The Shooters Apprentice
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I did.
Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)
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The Shooters Apprentice
Addicted to ArboristSite
616-0434. If you ever have equipment questions hit me up. It’s what I do for a living. Plus I like to BS as much as the next guy.No not at all! I'm a my own man that makes my own decisions. I'll ask for advice, listen to advise, but that doesn't mean Im going to take the advice. That being said. If the person offering the advice is much more experienced at me on the subject? Im most likely going to take the advice. I don't blame anyone for giving me cold feet brother! Thats why I asked what you guys think in the first place!I can describe in detail for half an hour how to swing a four foot Old Growth and save it out along a bluff!
I know very little about skid steers!
Kodiak Kid
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Well, Im no Super Mario, but I appreciate that complement!he might!but i sure as he** don't!!! i am pretty sure u can do anything or close.. with nothing and in no time at all!
Kodiak Kid
Idiot with a "power saw"
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Yeah sounds good man!
Fir sure!
Kodiak Kid
Idiot with a "power saw"
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Kodiak Kid
Idiot with a "power saw"
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How about backing in?
Privately owned ASV RC 30, maybe an RC 50, about 15 years old to get away from CAT ownership and quality with under 2k hours.
OR,
A brand new RC 40 made by the original ASV ownership- they've straightend out QAQC now they own their own name again.
I like the ASV track tensioning better than the CAT which uses a traditional grease piston, which basically allows it to loosen, and thats dumb, Same for Bobcat. Grease over a mechanical tensioner.
But, I am still guessing what he is going to do primarily. I *think* he is going to do some scrounging and sell/deliver firewood, and do some grading and fill work, driveways and culverts. For ANY of that, he doesn't need 75 hp and 84 inch buckets, and weigh in at 9k pounds, its just overkill. But he hasn't stipulated what he is doing yet, that I have seen, waiting on him to divulge.
If he's doing what I think, he can adjust the size of the log he wants to pick up and drop into a trailer. He can use a 1/2 ton to tow his trailer with the machine in it, he can use a 1/2 ton to haul logs in his dump trailer, but not both at the same time, and he wont with a 1 ton either..... If he's doing work for himself, he adjusts his effort to fit his time. If he is bidding work, he adjusts his price for his productivity and he gets the job or he doesn't.
I get people all the time stopping (following me until I stop somewhere) me and asking me how big my machine is, because they see its small, and they have a small access. I get calls from three different clearing guys every month to do a job they can't get their machine into. I can drive into glass double doors at the closed Kmart store someone is remodeling, and take out concrete rubble to the other end of the parking lot for the new plumbing changes under the slab. The list of tasks I have done BECAUSE the machine is 47" wide, is too long to list. Yet I can move a dump truck full of dirt almost as fast as a 75 HP machine if I'm backfilling a house stemwall the difference in time is negligible, and I am preffered, because I can truly get "closer" to the edge.
https://www.asvi.com/compact-track-loaders/rt-40/
OR,
A brand new RC 40 made by the original ASV ownership- they've straightend out QAQC now they own their own name again.
I like the ASV track tensioning better than the CAT which uses a traditional grease piston, which basically allows it to loosen, and thats dumb, Same for Bobcat. Grease over a mechanical tensioner.
But, I am still guessing what he is going to do primarily. I *think* he is going to do some scrounging and sell/deliver firewood, and do some grading and fill work, driveways and culverts. For ANY of that, he doesn't need 75 hp and 84 inch buckets, and weigh in at 9k pounds, its just overkill. But he hasn't stipulated what he is doing yet, that I have seen, waiting on him to divulge.
If he's doing what I think, he can adjust the size of the log he wants to pick up and drop into a trailer. He can use a 1/2 ton to tow his trailer with the machine in it, he can use a 1/2 ton to haul logs in his dump trailer, but not both at the same time, and he wont with a 1 ton either..... If he's doing work for himself, he adjusts his effort to fit his time. If he is bidding work, he adjusts his price for his productivity and he gets the job or he doesn't.
I get people all the time stopping (following me until I stop somewhere) me and asking me how big my machine is, because they see its small, and they have a small access. I get calls from three different clearing guys every month to do a job they can't get their machine into. I can drive into glass double doors at the closed Kmart store someone is remodeling, and take out concrete rubble to the other end of the parking lot for the new plumbing changes under the slab. The list of tasks I have done BECAUSE the machine is 47" wide, is too long to list. Yet I can move a dump truck full of dirt almost as fast as a 75 HP machine if I'm backfilling a house stemwall the difference in time is negligible, and I am preffered, because I can truly get "closer" to the edge.
https://www.asvi.com/compact-track-loaders/rt-40/
Well, Im no Super Mario, but I appreciate that complement!
you had me from the moment u pulled anchor in that skiff... and buzzed out across the bay... heading up for some salmon fishing! .... damned and full of purpose... showing no concerns for any of the dangers i see on Life Below Zero and Log Cabins/ALASKA shows.... lol
Kodiak Kid
Idiot with a "power saw"
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I've got some time in one of those beached whales!
Fun fir about half sn hour. then it was like anything else.
