Tractors and wood! Show your pics

[Gordon Gould]

The body of water was a reservoir which was the water supply for Vergennes, VT about 6 miles away. The platform was the control station for the dam. The town owned the property surrounding the reservoir to protect the watershed. I'm not sure when it stopped being used as that town's water supply. Vergennes kept the property for some time, but then eventually put it up for sale in 1995. Folks in the area did not want to see it developed, so formed a non-profit and did some fund-raising, bought the property and put an easement on it so it can never be developed. Over the years, the original 664 acre parcel had been added to. It now consists of 1000 acres, all conserved. Parts of the forest are a "working forest" and are harvested occasionally. Those areas also serve as the site for many of the Game of Logging training workshops in our area. Other parts are being allowed to "re-wild".

The platform/foundation for the control station sat there, slowly decaying. About 5 years ago, someone came up with the idea of turning it into a little timber frame pavilion to make a nice picnic spot or shelter from the rain for those hiking the nice trail network on the property. They turned it into a combinaton of educational workshop and demonstraction project (Discussion of why the specific trees were chosen and how they contributed to the silvicultural and other goals for the property, Game of Logging techniques demonstrated when felling the timber, small forwarded used to bring the logs to the landing, demonstration of bandsaw mill operation, introduction timber framing joinery, and the class all participated in the frame raising).

Hats off to you and your neighbors whom were able and willing to procure and manage that land John. Quite an accomplishment.

gg

 

[hunt4570]

Here you go:

View attachment 661362View attachment 661361

The modified bins stand about 70" tall. It takes some work to modify them but well worth it in my situation. The only cost is 8 zip ties to hold each bin to the frame, cut off blades for the grinder, and reciprocating saw blades for cutting plastic.

Advantages:
More capacity.
Covered storage. And no more **** tarps.
The plastic covers act like little greenhouses to speed drying.
Much reduced handling of splits.
Cost savings and work to cut up the bin to dispose of it (cannot burn them where I live)
Much reduced handling of splits Bins are moved to where the splits are and splits are handled once.
Bins are staged when needed into the garage and I use a pallet jack to move them in the garage. Splits go from bin to my log carrier to the fireplace.
Also, I can move the totes easily between storage areas. From direct sun for drying to staging areas for long term and current storage.
Cheap. I have less than $850 invested in 32 bins that will hold about 15 cords of wood.
Made to be stored outside for years with no maintenance.

Disadvantages
Cannot be stacked
Need a tractor with the lift capacity. Most hobby tractors will not be able to handle the load.
Not pretty like a wood storage shed.

Sorry about pictures being sideways. Cannot seem to figure out how to fix it.

And what do you have to give for the cages if I may ask.. they ask anywhere from 45-65 bucks each around here!

 

[shooterdon]

And what do you have to give for the cages if I may ask.. they ask anywhere from 45-65 bucks each around here!

Hunt4570
I got four free from my tractor dealer. I paid $800 for 28 delivered. I have less than $50 in zip ties, blades and grinding wheels.

$850 was very cheap IMHO for 15 cords of covered storage.

BTW, my neighbor wants three of the bin bottoms to put under cars he stores in a garage I plan on trying to sell some on Craigslist as å*µiant drip pans? I would be happy to get $10 for them as I need to pay to dump them. Might be handy for draining oil and fluids as well.

For the bottoms I cannot sell or give away I will cut out the flat part and use it as a �roject panel?

I plan on using two as sleds to tow behind the snowmobiles when the grandkids visit.

 

[Oldpath05]

Hard to see but my chainsaw bar had quite a bend in it and even the chain was bent a little, I got it straighten back out with a hammer to almost like new. I might even improved it now my saw has auto brake feature and now the bar has a nice gun barrel blue to the rails so it wont rust. Just in case it fails for some reason I'll fill out the 5 year Echo warranty card so I can get a new bar...

 

[Oldpath05]

Two 1/2"x 2" bolts would not stay tight, maybe if they was 4" long but usually a bolt going at another direction will keep bolts tight. I need these short fork to load logs, yeah your right a $1000.00 grapple or thumb would work lot better but I dont have a swimming pool..........

 

[Oldpath05]

I also did some drilling this afternoon, things are going faster with a red neck self aligning jig. I'm at two beams in 45 min with 6 holes each. I might have a little struggle with the ones with a slight sweep to it.

 

[Jstpssng]

I don't have a swimming pool either, which is why I could afford my grapple.

When I had forks bolted to the bucket on my last tractor I ran them all of the way to the back of the bucket and had one bolt in back, then one on the side as you have. I also welded a piece of angle to each fork to slide under the bottom of the bucket.

I didn't want to drill holes in my new bucket, yet if I'd planned better I would have bought a set of teeth like yours instead of my low budget forks which I quickly trashed. I then would have made my forks to use the same holes, and taken the teeth off when using them rather than having both on as you do.


Just a couple of different ideas...

 

[Oldpath05]

Theres something about drilling holes in a new bucket thats a big turn off and or welding on it but sometimes it's necessary so in that case I do as little as possible. In my case adding that 3rd bolt to the removable tooth bar I thought was best not to mention cheapest, least until I can afford a pool.

 

[John_Mc]

Hard to see but my chainsaw bar had quite a bend in it and even the chain was bent a little, I got it straighten back out with a hammer to almost like new. I might even improved it now my saw has auto brake feature and now the bar has a nice gun barrel blue to the rails so it wont rust. Just in case it fails for some reason I'll fill out the 5 year Echo warranty card so I can get a new bar...

If your rails are blued from heat, it's possible they have been softened a bit and may see accelerated wear. Hopefully, that isn't the case, but either way it's nice to see it saved and still get some use out of it.

Did the bar also have a bend near the base, where it entered the saw? It looked a bit like that in your original picture, but that may just have been an illusion caused by the angle from which the picture was taken.

 

[VroomVroom]

I saw another thread about idle time vs starter wear and got me thinking of you fellows over hear. The last 20 cords I hauled with the tractor was literally only 250-300 feet. I’ve been carrying 4 foot wood on 3 point forks. While loading I’ve been shutting it off but while offloading I just kept it idling at 1500. It probably idles at 900-1000. It’s a 28 hp mahindra 2816. While working in the woods 20 years ago the machines were running and working constantly. Eventually I moved out to western Canada and because of frigid temperatures much of the diesel equipment was left to idle. I remember staying in my truck for over 30 hours one time and it idled the whole time. But I see they say now , that’s it’s better 5o just shut them off. I understand due to excessive hours, or soot and Unburnt fuel but what about the short hauls; or working your logging winches all day with low engine speeds and little strain on the engines.? I’d imagine you’d be idling quite a bit