clearing land

Bison · Sep 24, 2013

We'll see,..gona have a look coming tuesday. i know what to look for with the undercarriage, i have replaced the odd one in my youth
Found a 2001 cat 966 not to far from the komatsu,..might be a better deal yet ?,. only 4000 hrs 2 rippers and a 4 in 1 bucket + a new undercarriage
asking 47 grand.

Bison · Oct 11, 2013

Update,
The Komatsu turned out to be scrap iron and the cat outfit was closed by the time i got there so i came back empty handed.

Today i went to find out what my 940 Allis loader would be capable off as far as felling trees goes.
Turned out this old thing is no wussie when push comes to shove.

I don't think i even need a track loader
Biggest tree was 18" at the butt and 60-70' tall, 1 push and 1 dig and bucket roll and down she was, all in all about 60 sec.:thumbsup:
Took about 1 hr to clear and pile 20 some trees big and small.
A root grapple instead of a bucket would be a lot faster with raking and piling

rutwad · Oct 12, 2013

How thick are the large trees? Is the land mostly brush with scattered trees or mostly large trees? Definitely sounds like it is worth cutting the timber. That is income you could use toward finishing your project, be it buying equipment or hiring out the work. For cattle grazing I would think just shearing the stumps off at the ground would be fine without the need to dig up the stumps. If you dig the stumps, you have large holes, you spend much more time than shearing with a dozer, and you end up with much more dirt in the burn piles.

No matter which route you go, don't skimp on equipment size. Bigger is better.

My neighbor had large hardwood timber cut. In month of hard running to dig stumps with a Kobelco 290 excavator, maybe 50-60 acres was stumped. Then a JD 700 dozer and rake came in to windrow and roughly level the land. Now he is having it disked and leveled.

yellowdogsvc · Oct 15, 2013

Why not let the loggers do their thing, make some money off it, then buy or lease a good sized excavator to pull stumps at your leisure and either burn as you go but take your time. Sure, a big enough dozer will do it but it will also pull up a lot more dirt. than an excavator.

Use a big loader or crawler dozer with 4n1 to make windrows or piles of stumps. If you get good with the ex, you can do it all if it's big enough and has a thumb.

rutwad · Oct 16, 2013

Burn debris with an air curtain as well so you don't have to repile and burn again later

Bison · Oct 17, 2013

yellowdogsvc;3504123[B said:
]Why not let the loggers do their thing[/B], make some money off it, then buy or lease a good sized excavator to pull stumps at your leisure and either burn as you go but take your time. Sure, a big enough dozer will do it but it will also pull up a lot more dirt. than an excavator.

Use a big loader or crawler dozer with 4n1 to make windrows or piles of stumps. If you get good with the ex, you can do it all if it's big enough and has a thumb.

I had the local pulp mill come out and estimate the timber value, whatever they could use was not worth the trouble, The big timber(black poplar) was were the money was(35 grand) but most of it was to big to go trough their chippers(They no longer haul the logs out to the mill, everything gets chipped on site)