Interesting machines

[Mainer_for_life]

Hey guys being that I am still fairly young I still have my very curious side. I want to know and see pictures of any interesting machinery that you have worked, on seen or heard of. Thanks guys for helping to cure my curious streak.

[barbender]

Start of by looking at the Timber harvest methods and equipment thread, that will keep you busy for a while ;)

[lynde37avery]

Yea that's a fun thread. Lots of cool posts. I seen a bombardier with a winch used logging before. I think that they're used on ski slopes for building trails.

[loggah]

This the most interesting machine i ever helped restore. ;D a 1914 steam lombard no. 70 out of 83 built. I have seen and owned plenty of interesting machines. I worked on steam logging locomotives also in my youth,helping retube boilers and making driveline parts , at my friends tourist railroad ,the white mt. central in lincoln N.H also the home of Clarks trained bears..

[Dave Shepard]

That must have been something to see in the woods for the first time. loggah, do you know if steam donkey's were popular on the East Coast? I'm sure they must have been in the woods in '14 on the West coast.

I haven't been around too many machines that were too extraordinary. I helped build a wire saw for cutting marble. We've cut a block that was 30,800 so far, but you could cut much larger. This block is maybe 40"x40"x12'. It was full of cracks, so we set it next to the saw and have an 8 ton knuckleboom crane we are going to mount to it to handle the stone slabs coming off of it.




 

[Mainer_for_life]

I will look at the thread guys thanks. Loggah that is one nice lookin machine. The marble saw is something I never really thought about but now that I'm thinkin I realize cut marble has to come from somewhere. Keep it coming guys

[thecfarm]

I like this one,
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,56449.0.html

[Jhenderson]

From the operators perch,if you were running a Lombard and it got away from you, your sure to be the first one at the scene of the wreck.

[loggah]

There were few donkey engines used in New England as far as i know,some were used to haul sleds up steep areas ,and around log ponds for stacking logs.Sam White a famous Alaskan bush pilot said the most scared he ever was,was in his younger days as a steam lombard steersman !!!!!1 ;D ;D If anyone ever reads his book "SAM WHITE ALASKA" he is pretty graphic about his log hauler days ! ;D ;D

[timberlinetree]

That is really neat( both posts)! I don't really read but would like to read that book.

[BargeMonkey]

Thats some neat stuff.  ;)
I know you could order a backhoe on a 440-440A-440B, there is one by me but i cant get the pictures to load. Little by little your not seeing the older iron around here, everytime the price of scrap goes high you see the stuff disappear.

[loggah]

The State of N.H. used to have a John Deere skidder with backhoe attachment,they used it for doing test pits,they probably still have it somewhere.

[sawguy21]

From the operators perch,if you were running a Lombard and it got away from you, your sure to be the first one at the scene of the wreck.

I can't imagine trying that. The ol' body would sure take a beating by the end of the day if he survived a crash or roll over.

[loggah]

Heres a few pictures of one of the most interesting machines i have ever been in. Its  the original Letourneau land trains largest land vehicle ever built. It was made for the U.S. Army for use in Alaska and Northern Canada to build and service the DEW line, anti missile  defense system. I found this in a scrapyard in Fairbanks Alaska back in 2010.The first one is the generator car,with the engine and generator each wheel is powered with an electric motor to bad the tires are flat there around 9" tall.,the trailers it pulled also have electric powered wheels.the total length of the machine was around 400 ' the second photo is one of the trailers.

[Ljohnsaw]

Heres a few pictures of one of the most interesting machines i have ever been in. Its  the original Letourneau land trains largest land vehicle ever built.<<snip>>

Now that is a cool piece of iron.  What did haul with that?  The trailer beds don't look all that large.

[loggah]

They hauled all kinds of supplies and parts for the radar stations. the big tires are for flotation in the muskeag and snow,most everything was made to be handled by hand and bolted together that they hauled. The crews quarters were behind the operators  station.

[thecfarm]

Google koehring forestry equipment. THAT will keep you busy for awhile.   ;D

[Maine logger88]

Yes those feller forwarders and short wood harvesters are cool! Loggah I saw a thread you posted awhile back about a huge Clark skidder that's a cool machine I would love to see one in person!

