namesray
Platinum Member
I own a 3 ph winch and love it. I use to own a wallenstein grapple trailer, thought I would love it, but it was more a pain then a help. The trailer was clumsy in the woods and tight trails. It was time consuming positioning the trailer to load logs in the woods. I had to load a few logs then get back on tractor, move to load logs, then move again to finish loading. Then all the time to unload. The hyd winch on the boom was nice, but slow. I too thought I could hold the log at waist height to block up firewood, but the grapple head was a free floating head, so as soon as one side of the log got light, it shifted with the floating head. The grapple trailer was so time consuming compared to the 3 ph winch.
with the 3 ph winch, I was already hooked to the logs, so just skid it to the landing. So much faster and less monkey business then unhooking the log along the logging road and comming back to load on grapple trailer.
your L3800 would not handle much of a load to be productive with a grapple trailer in my opinion. A large grapple trailer with long reach boom would give good efficient production, but you ain't comming close to handeling that much weight behind a 4000lb tractor.
I would go with the 3ph winch atleast for starters imo.
I am on steep hills, narrow dead end logging roads, and do over 400 cord firewood a year with my tractor, winch, loader forks set up. Works great. The grapple trailer did not work efficiently, so I sold mine and never looked back.
to answer your above question, I have skidded around a mile one way and haul between 2 to 3 face cord behind my 50hp kubota in a hitch. I believe your L3800 could pull 2 face cord at a time, but would struggle to lift the weight of it on the 3ph with the weight of the winch and logs. Would have to have good traild as well. My opinion through my experiences. Results may vary.
with the 3 ph winch, I was already hooked to the logs, so just skid it to the landing. So much faster and less monkey business then unhooking the log along the logging road and comming back to load on grapple trailer.
your L3800 would not handle much of a load to be productive with a grapple trailer in my opinion. A large grapple trailer with long reach boom would give good efficient production, but you ain't comming close to handeling that much weight behind a 4000lb tractor.
I would go with the 3ph winch atleast for starters imo.
I am on steep hills, narrow dead end logging roads, and do over 400 cord firewood a year with my tractor, winch, loader forks set up. Works great. The grapple trailer did not work efficiently, so I sold mine and never looked back.
to answer your above question, I have skidded around a mile one way and haul between 2 to 3 face cord behind my 50hp kubota in a hitch. I believe your L3800 could pull 2 face cord at a time, but would struggle to lift the weight of it on the 3ph with the weight of the winch and logs. Would have to have good traild as well. My opinion through my experiences. Results may vary.