Skagit Iron and Steel Works, Sedro Wooley, Washington

Welcome to the Forum Shawgo12!

shawgo12 said:

When i worked for B&M we rigged alot of them i only seen one on a road and a tail tree, but they always told me a story about 3 intermediates and 1 tail tree. I have never seen a Bowman that could go over one we always had to use and Eagle.

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Howdy Sir, and welcome to the forum. After five or so posts, you can post pictures if you have any, or borrow! We'd love to see'em... got any of their yarders? I believe they have or had two 739's and a 737 or two? Or how about the intermediate support systems? Take care.

580bruce said:

Great set as always.I bet there are not many readers on here, who have heard of Sedro Wooley!

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I was ther on a training tour in 1962 was a aprentic meckanic for finning who was a skajit dealer. latter years overhauled a few of the ford (lincon) y blocks from sj4s,usually due to over speed,.cliff

furpo said:

Very nice old girl.

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I accually worked under this yarder i am pretty sure before it made it to New Zealand. It use to be yellow and black as are all of B&Ms skagits, this was a real nice yarder i believe it was bought from weyerhauser. It even had A/C i dont think it ever worked but it had it. This is by far the best Butt rigging machine i ever worked on. Just querius have you guys had any problems with it?

Hi,

Stumbled upon this site by accident. My dad worked at Skagit (weld shop) for many years (all the way up to when the plant closed). Nice to see a large collection of pictures of Skagit equipment! If anyone has photos they would like to donate the Sedro-Woolley Museum would take great care of them for you!

Sedro-Woolley Museum

I have.... Life member!

Ooops I thought I hit quote... Last post was in response to a post on the first page.

"Great set as always.I bet there are not many readers on here, who have heard of Sedro Wooley!"

:Banghead

Bu-90-cu

This one is located in Deming Washington at the Logging Show Grounds.

Thank you WrzWaldo........

I love the pics of the BU 90, she is a real beauty. I worked on one here in northern Cal for a couple of years. It did not have the telescoping tube, it was a two piece 90 footer. There's an article of it in Loggers World, I don't remember the date, been a few years ago. CL would know. It logged what was known as the Basin Tree. There was an argument around this country for years of the Basin trees actual diameter at breast height. Old growth Redwood has alot of butt swell due in part to the massive weight, trunk taper needed, and the extensive root system required to support a huge tree. Anyway, the argument was whether it was 22-28 feet in diameter at breast height. The tree was left in the north fork drainage of the Mad river as the rest of the area around it was logged. It was assumed it was rotten and would splinter into a mountain of kindling. It blew down in a big windstorm years later. It actually saved out pretty well.
I would suggest reading the article, you'll like it!

To the story of the BU 90.......

The timber company decided to harvest the windfall and get what they could out of it. If you can get your hands on the article, you really should read it. It is so cool........
The BU 90 was set up and logged this huge tree. Many of the cuts had to be quartered to be yarded. Some cuts were too big to load with the log loader, so they loaded them with the yarder.

My Son works for the timber company and recently had to work in the basin, he had to work at it, but he found the root wad to the tree, as you can guess, it was huge, even though it split in pieces.

I was not working for this outfit at the time they logged the Basin Tree, I came along years later.

It is astounding what loggers can do when they are challenged with HUGE tasks. Loggers are some of the finest men on the planet. Read about it in Loggers World!

Another BU 90

Found this near Peaceful Valley WA. It was in some kind of loggers park that had seen better days. Is the loader a Bantam?

log frog said:

Found this near Peaceful Valley WA. It was in some kind of loggers park that had seen better days. Is the loader a Bantam?

View attachment 87472

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Yep, looks like a Bantam 366, it has the dual stacks for the 6v53 series Jimmy. They were a good little loader at the time. There were half a dozen in use here in northern Cal. that I know of. Haven't seen any in years. Most were on tracks, one company had a couple on 4 axle carriers. I think they were Pierce carriers.

I still haven't seen any towers that were similar to the BU90 I worked on. The tube was two piece and had two large pins that held the halves together. You could knock one out and swing the top end of the tower around. The top of the tower would rest on the cradle. Each guyling had it's own large hydraulic motor and there was another motor to rack the tower back. There was no hydraulic winch to raise the tower. It had a hyd. gantry setup which lifted it to 70 degrees or so, the guylines lifted it the rest of the way. It was a good yarder for it's age.

Thanks for sharing, brings back lots of memories........