[ScottAR]

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXzB5Oe9qjlkO1HQE9vFCJg    Anything RG Letourneau built falls into the interesting category.  One of his family has put the original films up to see.   They made a few versions of the land trains and many other one off creations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J24RGyNR5M   Rather large vid of Koehring shortwood logger.
Looks ponderous for today but pretty revolutionary for it's time. 

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbQzH0xkTwlujZFsE5UzMcw  Nice channel about moving all this giant stuff around.

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfS-VMAfEXRiJLqSAEnqNRg   Big dirt moving out west.

These should get ya started.   There's not much on tv that's interesting anymore so I youtube often these days.

[loggah]

Those big 880 Clark skidders were up in Kingfield maine ,but i never heard where they went after the auction. My wife didn't think i needed one! ;D

[shinnlinger]

The good news is they saved that Machine in Alaska from the scrapper....  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOPSMxYcs3I

[loggah]

My computer wont let me see it,to old ! >:( When i was there the guys in the scrapyard said they thought it was going to a museum in Canada, they didn't know where . Back then i assumed it was going to the Reynolds Museum in Wetaskawin (SP) Alberta. Heres a few pictures of a slightly newer Machine that was used by the Alaska freight lines. Its owned by a slightly eccentric guy in Fox  Alaska a bit north of Fairbanks.

[shinnlinger]

According to the video, It ended up at the Yukon transportation museum.  Glad it got saved!!!!

[loggah]

Great !!! thats a nice museum,Cheryl and i spent a few hours there.

[BargeMonkey]

 I would like to go walk around Schafers yard in wolf Creek IL. Seeing the older stuff is more fun for me.  ;D

[loggah]

Barge Monkey,This one old enough for you???? ;D Its the 3rd steam lombard ever built ,made in 1903 and owned by Macgregor lumber co  in Maine.These early machines were steered with a horse.

[barbender]

Loggah, do the Lombards have a differential type drive?

LeTourneau built some neat machines over the years, some where quite innovative, some quite crazy :D All were quite large, I think :D It seems like he built a lot of one off, special purpose units.

[Maine logger88]

I bet those Clark's would pull a huge hitch of wood! It would be fun to pull some wood with one.

[loggah]

Barbender, the first style of lombard like in the upper picture had two separate track drives ,two cylinders on each side of the boiler driving a drive shaft to each track. In 1908 Lombard changed his style to a saddle tank boiler with a differential and two chain drives going back to the rear sprockets. On the gasoline log haulers they had a big worm drive differential.  The Clarks would pull a huge hitch ,66,000 lb machines with a 300 cummins. I probably better stop posting here for a while ,dont want to hog this thread!!!!!!

[Dave Shepard]

I like watching How It's Made on YouTube. As long as you can tolerate the worst hosts no the planet, then it's a pretty interesting show. They show a lot of machinery used to make stuff that you wouldn't normally see. I think the announcers are so bad, they might have had to pay to be on the show. :D

[treeslayer2003]

Barbender, the first style of lombard like in the upper picture had two separate track drives ,two cylinders on each side of the boiler driving a drive shaft to each track. In 1908 Lombard changed his style to a saddle tank boiler with a differential and two chain drives going back to the rear sprockets. On the gasoline log haulers they had a big worm drive differential.  The Clarks would pull a huge hitch ,66,000 lb machines with a 300 cummins. I probably better stop posting here for a while ,dont want to hog this thread!!!!!!

a 300? wow! post away

[loggah]

Well  the clarks had 903 cummins v-8's and they produced 300 H.P. . Not cummins most popular engine by any means.

[Dave Shepard]

A friend of mine had a Morbark 20 whole tree chipper. It had a VT903 in it. Had to have it rebuilt, I think the whole job cost him about $20,000, if I remember right. He later traded it on a 3036, and then traded that on a newer 3036. the Model 20 had a nickname, but I could only print about a quarter of it here. :D

[treeslayer2003]

Well  the clarks had 903 cummins v-8's and they produced 300 H.P. . Not cummins most popular engine by any means.

90nuthin lol..........i have seen 903s in trucks that were bad dudes........peel up pavement bad........they don't last long like that though.

