging.   Thats more by far than I can move at one time with my arch and best of all those logs are CLEAN.   

[g_man]

Very helpful and almost essential to have the two-way hydraulic tilt cylinders on the 3ph arms (when they don't drift on you).
Operation looks a bit slow, but  you are doing what otherwise is not possible for one man alone in the woods loading logs on  a trailer. Good design and fabrication. Thanks for the show.

As many times as the video shows you trying to roll a log both on and off the trailer, you could use the short LogRite cant hook a good number of times. Makes all that "rolling" of logs very easy.

Thanks for the kind words and your assessment is spot on. With rough ground to work on there is no way I could rotate a good log on that boom w/o a leveling mechanism. Even if I could rotate it as soon as I let go of it to work the winch controls the log would rotate back where it came from - with a bang. I built a wood crane model last winter and that is the first thing I found out. It is slow work and I'm even slower. Skidding out on the winch is faster for sure. But sometimes a trailer is a better option. That is a 30 hp tractor and small 3000 lb trailer. I love driving it in the woods with the loader removed - very nimble in tight places. It will trailer out more than it can skid out. 

You are right about the cant hook too. All those times you mentioned, I was muttering to my self for leaving my cant hook on the other tractor. I know better too.

Thanks again for the comments.  

gg

[g_man]

^^^^^ No idea what I did to make a big font

gg

Probably something ya ate.       Nice work on that crane gman. Saw that you have some weight out front. Good thing. I know I'd need it on my Kubota.
That was a good load you took out.  I need to incorporate a trailer like that into my tractor logging.  Thats more by far than I can move at one time with my arch and best of all those logs are CLEAN. 

Thanks. The 3 front 70 lb weights made a tremendous difference in the feel. Feels more stable and more in contact with the ground out front. They are well worth the money in my mind.

gg

[g_man]

Just some pics I took yesterday. We lost most of our snow after a big rain and a couple days in the 40's.

I cut a good sized fir, for here anyway, that didn't have any well developed stump rot. One of very few I have found in a couple decades of cutting them. I don't know why I get excited about this stuff. Anyway, it had a good lean to the the left but there was good holding wood anchored in the root buttress on the right.





The hold wood did it's job and the tree fell per plan.





Got it limbed out.



 


I decided to pull it out in two pieces. And cut it where the crook was and at the top of usable wood (6" dia).








When I got up to the road I considered using the power pole for a bumper and skidding the logs down the roadside 200' to the left to my log pile. But good judgement got the best of me and I made up the saw logs (a 14' and two 12's) right there.





Then grappled them down to the pile.



 
gg

[PoginyHill]

Hard to beat good fir. Arrow straight and it smells good! Better at self-pruning than spruce, I think.

[cutterboy]

gg, nice pictures. I think you were smart to carry the logs down the road instead of dragging them. A woman got very annoyed with me once when she had to stop her car while I dragged a long tree across the road.
I wish all my trees were as straight as your fir is.

[g_man]

I can make some good logs with a little work but I'm not sure I would call my fir "good fir".     








gg

[PoginyHill]

To me, "good for" is when the butt rot clears up enough to salvage at least one log. Bad fir it never clears up. Occasionally I'll run across a "great fir" with no but rot!

[thecfarm]

My land grows good fir.   
I only had a couple acres that the fir grew great on.
No rot, nice looking stuff. I have places that fir about 4 inches across will fall over and leave a stump about 4 feet high.
I don't feel bad when a tree I cut knocks over a fir.
My land grows some great looking EWP.

[cutterboy]

That's too bad about the fir. It would break my heart to see such rot in a big straight tree. I have no experience with fir, there is none on my land, no fir, no spruce, only white pine and hemlock for evergreens.

[g_man]

To me, "good for" is when the butt rot clears up enough to salvage at least one log. Bad fir it never clears up. Occasionally I'll run across a "great fir" with no but rot!

OK, that sounds reasonable - with that definition most all our fir is good with a great one occasionally and some bad ones a little more often but not to often.  Most of the bad ones blow over before I cut them. It's amazing to me how a tree can look fine and be rotten all the way up the center.

gg

[Magicman]

The center of a tree is already essentially dead, but it and the taproot serves to provide the strength/structure to keep the tree erect.  The cambium sapwood, and leaves are providing the principal nutrients and moisture to sustain life and grow.

[g_man]

Thank MagicMan - good explanation.

gg

[Magicman]

Actually I learned that from our late member WDH several years ago.