Redwood Climber said:

Yep, looks like a Bantam 366, it has the dual stacks for the 6v53 series Jimmy. They were a good little loader at the time. There were half a dozen in use here in northern Cal. that I know of. Haven't seen any in years. Most were on tracks, one company had a couple on 4 axle carriers. I think they were Pierce carriers.

I still haven't seen any towers that were similar to the BU90 I worked on. The tube was two piece and had two large pins that held the halves together. You could knock one out and swing the top end of the tower around. The top of the tower would rest on the cradle. Each guyling had it's own large hydraulic motor and there was another motor to rack the tower back. There was no hydraulic winch to raise the tower. It had a hyd. gantry setup which lifted it to 70 degrees or so, the guylines lifted it the rest of the way. It was a good yarder for it's age.

Thanks for sharing, brings back lots of memories........

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That tower you speak of was a very early Skagit- only about 10 of those were built and sold.
I have alot of pictures of that early tower-style but few scanned.

This is an earlier machine (roughly 1962) than the one you are talking about and is still on the Skagit steel wheels. The tower and guylines- as you described are clearly visible. Photo is from my 'Skagit Collection' and one of several hundred old black&whites given to me by a friend who worked in 'Product Development' for Skagit. I am holding these pictures back for a future 'Skagit' book project and have put very few of them on the internet (just 5 or 6) for that reason.

Contract Logger said:

That tower you speak of was a very early Skagit- only about 10 of those were built and sold.
I have alot of pictures of that early tower-style but few scanned.

This is an earlier machine (roughly 1962) than the one you are talking about and is still on the Skagit steel wheels. The tower and guylines- as you described are clearly visible. Photo is from my 'Skagit Collection' and one of several hundred old black&whites given to me by a friend who worked in 'Product Development' for Skagit. I am holding these pictures back for a future 'Skagit' book project and have put very few of them on the internet (just 5 or 6) for that reason.

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Yep, that's it, all except the steel wheels and the booster setup. Big hyd. motors, twin lifting cylinders to lift the tower, and the squared off hinge pin at the base of the tower which allowed it to be racked back. That worked great for getting around switchbacks, it reduced the length of the pole out front.

We moved ours with either a Pete or an old Mack on the front and an old HD21 Allis chalmers with a Buda diesel and later with a Komatsu 155. Both were set up to hang the skyline off the bellypan with a notch cut into the top of the blade.

The logger I worked for had 2 BU 90's and one BU 95. I ran the 95 out of Klamath, Cal in 1989-90. We had a block purchase setup on the haulback as our skidding line. The Skid drum on the 95 was not well suited to doing what it was meant to do, so we used the haulback. It pulled well and was fairly fast. The main problem was with the haulback drum so far aft on the machine, we could lift that end of the machine in a hard pull. You had to have an experienced yarder engineer.

The BU 90 spent quite a few years logging out of Korbel, Cal.

I knew that you would know exactly the machines I was sharing about, I figured you had pics too.

Glad to hear about the future book, I'm on the list of buyers, keep us posted. Thanks

Did I hear the words "Skagit Book"??? GREAT - I'll definetely buy one!

Me too where do we sign up

Older Skagit Carriers & Towers

Contract Logger said:

That tower you speak of was a very early Skagit- only about 10 of those were built and sold.
I have alot of pictures of that early tower-style but few scanned.

This is an earlier machine (roughly 1962) than the one you are talking about and is still on the Skagit steel wheels. The tower and guylines- as you described are clearly visible. Photo is from my 'Skagit Collection' and one of several hundred old black&whites given to me by a friend who worked in 'Product Development' for Skagit. I am holding these pictures back for a future 'Skagit' book project and have put very few of them on the internet (just 5 or 6) for that reason.

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Thanks for posting a pic of this machine (carrier & tower), I knew at the time it was much older than the T110HD's that the 199's had that I'd worked on, but it really worked well. It was way faster to set up & get on the wood, no telescoping, just pull onto the pad, level it with the jacks, rack the tower ahead, then the tower raised very fast, pull 'er up with the front two guylines and go logging!!

When I first started with this machine, I was nervous about only 6 guylines. This meant there was 60 degrees of separation in a perfect setup. I was used to 45 degree separation with an eight guyline tower. But as with any new setup, ease in to it, figure it out....... and then it's time to load her up boys....lets get some wood!!

I absolutely loved the skidding line sheave mounting. As your picture shows, it is way down on the tower which meant lots of separation between the skyline and skidding line = very few wraps. The few times we did wrap the skidding line it takes some doing to get it straight. If you were using the motorized carriage, we'd just stop the carriage, clamp the skyline and pull gently on the skidding line. With the drift carriage we had to drop the turn on the ground, go ahead on the skidding line easy & she'd clear...........guess you can see I still miss the old girl...........20 years later.

