iDRY Vacuum Kilns

Sponsors:

Carriage designed by Forest Service for the PeeWee Yarder

Started by janadellamano, March 13, 2017, 08:15:41 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

janadellamano

 I'm looking for plans for the Slack-pulling carriage designed for the PeeWee Yarder and mentioned on page 3 of the following publication:
https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/pnw_gtr092.pdf
I already checked with the USFS and they said they had nothing on record.
Any info, photos or other info on this or other shop-built carriages would be appreciated.
I am working on a prototype for a small scale cable logging system with the primary purpose being removing slash off of Glade/Woodland-Savanna projects in Missouri, so we're looking at keeping the costs low while we figure some things out.
But if anyone has ideas or experience in putting something like this together - - meaning the whole system as well as the carriage, I'd most interested and grateful.
Thanks!

Autocar

A number of years ago i read a artical about a small yarder being used by the forestry department in West Virgina. It might ring a bell with someone down in that area. Goodluck with your adventure.
Bill

edmontana

I work for the Forest Service and I have a bitterroot yarder sitting at my office. We use a Christy carriage on it. I am getting a small slackpulling carriage from the Southern Research Station shipped out to me sometime in April. When I get it, I can post some pictures to see if its something your interested in. I'm unsure of the manufacturer, I thought it was made by Christy also. If you're unfamiliar with the bitterroot yarder, you can get some information here: https://www.fs.fed.us/eng/php/library_card.php?p_num=8351%202504P Hope this helps.

isx525

blast from the past !!  I live about an hour from where this "pee-wee" yarder was tested (u of wash. pack forest) I was in high school, at that time (1979)  the logger that ran the yarder for testing was a friend of my dad. 
                                                                                             
                                                                              isx525

Riwaka

You really need to tell us the type of terrain the machine will be working in and the conditions. e.g slope percent , slope distance, uphill/ downhill drags, size and weight of the material, how much you want to drag per turn, working off roadsides or prepared landings, gradient and condition of access roads etc.
If you are not an engineer, you will need to explain to the engineer how much you want to spend etc, how many people you want to use in the logging crew, work in with other machinery (track loaders, chippers etc) etc.
You can probably still find used *eco-logger*s small tower yarders out there or would you prefer something less old?
Newer  carriages have radio control etc e.g  look through the Koller carriage range; start weight is 330lbs. http://www.kollerna.com
The following are youtube video titles of various European lightweight yarding setups on truck, trailer and tractor, excavator bases.
*CARRO TST 2500 carriage for any tower yarder / skyline / yoder*
This shows a modern European carriage  *Carriage for tower yarder / cable yarding system / skylining* TST Forestry 2/3 person cable logging crew, radio control yarders and chokers.   https://youtu.be/1MBw-V77RCU?t=50s
*Tower Yarder Koller K306 H* remote control yarder
*TST Yarder & Winde*   (European yoader)
*Allied WH400 Winches*  (2 drum winch set up in Idaho)
*Alpine shovel yarder* no fuel motor grapple - could use a small version of this to have a no choker/ no man under the ropes setup
In terms of your project cost - a plane ticket for a cable logging engineer/ consultant from the West Coast could potentially save you much trial and error expense.

janadellamano

Thanks for the replies and ideas. We have a system up and running but still working out some limitations. From what I have been able to find, I'm wondering if the carriage I asked about maybe became the Small Christy Carriage.  I haven't found anything on the design of the one developed by the FS for the PeeWee Yarder, but some of the descriptions sound like thay may be so. Anway, would still like to find something on that original design if it's out there somewhere . . .  Thanks again.
To reply to the more specific questions asked, this is in the Southeastern Missouri Ozarks. Most typical sites are slightly convex slopes of 20%, ranging from 30% to 10%. Typical distance 250 to 600 feet. Materials are small diameter and we can control the loads by how many small trees we load into a given haul, or by bucking larger logs. Typical load would be only about 1/2 ton (1,000 lbs), but a capability for hauling a full ton would be beneficial. The goal is to get at least the butt of the log off the ground during skidding, but we don't need to fly them out. Most trees will be cedars which we can leave some of the top on to allow for "softer" dragging. Occasionally, a larger and heavier post oak or black oak or such would be beneficial to haul out. The main goal is fuel load reduction on Glade/Woodland restoration projects where we are cutting the excess trees that have encroached on these sites after 100 years or so of fire suppression, and prep them for prescribed burns, but fuel loads are such that it puts the desirable leave-trees at risk. So this is not a commercial timber operation. There is the potential to have some merchantable or salvage material sent to a mill, but most will be used for firewood, posts, or simply burned as slash in a separate operation. Most sites have a Forest Trail, Forest Opening, or Forest Landing at the top that we are working from.  A two person crew would be most desirable, but three people is possible. We currently have a "yarder operator" and a choke setter. Our "yarder" is a farm tractor rigged by blocks to our homemade carriage. The carriage is gravity fed, and currently running on a fixed skyline hung from spar trees at top and bottom. Since we don't have a haul-back capability for the carriage, we are only looking at uphill yarding so far, but developing our system further so that we might have a haul-back and the potential for downhill yarding would be beneficial. Our biggest constraint so far is that we have virtually no budget!!!  :-) We're just a couple of Foresters/Wildlife biologists trying to figure out how to get these trees off of these sites without the use of skidders which would create too much disturbance and damage to fragile sites. As we show some success and potential, we might be able to convince our Agency to invest in a more "complete" system, or work some numbers to show what would be an acceptable capital investment for a commercial operation.

