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50 Acres Clear Cut

Started by Heart Wood, March 10, 2009, 09:12:45 PM

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Heart Wood

I would definately appreciate some practical advice from forum members that do clear cutting. This season. I'm stepping up to a much larger land clearing than what I'm presently doing. I do small residential commercial tree cutting and small lot clearing for new home construction. One to five acres. The equipment I use now is small Skid Steer Tractor, Grapple Boom Truck, and two highly skilled and productive tree fellers. (One more motivated than the other)

Obviously, big equipment would be great to have however I want to be careful and buy only the equipment that is necessary. So my questions is, if you had one piece of equipment to absolutly have to do a larger clear cutting what would it be? What would be the second piece of equipment you would have? The 50 acres is second growth, mixed woods both soft and hard. 70% trees would be approx. 14-19 inches dbh. Soil is clay on top of sand, sand is about 4 feet underneath top soil. Terrain is mostly small gradual sloping hills. Stumps remain probably at 3 feet. Leave timber on site slash piles chipped.

Not to talk down my operation but compared to the size of operations some guys run, I'm like "Two Men and a Chainsaw" but more than ready to step up to the next level. All ideas are appreciated. Thanks ahead of time
Heart Wood

ErikC

  Do you plan on removing any stumps, or building roads, landings, etc? If so a dozer in the D-5 or D-6 category would be my choice. If you go on to do other cuts like this, great, if you go back to small lots again the dozer will be handy still. I think a high track D-5 with a grapple would be perfect. it will do this fine, and smaller jobs  handily as well. If you buy a skidder, it will only ever be good to you as a skidder. The dozer is pretty versatile. Good luck.
Peterson 8" with 33' tracks, JCB 1550 4x4 loader backhoe, several stihl chainsaws

dmagnum

A productive, yet inexpensive way to go would be to purchase a rubber-tire skidder with a swinging grapple and a winch.  This would give you two options for yarding logs.  What you couldn't get with your grapples, you could pull winch line for.  John Deere skidders, or whatever your preference, would be relatively inexpensive in comparison to a CAT with grapples or even a loader.  Plus, you can move rubber-tired skidders down the road without putting them on a low-boy, to save on moving costs.

I hope this helps.  Good luck and be safe!

Darrell Holthusen

Don K

Good to see you back on the Forum Darrell. I think you were a class act in all the chaos. :)

Don
Lucky to own a WM LT40HDD35, blessed to have a wife that encouraged me to buy it.     Now that\'s true love!
Massey Ferguson 1547 FWD with FEL  06 GMC Sierra 2500HD 4X4 Dozer Retriever Husky 359 20\" Bar  Man, life is getting good!

dmagnum

Thanks "Don K,"  I really appreciate the compliment!

Great profile pic!

Don K

The boss has too many computer skills. ::) There is a story behind it at least.

Don
Lucky to own a WM LT40HDD35, blessed to have a wife that encouraged me to buy it.     Now that\'s true love!
Massey Ferguson 1547 FWD with FEL  06 GMC Sierra 2500HD 4X4 Dozer Retriever Husky 359 20\" Bar  Man, life is getting good!

Heart Wood

Thanks Erik and Darrel:

Yes, versatilty- your talking my language. Moving timber maybe up to a 1000 feet and keeping it clean etc. is important. Also any ideas on handling slash piles effectively can the JD Skidder be used for this also? Please keep ideas coming. All your experiences will be helpful to me and probably other members also Thanks,
Heart Wood  

ErikC

  Yeah, skidders can pile brush. I think dozers do it a little faster though. A good operator on either can get it done nicely. You will tear up the ground more with tracks, may not matter all that much on a clear cut like you are doing. It is for development, right? As far as that goes, you may be able to get extra work doing rough site prep with the dozer.
Peterson 8" with 33' tracks, JCB 1550 4x4 loader backhoe, several stihl chainsaws

ErikC

  If you are going to chip the slash, piling it with a machine may make your work harder. Dirt, tangled limbs, so on. If the skid steer has a grapple it would be better for that I think.
Peterson 8" with 33' tracks, JCB 1550 4x4 loader backhoe, several stihl chainsaws

dmagnum

Good point Erik!  Also, the skidders have a small blade on the front for pushing dirt or brush and you can build a small rake for the blade.  But, as Erik mentioned, if you're going to stump the property, a CAT or excavator would be the fastest, most efficient way.  You would have to be really careful pushing stumps out with the skidder, it is not designed for that.

ErikC

  I have seen some pretty nice brush rakes and guards put on skidder blades, and they can definitely do a pretty good job in that department. As Darrell said though, skidders aren't made for a lot of hard pushing. But they can pull like heck. :)
Peterson 8" with 33' tracks, JCB 1550 4x4 loader backhoe, several stihl chainsaws

John Woodworth

Have been clearing land with skidders my whole time in the woods with and without brush rakes, a good blade man and learning to roll the brush does fine. Have rakes for all three of my skidders and there is a time and place to use them but learn to roll the brush without the rake for the times you don't have it on, you will do fine.
On longer yards  and in general you have a lot of maintance and upkeep expence with cats, far more than skidders and unless you plan to go into more of the same scale of jobs I wouldn't think it would be worth the added expence.
Two Garret 21 skidders, Garret 10 skidder, 580 Case Backhoe, Mobile Dimension sawmill, 066, 046 mag, 044, 036mag, 034, 056 mag, 075, 026, lewis winch

Maineloggerkid

Ya, a 648 with a swing grapple wood be nice.

Good to see ya around again Darrel. ;)
JD 540D cable skidder, and 2 huskies- just right.   

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