Mr. CL.......er......Mr. Grapple, do you or anyone out there have any history on the BU95? I have never seen or heard of another one. The owner I worked for bought her used. She was a good machine for her age, she had her issues, but she got the wood. Thanks again for the pics and all the history......

By the way, I've spoken to my old boss, the owner of this machine, he's got pics he said he'd share.... he's now 93.......so hopefully I'll learn how to post'em to share

Skagit GT-3

Shared photo

hi new guy on here. i've been on this site so much since i found it my wife of 35 years is threating to leave me over it. i grew up in a 950 gmc in the late 50's riding with my dad. all i wanted to do was truck one thing lead to another and by late 80's i was logging to truck. wish i would have payed more attenion to some of the old equipment back in the day. anyway have any of you heard of a skagit bu 101. thanks for all the great stuff on here brings back a lot of memorys.

kw60 said:

hi new guy on here. i've been on this site so much since i found it my wife of 35 years is threating to leave me over it. i grew up in a 950 gmc in the late 50's riding with my dad. all i wanted to do was truck one thing lead to another and by late 80's i was logging to truck. wish i would have payed more attenion to some of the old equipment back in the day. anyway have any of you heard of a skagit bu 101. thanks for all the great stuff on here brings back a lot of memorys.

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Welcome and glad you registered. Nice to see someone from the harbor on here. I spent my high school years in Ocean Shores.

Skagit BU-101

kw60 said:

hi new guy on here. i've been on this site so much since i found it my wife of 35 years is threating to leave me over it. i grew up in a 950 gmc in the late 50's riding with my dad. all i wanted to do was truck one thing lead to another and by late 80's i was logging to truck. wish i would have payed more attenion to some of the old equipment back in the day. anyway have any of you heard of a skagit bu 101. thanks for all the great stuff on here brings back a lot of memorys.

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Hello kw60- I haven't been on here in a bit due to traveling alot but just got on and saw your post. Skagit built only 2 BU-101 winches- both were built for Simpson Timber to use in the Olympics- I believe one went to Grisdale and the other to Govey. These were amazing machines, and FAST- designed for shotgun yarding long distances. They were only 2 yarding drums- a Skyline drum and a skidding drum, and not only did these machines have a full transmission, but they had water-cooled 2-speed drums on them. The technology built into those drums was amazing in itself and a friend of mine owns what's left of one of the drumsets today. These yarders were sold by Simpson at the big Ritchie Bros auction when Grisdale closed, and Ross Equipment wound up with them after the auction. They were mounted on Skagit T-110 8-guyline trailers and Ross split the trailers/hoists up and sold them all seperately.

Sadly, these machines are gone but will never be forgotten. I have a few pictures of them around someplace- I'll see what I can find.

I dont think any brochures/promotional material was ever published by Skagit for these yarders, at least I've never found any (and I've looked hard).

I last saw the bones of the first BU-101 (Serial Number A1) in September of 2011- here's a picture I took that day of the 'builders plate'.

BU 199's...........Where are they all now?

So I was wondering if it were possible to learn where all of the BU 199's (all 13) went when they were sold new, and where they might be now. Mr. CL. posted a partial answer on page 7 of this thread....3 made it to Vancouver Island, Fred Moe from Chelalis, Washington had 2, Mike Graves of Mollala, Oregon had 1, the 2 that Simpson had were originally bought by Arcata Redwood Co. of Arcata, California. These were the two I worked on in the 70's and 80's. Simpson bought Arco out in 1989 I believe and the towers went with the deal of course. Louisiana Pacific also had 1 out of Big Lagoon, California. That makes 9.....anyone else out there know about any? Mr. CL also said that the Mike Graves machine is (or was) in a BC rockpit now dragling. The 2 Fred Moe machines are (or were) looking for work in high grass at the Chehalis shop....you can see pics of these 2 on Rusty Grapples web site. I believe I read somewhere that Mike Walch also had 1. Correct me if that is not the case.

I am still working on getting pictures of the two 199's that I worked on, haven't had any luck yet. I know they are out there, you can't spend $400,000 in 1974 dollars and $600,000 in 1977 dollars on a machine that beautiful and not take pictures. Just because I wasn't smart enough.......someone else had to be!!

As soon as I locate them, I will hire someone above the dipstick intelligent level to help me put them on here! They drug way too many huge turns in to not be documented here.

I would appreciate any and all help to fill in the huge blanks to the history of these magnificent machines.