Brit logging.

[crane operator]

Nice pictures, they look fine, no need to upload new.

Just curious on the hitch on the trailer behind the tractor. It has cylinders and a extra pivot point in addition to the hitch pin. I'm assuming its a cab controlled just for tighter turning radius?

I do like seeing how they do things elsewhere, most of the equipment used in europe seems more compact than what we use here. Old narrow roads and tight working quarters. For instance - there are hardly any cab over tractor trailer trucks in use in the US, but that's all I see in most pictures from europe. I'm sure you need the shorter turning radius there.

I'm in the crane game, and I see lots of pictures of "city" cranes, and the speirings portable AT tower cranes in europe, neither of which are a US thing (there's a few here, but only special application).

 

[John Shipp]

Graham you are not wrong, Land rovers are a lot of maintenance, they're both loved for their simple build and permanent 4wd running gear, can work on them yourself, good parts availability; disliked for rattling and shaking themselves to bits, need regular throw of parts at to keep ahead of wear. Poor fuel economy. But that 7t plate... The pick ups now have got the 3.5t towing, but sadly not the 1.25t payload on top of the tipper. Come on Toyota, Isuzu, Ford etc!
You have to expect some of this with land rovers, hey.

 

[John Shipp]

As for cutting, yes we are still on chainsaws. This is a constant debate amongst us. The small thinnings are not economical, there aren't enough in the area to spend on a dedicated thinning harvester, so with some woods the owner pays to have it "cut to waste" as the least cost way of improving the stand. Or if they have a chip boiler right there, we do it day rate and put the wood right in their yard without having road haulage on top, so it just about works financially. Or more often it's been left, as a lot of woodland owners can't see any gain in paying for this early thin so there is a lot of unthinned about. So then we may go and do a late thin where the value of the wood at roadside covers the cost of the work, but sadly the crop remaining isn't always of great form with this late-thin method.
This was a late thin in Scots pine.

 

[John Shipp]

Crane op, that extra joint we call a "steering drawbar", yes it's definitely a help when turning between trees on a curve going forward, the trailer wheels follow the tractors (or even a different curve if trying to stay out of a soft wheelmark). But where they are even more useful is in a lot of our work, the route through the remaining trees or large stumps is set up like a herringbone pattern (as best as we can in natural regen) and we have to back up a lot of these lines empty, maybe up the slope all the way to the back of that strip, then pick up logs on the way out/down. And that steering drawbar allows us to do this with the tractor negotiating its own direction while the trailer steers it's own course without needing help from the tractor. It comes down to a lack of land space, otherwise we'd just cut out a few more trees at the end to allow us to swing it all around and head back. Sometimes when we're tired we just do that anyway! oh, the seat in these Valtra forestry tractors turn around backwards so we can face the trailer when we're loading.

 

[JPV]

Love the thread, learned a lot, can't believe you didn't think this was interesting enough to start it, thanks mitch! Keep it coming, thanks for sharing.

 

[John Shipp]

Thanks JPV, Mitch took a gamble there.

Yes, pretty much all our trucks here have the engine jammed under the cab. The old roads and a lot of the access to places is very tight for space. I only know of one haulage company locally that run a Scania V8 with the engine out front, Matt Gregory Transport, he has a lowloader behind it. Other than that, see maybe one a year on the roads.
They all like this. Well, this ones a log truck so it's twin drive axles, and not too much plastic round the front. A lot of the road haulage trucks have spoilers, trim, a lot of airfoils. And most are single axle drive with a liftable tag axle. Those ones turn right under themselves. This is Roy Peckhams truck moving Corsican pine earlier this year. Fairly heavy wood, doesn't look like much of a load but he's right up to road legal weight 25t payload.

 

[John Shipp]

While I remember it, OIH mentioned ballast on tippy roof mounts. We have some iron on the wheels, and on the front. It could use more. But- it's a trade off, because the more load we put on the wheels, the more we cut in. Sinking into the mud on one side is as much of a problem as the tippyness. Dry ground, we can raise the tyre pressures to 32psi, more stable. In the wet soggy stuff, we lower them to 28psi on the rears, they're 12ply cross ply forest spec tyres. They're under a lot of load on one corner when you swing something heavy round on one wheel.
Years ago when I started, I water ballasted a couple of machines. This was excellent, got the ballast down on the ground, didn't need as much pressure in the tyre to carry it. Trouble was it wallowed about going down the road at any speed, and the first puncture made us realise the down sides. Then we had to put a lot of anti freeze in to stop it freezing solid, which we lost half of on the 2nd puncture. It made it highly unstable if you tried to carry on for the rest of the day. The 3rd time the tyre came off we put new dry tubes in and have never done it since. Perhaps we should of got some kind of pump and a barrel handy to try and salvage it but at the time I think we just gave up. It was very effective ballast though.
Edit. We took the wheel off the other day to do some maintenance, we have a little oil leak somewhere on top of the transmission, can't see anything in there, no space to do anything. Is this forestry? Seems to be an integral part of it, fixing oily things!

