Skidding Logs with tractor.

[John_Mc]

I've got an offer to do some TSI with a return of firewood over the next few years,

I'm making plans to drive up north and pick up an Igland 3501 tomorrow. The land is much too "steep" to consider dragging every piece to the landing.

Have you done much of this before?

I don't do firewood professionally, but I do help out friends with their tree felling and firewood harvesting, and occasionally sell a few cords. I get a chuckle when a friend says, "I have some trees I need to get taken down. If you get them down and process them into firewood, I'll share the firewood 50/50 with you." That's when I explain that a "firewood tree" still standing in the forest is worth $10/cord, maybe $20 if the access is good and you are very lucky (assuming it's not good enough to be used for lumber or veneer). Cut into long lengths and delivered to the customer for them to cut and split, the going rate is around $115/cord. Cut, split and delivered, the price varies, but you can easily get $300+ if it is already well seasoned, ready to burn. So the guy offering to go 50/50 with me if I do all the work is basically offering me $5-$10 per cord to harvest, cut, and split his firewood for him. It can sometimes take a bit to educate people who are offering you this "great deal" by saying you can keep half the wood.

One friend in the auto repair business got the picture when I said, "I'll help you because we're friends. You can do a favor for me or someone else some day. Your offer to share the wood 50/50 is about like me offering you a dozen of my wife's homemade chocolate chip cookies if you'll do this body work on my car. If you really want to come up with something closer to a fair 50/50 split, how about I drop the trees, bring 10-16' logs to your meadow. You cut and split them, and I'll take half?"

 

[hslogger]

My long time equipment bashing forest owner friend has this.Small Wood Lot Tools - Timber Maintenance, Pre-commercial Thinning, Firewood, Fuel Reduction He has had it when they first went on the market and absolutely swears by it. He has a stand of 65 -70 year old douglas fir in the coast range of Oregon that he bought in the early seventies. He has thinned it himself. His ground is mostly decent and uses a 50hp Case International 4wd. I've known and worked with him since the seventies. He is prudent with his cash and says you can't beat it for the buck. My comment..... the most dangerous piece of equipment in the woods is a farm tractor.

I remember when he bought the unit. The builder lives not far from us. He went up for a demo and bought it on the spot.

 

[newbury]

I've used a 3pt forklift, chain and the drawbar.
I had the 3pt forklift for moving other things.
I'd get a chain under the log, back the tractor up so the 3 pt arms were on either side of the log lay the chain over the 3pt arms and wrap the chain around so I could easily lift the log, then wrap it so it pulled with the drawbar.

 

[Gordon Gould]

Have you done much of this before?

I don't do firewood professionally, but I do help out friends with their tree felling and firewood harvesting, and occasionally sell a few cords. I get a chuckle when a friend says, "I have some trees I need to get taken down. If you get them down and process them into firewood, I'll share the firewood 50/50 with you." That's when I explain that a "firewood tree" still standing in the forest is worth $10/cord, maybe $20 if the access is good and you are very lucky (assuming it's not good enough to be used for lumber or veneer). Cut into long lengths and delivered to the customer for them to cut and split, the going rate is around $115/cord. Cut, split and delivered, the price varies, but you can easily get $300+ if it is already well seasoned, ready to burn. So the guy offering to go 50/50 with me if I do all the work is basically offering me $5-$10 per cord to harvest, cut, and split his firewood for him. It can sometimes take a bit to educate people who are offering you this "great deal" by saying you can keep half the wood.

One friend in the auto repair business got the picture when I said, "I'll help you because we're friends. You can do a favor for me or someone else some day. Your offer to share the wood 50/50 is about like me offering you a dozen of my wife's homemade chocolate chip cookies if you'll do this body work on my car. If you really want to come up with something closer to a fair 50/50 split, how about I drop the trees, bring 10-16' logs to your meadow. You cut and split them, and I'll take half?"

I agree John. That's just how people think before they actually try to make money in the woods - Every one of their standing trees is worth a $5000 and it is such a privilege to cut them you don't need to be paid for it.

To me TSI is one of the hardest ways to get firewood. Every tree you cut is surrounded by good quality keeper trees that you can't mark up or damage. Slow and tedious. TSI is definitely worth doing or hiring to have done and can pay for itself down the road. It does produce firewood but that just takes some of the curse off and is seldom close to fair compensation for the work involved. But it also depends on the lot so this is not always the case. Thinning hedge rows can work out OK if you don't have to clean up all the brush. Just pile it.

gg

 

[Industrial Toys]

I do enough firewood cutting. Mostly removing dead trees and deadfall. GREAT EXCERCISE.