nativewolf

I can say that there is interest in small yarder for just this reason.  Any interest in sharing your plans/pictures of work to date.  We're a very ...sharing community and generally share whatever we do with many members fully documenting extensive builds, etc.  Perhaps if you'd share your work we could comment and suggest ideas and others could extend upon that work? 

In any case, thanks.  There is no commercial, to my knowledge, offering that would be competing. 
Liking Walnut

Puffergas

edmontana, I understand how a differential works as a winch. Brake one wheel and the other winches in. But as one drum winches in the other needs to winch out. So, does  the brake need to slip?

This is on my list to build.   ☺
Jeff
Somewhere 20 miles south of Lake Erie.

GEHL 5624 skid steer, Trojan 114, Timberjack 225D, D&L SB1020 mill, Steiger Bearcat II

mike_belben

One small sliver i may be able to help with is budget. 

Cedar is said to have the highest R value per inch of any wood. I dont know if thats true, but the "cordwood construction" crowd believes it and thinks of cedar as the crown jewel of infill choices when building cordwood houses.  Many of these homes are built by hippie chicks and their prius pals, from pieces down to 3" diameter.   They hang out on earthy crunchy forums like permies.com and go to builder workshops.  There is actually an annual cordwood conference hosted in various parts of the  country and people pay to attend.  I would atleast make a phone call to rob roy and tell him youve got a huge amount of cedar.. Does he know anyone in the region who is a cordwood builder.   He has been doing books and classes for 20 or 30 years and probably knows everyone interested in buying it by the truckload.  Nice guy.   Contact info at bottom of this page.

http://cordwoodmasonry.com/event/continental-cordwood-conference-2015/

Praise The Lord

Resonator

I don't value my cordwood in "R's", I rate it by "BTU's".  :)
Under bark there's boards and beams, somewhere in between.
Cuttin' while its green, through a steady sawdust stream.
I'm chasing the sawdust dream.

Proud owner of a Wood-Mizer 2017 LT28G19

edmontana

I'm attaching the operator's manual for the bitteroot yarder. Puffergas, yes you slip the clutch. It makes that clear in the instructions.
If anyone wants the drawings for this yarder, let me know.

janadellamano

just an FYI, I hadn't replied to the earlier responses till now because I didn't have my notifications turned on and didn't know anyone had replied till just the other day. Anyway, I will try to post some pics of our operation soon. We don't get to work on it very often since it's not our "real job", plus uncooperative weather . . .  So relatively few weekends available when those opportunities come together. Thanks for the additional info and ideas. Description-wise, if I'm using the right terminology, we are rigged as a fixed skyline using head and tail spar trees. Our carriage is shop-built from a flat slab of 1/2 inch steel with two blocks on top that run on the 1/2 inch skyline, and two blocks below that carry the 3/8 inch mainline. Our power source is a farm tractor that simply pulls the mainline in. Using gravity for the haulback of the carriage downhill. We've learned we need "more gravity" to get the carriage down the hill, so looking to add weight to the carriage, and be more conscious of our setup so we use existing slope to our advantage as much as possible. Looking at how we might adapt what we have to create a powered haul-back line to the carriage instead of relying on gravity. A little difficult when using a moving tractor as your power source!  :-)  I think this would be a lot more efficient if we can get a double drum winch for our power source instead of the tractor. And we'd like to build something like the Bitterroot Yarder eventually. But for now we are getting the loads up the hill. Just not as efficiently as we'd like, but we're working on it. 

