Just picked up a Valby 3pt log grapple

[pclausen]

As a non farmer, if I had to justify the equipment cost, fuel and my time I would NOT be able to have a tractor, equipment, or the fuel I use.

Amen to that!

 

[pclausen]

Is $38/ton for pulp? Chipping saw? Saw Timber?

You've got some big trees, and you should be getting premium $$ for the big ones...

$38 is for saw timber. The guy at the scales comes out and looks it over carefully before writing up the ticket. I would imagine it would be lot less than $38/ton for pulp, but I'm not 100%.

I'm overseeing the building of a house on this lot for my mother. It has to be ready for her to move into on May 1st, so the trees needs to get cleared asap. I'm meeting with the builder, his chief machine operator (who was a logger for 20 years), and another logger, all tomorrow morning to figure out who will be doing what in about a 1 acre rectangle where the house, driveway, yard and drain field will be located. They need to break ground 1st week of January to make the May 1st date, so hopefully we can work something out where all the trees within the rectangle gets cut and moved to the side in such a way that I can get to them and haul them off to the mill. In a perfect world they would already be topped and limbed, but that's probably wishful thinking...

The builder owns all his own equipment, including a 24" chipper. What they normally do, is to use their excavator with a thumb to feed each tree whole into the chipper and its gone. And they charge $60/hour for the chipper and $90/hour for the excavator, plus $12/hour for the helper cutting down the trees. So instead of making a little money off the trees, I'd end up paying to have them removed. Of course they would get it done in a day or two instead of the several weeks it would take me to do it by myself.

Should be in interesting meeting....

I use Mid-Atlantic Tree Harvester's for my logging. They are a good bunch, clean and pay well and timely. Ask for Frankie Johnson... He is my guy, PM me and I'll give you his cell number...

Thanks David. I'll keep that in mind if things don't work out in the morning. I might be slightly outside their service area, but maybe not.

Peter

 

[Rockgod]

Cool thread, cool equipment. Keep the photos comming!

Did your mom end up buying the grapples in return for you clearing her land? If she did that $50 an hour might hold true. After all, you'd still have the tractor/trailer anyway. That said, you can't put a price on the fun factor. I'd love to do what your doing. :thumbsup:

 

[pclausen]

So the deal I worked out with mom was that she would pay for the equipment up front and I would pay her back 50% of it by using it on her land. I normally charge her (and others) $50/hour for tractor work, so instead, I charge her $25/hour and the other $25/hour goes towards paying off my 50% of the equipment cost. I think that's a fair deal for everyone, and it keeps it all in the family so to speak. I still have to cover fuel, maintenance and spare parts.

Today I hauled the largest load yet:

The wood on the trailer came to 12,780 lbs!

Here's a pic from the yard, you can see my little "short load" pile next to grapple.

 

[Piston]

Glad your happy with the grapple! That is a nice looking setup there, I think you can just about say you have every attachment you need now :thumbsup:

You sure are adding a lot of implements to the stable, I'm extremely jealous :laughing: The only think I could see you really benefiting from now, that you don't have, is a PTO powered mulcher. What dya say? Bull Hog (PTO) - Fecon

 

[Piston]

Peter,
Not only are you profiting a little extra play money from all the (fun) work your doing, but your also saving a ton of money from what you would otherwise have to pay others to do. I think some people are looking at it like, you either make $38 a ton, or you do nothing. That's obviously not an option to do nothing, as the trees have to be gone one way or another. I'd be doing the exact same thing as you, its not like your taking on this job to make a living, your doing it to help your mother.
Also, all those trees would otherwise be chipped into shreds, those are much too nice of sawlogs to be chipped. I know we talked about it on my chipper thread but I'm really glad to see you decided to haul the logs to the mill. You never know, you may be buying that same lumber when it comes time to build your mothers house, and similarly, others on this forum in your area may be buying that very same lumber for any projects they have going on. It's nice to see the forest resources used for something very useful!
(not to mention, $50 an hour is nothing to shake a stick at)

 

[xring100]

I'm jealous so many awesome implements so little money. I

Dave

 

[pclausen]

Thanks Piston! Yes, I'm really enjoying the work. I took another load to the mill this morning in the sleet and snow we have. I didn't realize they were technically closed until January 2nd. But I was able to get some guy over the man the scale for me. It was my biggest haul yet and pushing what I would consider safe, even though it's only 10 miles to the lumber yard. The ice and sleet made today's run extra challenging!

I had to use 4 wheel drive to get around in the yard today. The guy running the grapple was not in today, so another fellow using a wheeled loader picked up my entire load in a single scoop!