Didn't you buy a low boy dump? Boxes sits between the wheels? Either way, its a fuction of how long your ramps are. I will caution you on steel tracks on metal, and a slight cross slope on the road, you can get squirrely.......
The Shooters Apprentice
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Less sketchy feeling, but puts too much weight on the truck.
To be fair, running tire machines into a dump trailer also feels sketchy but I’ve never rolled one. I normally just try to find a little hill to back up towards to get the ramps more level
these days, all one mite need is 3 credit cards with nice LOC's!Oh definitely understood! However, where am I going to find a CTL with only 240hrs on it fir 40K??
That's the difference. The last one I had a shot at needed a $6.5k factory maintenance at 2200 hours and It STIHL Would hav cost me 55k by the time it got here. And that apparently was a "good deal" Heck if I could afford it id buy a D-5 high track grapple CAT, a self loading log truck and a $75k saw mill and a $100k firewood processor. Unfortunately, last time I checked my bank account, I just didn't have quite enough coin fellas!
Kodiak Kid
Idiot with a "power saw"
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How am I going to tow a 12000-14000 pound gross trailer load with a half ton?
I had one on my 72 . Worked but when I was towing it would make a good awful harmonic noise . Like when you turned the lid over on the stock air cleaner . I ended up changing out the manifold after talking with the tech at Edelbrock . I had one sitting in my shed . Noise was totally gone afterwards.
the QB asked my why i was laffing so much this morning!!No skid loader experience per se. I'm running in the woods with my tractor all winter long. I make my own trails with the rock bucket when needed. Lots of big rocks and stumps. I would never get over some of that stuff with a skid steer. I can hook to logs and lift them up with the 3 point hitch and drag them to an easy cutting area. If we had any measurable snowfall I would never get into the woods without plowing a path with a skidsteer. I've been out in close to 2 feet of snow cutting with the tractor. Not saying a skid steer wouldn't work for the kid. Just my setup and what works. This tractor/ skid steer debate is almost as much fun as an oil thread.
i've got a fence to replace/build... but it is 52f out and now raining!!!drinking
and reading the morning suits me just fine! 
that D5 sounding better all the time!
both skidders and tractors can do what they do very well! mutually exclusive, too! i have seen several skidders in action. pulled up to my place, skidder on flatbed, backed it off, and unloaded a load of slip in tools! and off he went... post hole digging, fence post setting, tree debris to the big burn pile, RR timbers several at a time... back n forth, up n down... non-stop and got a lot done with the ease of hydraulic control! tracks on that one! nice!!No not at all! I'm a my own man that makes my own decisions. I'll ask for advice, listen to advise, but that doesn't mean Im going to take the advice. That being said. If the person offering the advice is much more experienced at me on the subject? Im most likely going to take the advice. I don't blame anyone for giving me cold feet brother! Thats why I asked what you guys think in the first place!
I know very little about skid steers!
then, imo... a decision for you should be simple! especially since AK is 3/4 year winter... get what u can afford. cash, credit, banker whatever... get what is closest to u and local or go see and flatbed it in. get one in best condition. low hours sounds like the deal. i cannot see u with wheels in deep AK snows doing any tree work... so trax would be best. and go for it! make a decision and git to work....No not at all! I'm a my own man that makes my own decisions. I'll ask for advice, listen to advise, but that doesn't mean Im going to take the advice. That being said. If the person offering the advice is much more experienced at me on the subject? Im most likely going to take the advice. I don't blame anyone for giving me cold feet brother! Thats why I asked what you guys think in the first place!
I know very little about skid steers!
Kodiak Kid
Idiot with a "power saw"
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This is what Im going to be doing with it 80% of the time! Except into my trailer not a dump truck.
I'll be skiding logs with it also.
2 trips and trailer brakes I guess?
I'm gonna get flamed hard right now but, Imma big boy, i can take it.
HP and speed are WAAAAAY overrated. I've made money far sooner reaching my ROI sooner than others, because I made do with what I had. I've owned the 100hp ASV, sold with the company, needed less than half the HP to get the same work done, so I wasted the purchase price, and continued to hurt the ROI, every time I put diesel in it. More HP more operating costs.
I've said it before, I am lazy. But I am also not afraid and have always had the resources to go buy something I want. Even with those two attributes, its because I made informed decisons and was rational about filling the need without over compensating...... I had the RC 100 specifically to move Granite boulders on a beach I couldn't get permitted to build a concrete seawall to protrect the upland Condo. so a sloped rock revetment was all I could do, and the granite as you know, is quite heavy and had to be for a high energy beach. I rented a Cat 924 for the higher placings, but the ASV laid alot of bedding stone in graduated sizes first, and even tooled in the lower rows until I ran out of reach.
NOT MY PICTURE OR MY WORK, I'd have to search a few ext HD's find any of mine, but similiar. OTR dump trucks could get down the beach at low tide and drop rocks within 50' so an excavator wasn't "mobile" enough, I had to have all equipment off the beach at night and leavfe no stockpile in the intertidal area, being a fouor mile drive tot he beach ramp each night, I wasn't walking and excavator thaty far either.