[NWP]

Here's a link to a thread talking about the LeTourneau tree crushers. Also search YouTube for them. Pretty cool.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,56952.msg826518.html#msg826518

[loggah]

I got a couple of buddys of mine who worked around them in Vietnam,they didn't think much of them!!  said the climbed up onto bigger trees and then tipped over.His tree pushers were something also,they actually worked.If anyone ever watched the movie "TIMBER TRAMPS" they had a few shots of Letourneau skidders working.

[loggah]

Heres another early attempt at mechanical sled logging.The Eureka a home made steam log hauler used a few times in 1889 outside Akeley Minn. Evidently it didn't do very well. ;D

[shinnlinger]

This thread would not be complete without the snow motor.... http://youtu.be/tca0c2t7fV8

[Mainer_for_life]

Thanks guys for all the posts keep me coming and loggah hog away the more posts the better.

[loggah]

Thats a pretty neat  machine,i think the U.S. military had something like that also. I know Ira Peavey had a screw type log hauler back in the early teens ,but on uneven ground it wouldn't pull sleds . I want one of those screw type vehicles to go with the lombard !!!! ;D ;D

[barbender]

Shinn, that thing is definitely interesting! I was wondering if it would show up :D

[shinnlinger]

They wouldn't be terribly hard to fab up but I assume there is a reason there aren't more out there even though that video makes them seem fairly competent.  Some tractor thread had one a guy made for getting logs out of a swamp "back in the day" and he claimed it worked well even though it wasn't very big.  He had pics and I even thought of welding spirals on some old water tanks and running it off hydraulic motors but that was a few years ago and my honey-do list is quite long....

[shinnlinger]

here is a russian one...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbDe5dEu07I

[shinnlinger]

a modern snow motor attempt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5vV2Zc9q4k

[shinnlinger]

walking machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftV2HeKPeBM

[shinnlinger]

a fairly definitive page on screw drives   http://www.unusuallocomotion.com/pages/locomotion/screw-propelled-vehicles.html

[beenthere]

Amphibious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJClB1OHhwo

[loggah]

Heres a picture of the gasoline log hauler Ira Peavey of Stillwater Maine built, it was a screw type ,it didn't work to well.

[shinnlinger]

I wouldn't think the peavy version would go very well.   It looks heavy while the screws seem small with small skegs.   

[Dave Shepard]

My friend was running the wire saw yesterday. I got a quick video of the startup. It took about half an hour to cut through this block. Unfortunately it was junk. Marble is allergic to explosives.

http://youtu.be/a5IoBQJgx8c

[loggah]

Dave, thats a pretty neat machine. To bad about the piece being fractured. The Peavey machine worked on very flat surfaces,but on irregular surfaces it didn't get enough traction to pull loaded logging sleds. It would probably propel itself fine without anything behind it. He was trying to compete with lombard.

[shinnlinger]

I was reading somewhere that the Tucker snowcat guy tried the screws for a few years before going to tracks.   The screws are suposedly good in wet heavy snow or muddy swamps but they aren't very efficient and fairly useless in other situations. 

[thecfarm]

Dave,as the title says,interesting machine.

[ScottAR]

Tournaskidder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoU-g1mgORc&list=PL8A40CF2ADD51AA42

Tournatrain prototype
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uio3HgeSRTI

Tournatrain that Loggah posted
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URbE0iY3GhQ

Komatsu underwater bulldozer anyone?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRf-zF5udZw

[KyLogger]

I had seen the Tournaskidder one before, but the underwater dozers are awesome! Complete with rippers. Only the Japanese............ remote controlled. I bet it's a mother when they break down in 15 feet of water.....

Thanks for sharing!

[ForestryEquipment]

Anyone seen one of these work?

https://forestryequipmentsales.com/videos/hahn-harvester-hsw110c-processing-logs.html

[Dave Shepard]

I've never seen anything like that. An interesting approach.

[g_man]

Here are a couple I saw at the Logging Museum near Klamath Falls OR on a trip last summer to visit my daughter.

A Steam Tractor. I love the steering mechanism. And the operators platform.



 

Here is a Cat 30 with a log arch. The 60 and 30 were the very first machines made by Cat. The forerunner of the dozer. Being an easterner the log arch says it all about western wood!!