I'm actually starting to make some headway with clearing the trees on the lot. Here's a shot from when I got home from the yard:

I got another load ready to go, but I'll wait to load it up until the weather breaks and they re-open. Here's a shot from a few days ago when I got the dump truck stuck in the pile of chips I'm creating.

 

[Piston]

Great pictures! Pretty funny about the truck stuck in the chips :laughing:

I'm glad your really getting some use out of that chipper too. What made you decide on the Valby grapple over the others? I know you had been looking into a few different models.

 

[pclausen]

I'm glad your really getting some use out of that chipper too. What made you decide on the Valby grapple over the others? I know you had been looking into a few different models.

Well, I had a pretty significant credit from when the dealer fixed my cab, and he is a Valby dealer. I was looking at a less expensive cat 1 model, but after seeing it in person at tsc, I just didn't think it would be up to the task. It also had no way to rotate or swing the grapple itself. There were also other alternatives, but they cost several thousand more list than the model I ended up with. I feel the Valby is a perfect match for my tractor, especially once I get my beefed up hydraulic top link.

 

[Piston]

One of the reasons I've put off buying a log grapple is the worry of putting too much stress on my top link connection. Of course, you don't have to worry about that with the big tractor, but it's one of my concerns. They do put a tremendous amount of stress on the top link connection with a decent sized log in it, which is most likely what caused the issues you had with your top link.
I think for my situation, my top link connection on the tractor itself would be more apt to break apart from the housing :shocked: than break my top link.

I've seen a couple instances where this happened with my model tractor, one on here with a 3pt hitch winch, and I can't remember the other one.
I'm still looking for one and keeping my eyes peeled for a used one, but if I do find one I'll have to be mindful of the stresses on my little ole 'Bota.

 

[Gordon Gould]

I like your grapple and those are some pretty nice logs you are getting. Your $100 to $50/hr after fuel and before equipment expense sounds great to me. Having a flat site, good equipment, and nice tall healthy trees is great. I make about $5 per hr in my woods cutting balsam fir that has rot. I get $280 per thousand board feet which would be roughly 9 to 10000 lb. So about $50/ton I guess. This load is a little over 500 bd feet (2.5 ton) and took probably 8 trees. 10 and 12 footers with one 14.
Keep up the good work and good luck with the house.

 

[Piston]

Beautiful picture Gordon.

 

[Gordon Gould]

Peter, I ment to ask if you have tryed picking two or more trees from your cut and pulling them to the clearing. How do you manuver to pick up the additional trees ? Straddle? Back and jack knife into them? Or what? Or is it just more efficient to pull one at a time with such a short skid?

 

[pclausen]

Yes, very nice picture Gordon!

When I first got started, I would cut the trees and pull them out into the cul-de-sac one by one using the rear log grapple and then cut them into 16' sections and load them onto the trailer using the front grapple, sometimes picking up 2 or 3 at a time, although that made it difficult to stack them tight on the trailer.

I'm just about completing what I could call the middle phase, in which each tree I cut fall into my newly created landing at an angle that will allow me to cut each tree into 16' sections (get about 3-5 per tree), then load them directly onto the trailer.

The 3rd and final stage that I'm about to begin, will have me dropping trees at an angle that will allow me to pull each tree out into the landing, and then carry out the steps from the middle phase. Since I'm not grinding the stumps flush with the ground (which I did when creating the landing), I will be limited in how I can approach each tree, let alone attempt to pick up more than one in each go.

But I do hope to be able to pick up bunches of medium sized trees once I start getting deeper into the stand, in a way similar to what is shown here:

Valby Tractor Grapples - YouTube

 

[Piston]

Peter,
How come your not grinding the stumps? Will they need to be removed for the building site?

 

[pclausen]

Exactly Piston. In the area where the driveway, foundation, yard and septic drain field will be, the builder will bring in a dozer to rip out all stumps and roots. The dozer will push them all into a pit dug by an excavator, where that stuff will be burned. In the areas outside building site, I'll be grinding the stumps, which included the landing area.

Builder said that with the size trees I got, he'll need to bring in a really large dozer w/ a root ripper. I'll be sure to take some pics of that!

I'm sure a D11 would get the job done...

 

[pclausen]

The only think I could see you really benefiting from now, that you don't have, is a PTO powered mulcher. What dya say? Bull Hog (PTO) - Fecon

Lol. My brother, who helped me clear trees and chip over the Christmas holiday, we were looking at youtube video's of power mulchers just the other night, and talking about how one of those would be real cool to deal with all the tops and branches instead of having to manually load everything into the chipper. Then I found out what one of those cost... Ouch... I think 70hp PTO might a little on the low side.

The next implement I'll likely get will be a heavy duty rotary tiller around 90" wide. Something like the Bush Hog RTH88 or Phoenix/Sicma HD T25-92GE. The Sicma might even be able to do some "mulching"