First Skidder

[lumberjack48]

A little History on the first skidders

http://dhseagles.kpdsb.on.ca/about/drydenPaperMill/stories/beatty/billBeatty.html

[terry f]

    Thanks for shareing Lumberjack48

[Autocar]

Great pictures and interesting artical thaks for scharing

[Paul_H]

Great pics.A couple things caught my attention

The introduction of the power chain saw in the early 1960s brought about a tremendous increase in productivity to the logger. But the early chain saw had to be used carefully as severe cuts were common. The introduction of safety pants and safety gloves soon followed. Improvements to chain saws such as the use of safety chains and safety brakes were developed through the years.

It was the late 1940's early 50's when powersaws became widely used in our area.Was it not the same back East?

The other one I wondered about was the dates on the first skidder.I remember this link on the Forum here a few years ago that dated the first ones a few years before 1959.

Vannattabros

[mad murdock]

49 is when Dwight Garrett came up with the first articulated machine.  The one in Lumberjack48's link looks like a model 10 tree farmer.  They were from the early 50's on to the late 50's the model 15 treefarmer was it's bigger brother, and when they sold the TreeFarmer line to CanCar in late '64 basically it was a model 15 Garrett with the CanCar and Garrett labels on them, till '66 or thereabouts. Thanks for the link Luberjack48, some nice pics of the good ole days!

[Paul_H]

That sounds more like it,almost like the writer of the article somehow mixed up the decade.Pioneers they were.

[Meadows Miller]

Gday

Thanks for the link Lumberjack48 I always love reading and seeing pics of how it all started and was done I like the pics of the Treefarmer  ;) ;D 8) 8)

Regards Chris

[Okrafarmer]

A neat article and great pictures, but like so many of these types of articles it seems to be full of errors. One thing that made me grimace was how the author seemed to indicate that before these skidders were introduced, there were no machines to pull logs out of the woods. Crawler tractors were used as far back as the 1920's and before that time even steam traction engines were sometimes used. The crawlers were at their hey-day during the great depression and through the 1950's. They sported winches and pulled logs out of the woods, and filled all the same functions that skidders serve today (though grapples are new since then) and skidders basically improve on crawlers in two major areas-- ease of maintenance, and top speed. A third area could be considered to be purchase cost, and a fourth might be environmental impact, although that is debatable depending on terrain and weather.

[Dave VH]

thankyou, I really enjoy learning the history of it all

[thecfarm]

The man on that Garret skidder made it look small. Can't even buy a new,different brand small one now,without a outrageous price on it.

[timbuck2]

Try to hook on a 30" Rock Maple and watch the fun begin!

[treefarmer87]

THANKS FOR THE ARTICLE

[lumberjack48]

They say Garrett had something to do with converting a TD9 over to rubber tires, but ground clearance became a issue



 

                       Garretts Timber Cruiser



 

[snowstorm]

got the new nortrax john deere mag in the mail today it says the 440 skidder came out in 1965. the timberland machines 200 timberjack in 1961 price $8925