As far as a paying endeavour, I have little doubt that it's about the worst paying, hardest work you can do. Could it actually even make more sense to process and sell firewood, and buy some other form of energy for yourself, than burn your own wood?

 

[tractorcrazy]

Is there any affordable attachment that would make it easy to approach logs, grab them and then drag them to another location?

We had our place logged for pine and there are now a bunch of cedar trees (the loggers cut to get to the pines) that I'd like to harvest and save for future projects.

I'd bet that most are less than 18" in diameter.

I've also thought of building something to attach to the front end loader but wonder if pulling with the loader is OK or something to avoid (kind of like many say you shouldn't use rear attachments to push heavy loads.

I'm figuring I want to drag trees to a common area where I can de-limb them and put the limbs in a burn pile.

Any ideas?

I always used a back blade on the 3 point turn your blade backwards hook your chain to the rear of the blade.mine had factory holes where you adjust the angle of the blade I used one of those holes with a clevis .you dont have to worry about flipping over backwards if the log catches something if your blade is a foot off the ground while skidding your front end will only raise about six inches before the blade will come down and hit the ground and once you get a few pulled out you can shove them out of the way with the blade being turned around backwards. I strongly recommend never skid a log off the draw bar or any kind of implement that wont cone down to contact the ground stopping you from going over backwards because it will happen in a split second you won't be fast enough to push in the clutch to stop it from going over I used this method for thirty years without one having a close call going over backwards

 

[tractorcrazy]

Use a back blade turned around backwards you can push the logs where you need them after you pull them out plus it keeps you from flipping over backwards

 

[CobyRupert]

Don’t pull anything “challenging” with the front end loader.
Loader arms aren’t built to do that. Nor are tractors. Tractor’s are built for pulling from the back.

 

[CalG]

Have you done much of this before?

I don't do firewood professionally, but I do help out friends with their tree felling and firewood harvesting, and occasionally sell a few cords. I get a chuckle when a friend says, "I have some trees I need to get taken down. If you get them down and process them into firewood, I'll share the firewood 50/50 with you." That's when I explain that a "firewood tree" still standing in the forest is worth $10/cord, maybe $20 if the access is good and you are very lucky (assuming it's not good enough to be used for lumber or veneer). Cut into long lengths and delivered to the customer for them to cut and split, the going rate is around $115/cord. Cut, split and delivered, the price varies, but you can easily get $300+ if it is already well seasoned, ready to burn. So the guy offering to go 50/50 with me if I do all the work is basically offering me $5-$10 per cord to harvest, cut, and split his firewood for him. It can sometimes take a bit to educate people who are offering you this "great deal" by saying you can keep half the wood.

One friend in the auto repair business got the picture when I said, "I'll help you because we're friends. You can do a favor for me or someone else some day. Your offer to share the wood 50/50 is about like me offering you a dozen of my wife's homemade chocolate chip cookies if you'll do this body work on my car. If you really want to come up with something closer to a fair 50/50 split, how about I drop the trees, bring 10-16' logs to your meadow. You cut and split them, and I'll take half?"

John Thanks for the friendly advice.

The other party doesn't burn wood ! ;-) so no 50/50.

And I know how much work it is to haul out fuel wood and work it up. It's much "better" for me to get in a full truck load and just cut and split off the pile.

The way I figure, The winch cost is about 4 loads ;-)

I didn't make it up to do the purchase. Heavy rain on the forecast, and I didn't care to drive in it. The rain came late, it's pouring out there now. Another day. No pulling to do until the snow covers the ground anyway.

There is a cut going on less than a mile from the house. I'll likely buy a load fresh off the forwarder '=)

 

[BackRoad]

Just thinking out loud after reading the back blade comment.

30 years ago, my Brother-In-Law broke his back from a tractor flip while dragging down a widow maker...old tricycle tractor and was not there, so not sure how he was actually doing it...

If the 3PT hitch is really just providing up lift, (no down pressure) - then can it really stop or prevent a back flip?

Understand the sound logic of always carrying a load low, near the ground...to drop the weight quickly...

But the 3PH does not really act like a wheelie bar on a dragster - there is no real mechanical block from the 3PH preventing a back flip? (That's a question, not a statement).

Not asking this to question the poster or cause conflict, but rather to accurately understand the dynamics on whether a blade on the 3PH will actually stop a back flip.