 

gg

[Mainer_for_life]

This thread has been inactive for a while. Come on people I have seen other threads keep the interesting machines coming. Christmas vacation from school means I have  more to to eat in the old machines and learn as much as I can.

[loggah]

Here is a 1929 Coleman truck i used to own.It was bought new by the town of Gorham N.H. to plow Gorham hill,anyone who has trucked in northern N.H. knows Gorham hill!!! ;D The Coleman is a pretty rare truck,made in Littleton Colorado.The man that built them was a oil magnate who once bet his Colemans could outpull a locomotive,which it did. ;D The truck is now owned by Dick Hallberg who did the great restoration,with Dick 100% isn't good enough.

[Mainer_for_life]

Wow, I bet you moved some snow with that rig the restoration is great.

[Woodhauler]

Here is a 1929 Coleman truck i used to own.It was bought new by the town of Gorham N.H. to plow Gorham hill,anyone who has trucked in northern N.H. knows Gorham hill!!! ;D The Coleman is a pretty rare truck,made in Littleton Colorado.The man that built them was a oil magnate who once bet his Colemans could outpull a locomotive,which it did. ;D The truck is now owned by Dick Hallberg who did the great restoration,with Dick 100% isn't good enough.

You have owned about everything with a motor!!!  Hats off to you! What is in your collection now?

[Mainer_for_life]

The restoration was nice I bet you could push some snow with that.

[Mainer_for_life]

Sorry about the double post I had a glitch with my iPad. Yes loggah what is in your collection now, I have seen your Lombards. Also I forget the name but do you know about the couple of guys here in Maine that restore Lombards. They have somewhere near five and they even have two with dump bodies.

[loggah]

Thats the Brettons in Vasselboro! they got a pretty good assortment of lombard stuff. At one time i had about 35-40 crawlers and trucks + half a dozen pieces of logging equipment. Im down to  around 17 pieces all together now.To much junk to list!!! ;D  The Coleman had a v plow and double wings ,6 speed transmission and 30 miles per hour was top speed. I had a 1943 Walters snowfighter ,it was a beast plowing also but it only got 1 mile per gallon of gas !

[barbender]

What was that Coleman powered by?

[loggah]

It had a Buda  6 cylinder gas engine , i cant remember the specific model but it was about 650 c.i. with dual ignition,it was a real smooth running machine.

[ScottAR]

Great looking machine Loggah!

As to the OP,  ask and ye shall receive

Koehring 505 "Skooper"  More or less in between a full hydraulic machine and a cable shovel.
The cable guys were competing with the new hydraulic machines.  You could take the skooper attachment off and refit a standard crane boom or cable shovel if you wanted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2BXzV_8glc

Koehring logging machines I found by happy accident
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bj9_Ya_G8A

Koehring 1466 customized by contractor with super long front building slurry walls. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmKvnyfM9_8

Sorry about all the Koehring but they made a lot of neat stuff.

Stick rake:  Saw old pics of these used in OZ called a Symonds rake.  Seems someone is making them here now.   I want one.  ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X65JmRf5e14

Kaiser walking excavator somewhere in Europe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKmQdkQ2j6k

Huddig TLB with rototilt attachment.  I'm in love...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zGQlGweHG0

Skymax harvester.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FwgrE6afvs

That should hold ya a bit.  Keep posting. I thought ya left.

[1270d]

There was a 1466 working a couple miles away from my house a year or so back.  Very impressive.  I think they were digging around 70 ft down, but capable of 90?

[Mainer_for_life]

Wow some of the things people come up with are cool

[ScottAR]

Could be that very machine 1270d.  I understand they only modified the one.  They could have two I suppose.  Just for size reference, here's a 1066E making a dump truck look pretty small.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJnGUsVSAO0

[1270d]

this is the one.  It was delivered in five or six pieces I think.  Half the time it was on site it was broken.  Guys that were working on the project said it kept popping jib cylinders.

Not positive but I think the machine may be owned by Remedial Construction (recon).  They have 3 1466's




 

[Ljohnsaw]

I remember years ago (25 or so?) a machine like that working on the levees around Sacramento digging the slurry trenches.  They had miles of trench to dig to seal up the levees.  I was just amazed at the reach.