Forestry mods

[fitter1]

Thanks GG.

 

[Steve 3650]

Great ideas.
I have a Wallenstein FX85 skidding winch. I broke the cable. The cable is 6x36 with a button head swage. Wallensteins intent was to use the 165' cable as a choker.
What cable would you replace it with and how would you have the end set up?

 

[John_Mc]

Great ideas.
I have a Wallenstein FX85 skidding winch. I broke the cable. The cable is 6x36 with a button head swage. Wallensteins intent was to use the 165' cable as a choker.
What cable would you replace it with and how would you have the end set up?

I'm not a fan of using the main cable as a choker. I'd put a grab hook or a keyhole on the end, so I could attach a separate choker. Replacing one of those if it gets damaged is a whole lot easier than replacing the mainline cable.

If I'm not mistaken, Wallenstein sells that winch with a 3/8" (10mm) cable. I prefer swaged cable: the surface is less "grabby" than the regular stuff but it can be tough to find in this size, and it costs more than the non-swaged stuff.

 

[Gordon Gould]

I agree with John on not using the end of my main line as a choker. The end section of a cable sees enough abuse already in bunching up sliders and skidding out a hitch. As a side note it was seen in a recent thread on self release snatch block problems that using the main line wrap around choker caused the hitch to jam on the block instead of releasing.

I prefer a hook on the end of my cable. It gives me more options. Sometimes you just want to hook up quick and not mess with a key hole or you want to hook onto a chain that has no free end that will go thru a key hole like a couple chokers I have with a grab hook on the end so I can make then into a long choker or a chain on a car stuck in the ditch. Or maybe you have a choker whose free end is stuck under the hitch you just dropped. Put the hook on it and drag it out from under as you as you leave. This is just my preference and why. On the other hand one of those key hole cable end fittings that Hud-Son carries makes a nice clean cable end. Way cleaner than a hook and 3 clamps. And you can get a hook by adding another chain in the key hole. So it all come s down to personal choice.

gg

 

[Steve 3650]

Thanks John and Gordon. Your opinions are much appreciated.
I can't wait to try Gordons method to protect valve stems. A couple of months ago I snapped a valve stem on a tire filled with rim guard.
Thought about trying to carefully weld something to the wheel except one tire has a tube in it.

 

[John_Mc]

Here is a (not very good) picture of the keyhole cable end fitting Gordon mentioned that is sold by Hud-Son. I have it on the end of my winch cable. My winch originally came with a grab hook. I switched it out when I was replacing the cable a few years ago. I had only really needed the grab hook a couple of times up to that point, and had experienced multiple times where my choker had gotten knocked out of the grab hook when winching in logs. (Of course, once I took the grab hook off, almost immediately I ran into multiple situations where it would have been handy to have.) As Gordon mentioned, It does make for a clean installation: no extra cable clamps needed (those are my sliders to the left). The swivel also prevents a log rolling down a side-hill from twisting up the cable.

And here's a shot of the valve stem protectors I mentioned earlier. They were made from a section of steel pipe, with one edge cut out to allow easier access by air hoses or pressure gauges. (No, that's not rust around them. One of these days, I'll get around to cleaning the mud off and painting over the primer that is on there now.)

 

[Steve 3650]

A couple questions about the keyhole cable end fitting.
Do you install it on the cable yourself, or does it require a special tool?
Is it specifically for hooking a chain choker into it, or can you also use a cable choker with a button end?

Steve

 

[Jstpssng]

^^^^
You install it yourself. Swivel End Fitter - T3 - Hud-son


I have one for my cable end but concur with others that a grab hook is a lot more versatile. I like to pull in one or two logs at a time but depending on tree size may go out with a half dozen trees on a twitch. The grab hook makes it a lot easier to hook and unhook a chain.

 

[spitter]

What size woods loader is on your tractor your tractor I know if my 7308 had a grapple on it it would never pick up a stick like that. A7308 is a stock loader for a tc 33d . I have stick envey.:ashamed::drink:

 

[John_Mc]

What size woods loader is on your tractor your tractor I know if my 7308 had a grapple on it it would never pick up a stick like that. A7308 is a stock loader for a tc 33d . I have stick envey.:ashamed::drink:

It's a Woods model 1012 loader. (The dealer advised against the model 1016, which would fit, but risked resriously overloading the front end of the tractor The big selling points for me over the stock 7308 were that it has larger dump and rollback angles and a bigger lift capacity than the 7308. The larger rollback makes scooping up and transporting a full bucket easier. The larger dump angle increases the chances that it will actually dump whatever I've got in the bucket (we have some clay soils in a lot of places here in the Champlain Valley of Vermont, and getting that stuff to dump can be a real problem sometimes).

The larger lift capacity is obvious. I'm generally very careful and baby things along when I'm near the max I can lift. The picture above was White Pine. Not a particularly heavy wood. Hear is another of an American Elm that I needed to move during a volunteer work day for a firewood donation program I help organize in our community. I'm thinking it was 17' long X 17" average diameter (I do remember calculating that it was over 1400#). The height in the picture was the highest I could get it off the ground before the loader hit its limits. I'll only carry something like this very slowly and over smooth ground. In another situation, I'd have skidded it or rolled it. I was actually quite relieved the landowner who was donating the wood was saving this for a saw log, since American Elm is a pain in the butt to split, even with a hydraulic splitter.

These kinds of situations are where I wish I had ordered the TC 40 I had been considering when I bought the TC33D. On the other hand, I can get the TC33 into places in my woods where I could never get a larger tractor.

A year or so after I bought the loader, NH sent some engineers on a tour, visiting various dealers and seeking input. The dealer brought them out to visit me, since he knew I used my tractor for more than just mowing the lawn and carrying garden mulch. They spent a fair amount of time asking me why I'd chosen the Woods loader over the 7308. A couple of years later, the TC33DA came out. It featured their new 14LA or 15LA loader, with specs similar to the Woods loader I had.