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Log Loader Clamshell or By-pass Bucket

Started by Corley5, October 10, 2006, 08:16:00 PM

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Corley5

The Mule came with a clamshell bucket.  It works good but I can see where a by-pass bucket would have advantages especially in small wood.  What are you using and which do you prefer ???
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

Timburr

Corley5, can you please explain your terms 'clamshell' and 'by-pass bucket'?  In the 4000 or so miles taken to get here, some of the meanings have fallen into the Big Pond  :D

My understanding is that a clamshell bucket has grab lips that come together and 'filled in' sides......builders use them to load aggregate, lime and soil.  I guess a timber clamshell hasn't got the sides, whilst the smaller grab half closes inside the larger half on a by-pass ???

If the assumption is right, I don't know of anyone here using a clam-grab in the woods.
Sense is not common

Corley5

Yup Tim that's what I  mean.  Around here you see both in the woods but as timber has gotten smaller I see more bypass buckets around.  All the log trucks have clamshell buckets or I've also heard them referred to as butt buckets. 
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

barbender

Round here a lot of trucks use the butt style bucket, they're durable and work well in that application. All the newer forwarders run bybass buckets, its a lot easier to pick up single stems and small bunches.
Too many irons in the fire

Ed_K

 I'm running by-pass on the forwarder trailer and on the front end loader. I like them a lot, the trailer has a 25" opening and if I get close to full width the loader won't pick the log up. The loader has a 35" by-pass bucket that I use to pick up the big logs and stack at the landing. A lot of my work is thinning so I have a lot of small wood to move. When the trucker come to pick up cordwood he has a time trying to pick up 4" sticks with the butt bucket  ;D .
Ed K

Corley5

After we generate some income with the Mule I want to add a by pass to it.  The Valbys look good and it appears that the continuous rotator on it is a Valby.  Sawlogs are no issue with the butt bucket but small pieces of hardwood pulp cost time.  Add a little moisture to make the sticks slipper and it gets worse :)
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

Ed_K

 My 35" is a Valby, its made really well with lots of grease fittings. I got it w/o the rotor as I made a swival pin to connect the grapple to the bucket on the tractor.
Ed K

Rob-IL

I have owned and used both Butt & Bypass Grapples. Bypass is the only way to go in my opinion, plus they are much safer than than the Butt type.
I grew up around logging but chose to be a heavy equipment mechanic for several years. Later in life my interest changed so my cousin and myself went into logging on our own in 1988.

TeaW

I have never used a clamshell type grapple . My 1700 Hardy forwarding trailer has a bypass grapple and you want to have a good hold on that small and crooked firewood as you lift and swing it on.
TeaW
TeaW

mikeandike

By-pass buckets around here for the most part. I've seen a couple of
clamshells on tree service trucks and on trucks that pick up used irrigation
pipe in the delta.

I really like my by-pass but have trouble with small stuff.
Looking for a slabber
WMLT40HD

Nora

Please excuse my ignorance, but does anyone have closeup photos of these attachments (especially in use)? Also, I'm curious as to whether you are moving small materials as slash or chipping them on site? I've talked to a guy in ID who said that it's hard to find a place close enough to take chips and another guy in Missouri who said chips are like gold there.

Tom


Frickman

I have bypass grapples on both the forwarder and a knuckleboom truck I keep at the landing.
If you're not broke down once in a while, you're not working hard enough

I'm not a hillbilly. I'm an "Appalachian American"

Retired  Conventional hand-felling logging operation with cable skidder and forwarder, Frick 01 handset sawmill

Pretend farmer when I have the time

Nora

Tom,

Thanks for the photo links!

I'm interested in the issue of loading slash and small diameter timber. Yesterday I spoke to a lady who has 16 acres that needs thinned. She'd rather not burn the slash, but to her that seems like the only economically feasible way to do it.

Our small diameter timber division helped a local company receive a Woody Biomass Grant to develop a system of roll on containers and skid steer equipment to move woody biomass. We have a number of companies locally that need chips. However, the company that has the roll on equipment, can't keep up with the demand for the roll on containers. The lady I spoke to said she can't get them because they are so busy. Meanwhile the procurement guys at the local linerboard mill are scrambling for supply, but they will only take it delivered.

My question is, for those of you who are using buckets to move the small stuff, is it for making slash piles or for taking out of the woods? If you are taking it out of the woods, why are you doing it that way instead of burning it (is someone buying it) and/or is it economically feasible for you to take it out of the woods?

Last week I spoke to two guys, one in ID (logging contractor) and one in MO (forest products researcher). Idaho said he had to haul chips all the way across the state for someone to buy them. Missouri said they are piles of gold in his state!

I think we'll be seeing more and more use for the small stuff. I'd be interesting to hear all your comments!

Nora

Corley5

I take most everything down to a four inch top unless it has a lot of limbs and is more work than it's worth.  The rest of the tree stays in the woods to go back on the ground.  The clams purpose is mainly loading round wood although it sees other uses around the farm ;D  Have you seen Deere's Biomass bundler/bailer ??? 
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

Ron Wenrich

There's a pretty big market difference between chips produced in the pine areas and those produced in the hardwood areas.  Demand for woodchips in my area dried up pretty good when Proctor & Gamble converted over to wood pulp made in South America.  Most whole tree chippers went out of business.

Wood chips in the hardwood areas are used for high end paper.  They can't use the amount of bark that is normal in whole tree chips.  Their supply comes mainly from sawmills that have debarked logs.  Pulpwood quality logs are brought in and debarked before chipping.

There are limited markets for chips at hardboard plants, energy plants, and for bedding.  Mill chips are usually the mainstay of these operation, cut whole tree chips can be used, since bark is not a problem.

A typical hardwood wholetree chipping operation would include a portable chipper where the trees are skidded to a landing for processing.  The largest ones have a 28" opening, so you can put a pretty large log through it. 

At the landing, logs are bucked off, and limbs are bucked to fit better through the chipper.   The fines are blown to the side and left to rot.  Most guys with whole tree chippers use them to clear land for either development or for strip mining.  I know of one operator who can load a trailer in 20-30 minutes.  All his equipment uses the bypass grapples, as do most operators. 

Chip trailers are typically old trailers that have vent holes in them so as not to collapse the trailer when they are dumped.  I have never seen anyone use the roll back system since used trailers are quite cheap and abundant.

Typical operations in the hardwood areas is to cut the trees and allow the top to remain in the woods.  We don't have the problems with fire hazard as you do in the drier western parts.  Slash is usually cut down to a height of 4' or less and allowed to rot into the soil.  Some take the smaller trees, some leave them.  Small wood is used for scragg mills (low grade lumber), pulp and firewood. 

Biomass has pretty well gone out of style in my area.  I helped to site one back in the late '70s.  All the other operations where it was tried were shot down by abundant coal and culm operations.  When you got to the '90s, natural gas was very cheap and we had a rush to build natural gas plants.  Of course, due to popularity, they helped to push natural gas prices higher and they are no longer very economical.  Will biomass make a comeback?  We'll have to wait and see.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

dail_h

   The first loader I ever ran had a clam bucket on it. We were cutting mostly saw logsI got pretty good with it,I'd sorta bunch up the pulpwood till I had a good bite,then load it. But i could load one stick at a time,was just more moveing.Dontknow anyone useing one now
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