janadellamano

One other problem we're facing is: on small loads we can drag the mainline out by hand to set the chokers and do some lateral pulling toward the skyline, and then take everything up the hill to the landing. But on larger loads, we've found that without a brake or lock that keeps the mainline close to the carriage, the heavier loads stay further away from the carriage and limit our lift, so we do more dragging/skidding of the load than we'd like to see. We have been able to compensate for that by adding a block at the chokers and attaching the end of the mainline back to the carriage, creating a hoist to double the lifting power at that point. It works but then we can't drag the end of the mainline with chokers to the logs - - we have to drag it as a loop with the block, and that limits our ability to pull the mainline out for lateral pulls. It's simply a lot harder to pull, and uses twice as much cable. Not sure that makes sense in trying to describe it in words . . . 

mike_belben

For powering down hill.. Could you use a clothesline style looped skyline anchored between pulleys.. And a capstan friction drum with fwd/rev off your pto to both pull the line up and feed it back out?


Look into the early bobcat 400 thru 600 series chain drives for an idea on a belt style reverser.  You can get forward and reverse from a single rotation source by idlers and the use of both sides of a belt.
Praise The Lord

Riwaka

Alpine set up South Africa with trips/ clamped on line (with hyundai excavator).  http://www.alpinelogging.co.za/products/carriaccess002.html  (be interesting cost out tractor powered hydraulic system to run 2 drums plus strawline) e.g small brevini hydraulic winches etc http://www.brevini.us/products_category/winches-en/  (to end up hopefully with a small tractor version of a yoader, electro-hydraulics possible to remote control functions for effciency etc)
https://youtu.be/yPeKwlvEvyE

mike_belben

That vertical redirect hanger is something id have never thought of.   Impressive. 
Praise The Lord

Skeans1

Quote from: mike_belben on December 11, 2017, 11:21:11 AM
That vertical redirect hanger is something id have never thought of.   Impressive.
From memory they call them a jack here's a pretty good little hand book of how to rig ect. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://osha.oregon.gov/OSHAPubs/1935.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwihnbWRtILYAhUJzGMKHeWnCOwQFgglMAA&usg=AOvVaw1xolPe-Y63VEE3c-jJgMzd

One reason you don't see a bunch of improvement in yarder technology is there's a big push to get the guys off the ground here with grapples that have built in cameras. Tethering is another reason you don't see improvements some guys will tether a grapple skidder, clambunk, track skidder, or tether shovel log the days of setting chokers are coming to an end.

mike_belben

Im betting the insurance premiums had a role to play in that.
Praise The Lord

Skeans1

Quote from: mike_belben on December 11, 2017, 08:11:25 PM
Im betting the insurance premiums had a role to play in that.
That's some of it but most was the companies and contractors wanting people off the ground.

DMcCoy

The VanNatta museum might be a resource for you, located near Vernonia,OR.

http://vannattabros.com/

Here is a section on carriages

http://www.vannattabros.com/iron26.html

This week I removed about 50% of a stand of alder, and have about 12 more to go to finish the 1 ac. segment.  4-10" on the stump, some of which I could have put on a log truck as pulp -30' with a 4" top.  Spacing for fire and release are my goals.  There is just no money in thinning as everyone knows. 

I broke down and bought a Harbor Freight 12VDC winch that I mounted on the front of my JD 4610 tractor and rigged a snatch block on the loader to get a little lift.  This winch came with a wireless remote which I clipped to my logger tape.  I was a little impressed that the remote reached out 50' - the full length of the cable.

It works like I had envisioned with the only complaint I have is having to walk back to set the dog clutch from free wheel to engaged to pull.

Not sure if that would help you but the wireless remote is a really nice feature.  If it had a wireless remote for the dog clutch that would be ideal.  If your skid road spacing is 100' it might work as a powered carriage with a small generator for a 12v battery and this would give you some of the extra weight you said you needed.  Or a bigger battery winch and some wireless controls.  Just ideas fwiw.

Skeans1

Quote from: DMcCoy on December 12, 2017, 08:13:58 AM
The VanNatta museum might be a resource for you, located near Vernonia,OR.

http://vannattabros.com/

Here is a section on carriages

http://www.vannattabros.com/iron26.html

This week I removed about 50% of a stand of alder, and have about 12 more to go to finish the 1 ac. segment.  4-10" on the stump, some of which I could have put on a log truck as pulp -30' with a 4" top.  Spacing for fire and release are my goals.  There is just no money in thinning as everyone knows. 

I broke down and bought a Harbor Freight 12VDC winch that I mounted on the front of my JD 4610 tractor and rigged a snatch block on the loader to get a little lift.  This winch came with a wireless remote which I clipped to my logger tape.  I was a little impressed that the remote reached out 50' - the full length of the cable.

It works like I had envisioned with the only complaint I have is having to walk back to set the dog clutch from free wheel to engaged to pull.