 

[Graham1]

If you ever wanted to try low cost mechanical harvesting the Menzi dealer I use, Exc@v8, hires Intermercator Tiger cut for very little money. Just suit your Case. Looking at the videos some guys are cutting 1000 trees a day with the bigger ones. If you are ever interested pm and I’ll introduce you to the boss. He’s from a timber background.
Graham

 

[Graham1]

The Isuzu D-max is starting to come close - 1200kg in pickup on a 4x4 truck cab.
Graham

 

[John Shipp]

Graham, I've seen their stuff at APF forestry show but never contacted them. We have discussed getting a shear head, usually just after doing a job that could've used one, with nothing coming up that needs it. Why we don't is, the falling of these small trees doesn't take us long with a saw, and if we are saving the stem we then knock the limbs off and cut it to lengths. The shear won't help with the delimbing. If we're cutting to waste we just walk through in a gang hacking down the worst of it, we also prune any side branches of the best while we're at it (if asked to do so). It might help get hairy pines down out of the others. We should probably get one and see if it's useful. (and a grapple skidder and processor) A small thinning head might be more the thing, I called and got a quote on having one fitted and computer. About £45,000 + the tax, haulage to and from Scotland of the Case machine.
A shear would be useful to trim the fuzzy stuff out of a typical job like in this before and after pics.
Then we can see the trees we're felling!

 

[John Shipp]

I think I pm'd you graham, I'm not sure.

 

[John Shipp]

Thought I'd put these up to show what it looks like after felling. Picture 1 is same view as the fuzzy picture above, then 2 & 3 the machine has made sense of it all and also here a lot of the brash (tops) have been used round the perimeter to make a wall to try keep the deer browsing down on the regrowth for a couple of years, it works well sometimes but is a tedious job to do effectively.

 

[Graham1]

About £45,000 + the tax, haulage to and from Scotland of the Case machine.
Then we can see the trees we're felling!

A shear to fit the Case would be £3850 plus VAT. Bit of difference. Won’t do the sort of processing a £45,000 head will, but it will put them on the ground probably quicker as less fiddly and a lot less to go wrong.
I’m only mentioning it as I was in their unit recently picking up one of my walkers and looking at attachments. The Tigercut seem to have pretty good write ups.
Graham

 

[92U 3406]

Good stuff! Seems like logging over there is done on a much smaller scale than here. Some outfits here in Western Canada cut over 500,000 cubic meters a year. How much does a typical logging outfit over there cut per year?

 

[FarmWrench]

Looking good.

In US agriulture we use calcium chloride (used with cement for below freezing conditions) to prevent freezing in the ballast. It is corrosive and stings painfully if on the skin. "Rim guard" a sugar beet by product is taking over. Some claim it helps stop thorns from causing leaks.

How vulnerable is your firewood business to environmental banning wood stoves and fireplaces?

 

[CM1995]

Really enjoying the thread and the pics John, keep them coming. Love seeing how other folks do the same job around the world.

 

[old-iron-habit]

That split wood processor is different for sure. It looks like the person feeding it can dress light on a cold day keeping that one humming along. Is that leaning tree you are pulling out a hy-bred popular? It does not look like ours at all. They are almost white here and only get to about 40 ft tall and 16" maximum diameter before they fall over. Maybe 25 years life span at the most. They were expected to be cut about every ten years or when 6" diameter with a combine type total tree chipper for pulpwood chips. It never worked out. The stuff they harvested with tried and true methods had to much percentage of bark for use to make decent paper so the combine phase never made it past the dream to my knowledge. There is hardly any standing anywhere anymore.

 

[old-iron-habit]

Just a thought. They tried installing hot saws and processor heads on excavator booms around this area. They all failed as the processor and hot saw booms are designed for opposite direction stress. Just something to consider if you are looking at modifying your machine. Or maybe its built for them already?

 

[Ronsii]

Great thread!!! Love the pictures Keep em coming.

Like OIH I was curious how you split the lengths of timber... not by hand I would think.

 

[John C.]

This is interesting! Keep them coming.