Not sure if that would help you but the wireless remote is a really nice feature.  If it had a wireless remote for the dog clutch that would be ideal.  If your skid road spacing is 100' it might work as a powered carriage with a small generator for a 12v battery and this would give you some of the extra weight you said you needed.  Or a bigger battery winch and some wireless controls.  Just ideas fwiw.
I know the VanNatta's they're a few miles down the road actually from me outside of Rainier, Vernonia is another 20 miles South or so. Now to your thinning statement I work all over NW Oregon doing commercial thinning there's money there trust me even at 2 to 1 load ratio but the minimum we need to make it worth it is 20+ acres. Steep ground thinning there's not much of it going on that I know of other then some tethering but I'm not sure how it pencils out as we haven't dived into it yet. Who does your hauling?

thecfarm

Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

DMcCoy

Quote from: Skeans1 on December 12, 2017, 10:35:07 AM
I know the VanNatta's they're a few miles down the road actually from me outside of Rainier, Vernonia is another 20 miles South or so. Now to your thinning statement I work all over NW Oregon doing commercial thinning there's money there trust me even at 2 to 1 load ratio but the minimum we need to make it worth it is 20+ acres. Steep ground thinning there's not much of it going on that I know of other then some tethering but I'm not sure how it pencils out as we haven't dived into it yet. Who does your hauling?

We have different ideas on thinning.  I bet I got a cord and 1/2 out of what I removed.  I probably left 25% to rot as it was too small.  Stems are 10/12'- 16' feet apart and I'm planning to not go back in until clear cutting.  This was my second trip through.

If you can make a go of thinning I think you have a bright future ahead of you.  So much ground looks like it needs it to me.  Steepness is an issue.  Stimpson thinned a patch down the road where they went in early(10-12 yrs) and just cut it and left it to rot.

Last loads we shipped were with Mike Phil, before Axemen.  Beyond my ability.  High lead.  Had a couple of loads leave here with only 4 logs, the stuff was that big.

Robert VanAtta opens his place to visitors on occasion or at least he did but I couldn't find any reference to that on their web page.

Skeans1

Quote from: DMcCoy on December 12, 2017, 07:41:41 PM
Quote from: Skeans1 on December 12, 2017, 10:35:07 AM
I know the VanNatta's they're a few miles down the road actually from me outside of Rainier, Vernonia is another 20 miles South or so. Now to your thinning statement I work all over NW Oregon doing commercial thinning there's money there trust me even at 2 to 1 load ratio but the minimum we need to make it worth it is 20+ acres. Steep ground thinning there's not much of it going on that I know of other then some tethering but I'm not sure how it pencils out as we haven't dived into it yet. Who does your hauling?

We have different ideas on thinning.  I bet I got a cord and 1/2 out of what I removed.  I probably left 25% to rot as it was too small.  Stems are 10/12'- 16' feet apart and I'm planning to not go back in until clear cutting.  This was my second trip through.

If you can make a go of thinning I think you have a bright future ahead of you.  So much ground looks like it needs it to me.  Steepness is an issue.  Stimpson thinned a patch down the road where they went in early(10-12 yrs) and just cut it and left it to rot.

Last loads we shipped were with Mike Phil, before Axemen.  Beyond my ability.  High lead.  Had a couple of loads leave here with only 4 logs, the stuff was that big.

Robert VanAtta opens his place to visitors on occasion or at least he did but I couldn't find any reference to that on their web page.
I know the family pretty well we've been out here for a 100 years this year. Mike is a good guy we know a few guys that work for him and do some of his contracting. Steepness now isn't such an issue as long as Oregon doesn't do too far with limiting the tethering that's available now it's impressive to say the least.

Now to the thinning part we've been doing company and private thinning for over 30 years from tree length to CTL now, for your spacing your shooting for roughly 180 an acre if so that's about what we do all the time. Now with the small stuff we take that all out for either material to run on or as pulp all dead comes out and other then a trail tree the best is always left. I don't think our idea of it is much different to be honest my idea is for the best stand quality first and then spacing. If you would like some pictures of what we've done and of our own timber out here in Rainier I'd be happy send send some your way.

DMcCoy

My harvest-able property is well below your starting point.  This is also my exercise beyond stand improvement, other wise I'd get too fat.  I guess my point about pay is from the landowner side, 1 1/2 cords of firewood isn't much, even on my own property.  A lot of work for next to nothing, with trying to not bark the remaining trees that just takes a ton of time.  After this patch is done I've decided my time is better spent cutting early so I won't feel the need to drag it out.
From what you describe it sounds like you do a good job!   

Thank You Sponsors!