Dealing with the big rounds....poor mans way.

[rbtree]

My only concern with the winches, either electric or hand, is being in the line of fire when the cable breaks. That cable will come straight back to the winch at a high rate of speed.

Solve that problem by replacing steel with synthetic line.....UHMWPE ropes are expensive, but have near zero stretch at break, so don't spring back...and they float.

 

[mga]

gees....i use a hand winch.

 

[Wood Doctor]

gees....i use a hand winch.

And so do I as shown in my diagram. Note that the ramps I made were designed to minimize friction, similar to a pair of small railroad rails. Most ramps are designed to provide traction, just the opposite of what we are trying to do by dragging the big rounds up the inclined plane.

I considered rolling the logs up with a wrapped line, but that fails when the bark is wet and the beast "spins its wheels." The rounds also are sometimes not round and don't roll worth a hoot.

Amazing what we run into in the field that destroys theory. :censored:

 

[dsm382]

WOW. lots of good info here...
when out in the woods we only cut what we can carry, the wife and I, now due to health reasons she can't carry what she could before. so i have to whatch what i haul and cut.
when i got her, her own truck a couple years back i had to explain "it's only a half ton truck" and we had to unload some of the wood, but that does not stop her when she loads my 3/4 ton

Oh and WOODDOC? you need a bigger truck

we got lucky one weekend and ended up with 4 loads of this in two days. i made the mistake telling her she could ' load mine up' lucky she stopped when she got to the roof....BTW she loaded BOTH trucks both days by herself...while i cut and hauled up the hill. we do need a winch to drag up the hills and hollows.....

now when you guys are talking BIG rounds, yeah i do agree, it may be tough to split (horzonal spliter here) but dangone it produces a ton of wood.

humm maybe a cord here?

 

[iowawoodcutter]

And, even monster mauls don't work very well splitting elm, the most common wood that I cut.

So true, I hate elm.(splitting it at least).

 

[avalancher]

My only concern with the winches, either electric or hand, is being in the line of fire when the cable breaks. That cable will come straight back to the winch at a high rate of speed.

I found that out the hard way over the winter when I was winching from my 4-wheeler and the clasp that holds the hook snapped. It came straight back over the front of the 4-wheeler and caught me across the face. It happened to fast there was absolutely no way to get out of the way. Luckily I was wearing safety glasses and the cable scratched my cheek and forehead.

The 1500 lb winch I have laying around has a corded remote for it. If it weren't for that I don't think I'd consider using it.

Thanks for this posting, you jinxed me!!!!
Yesterday I went and hauled wood, had 13 big rounds that were a little over 30 inches in diameter. Once I got there I discovered that I had forgotten my tow strap in my other truck. Then I remembered seeing a Autozone on the way in, about 2 miles down the road. Ran back down there and got a 20 ft strap with steel hooks on each end.
Got back and started pulling rounds into the trailer.POW!
The strap came unhooked and the hook came flying back into the trailer. What the :censored: ?
Rehooked and the same happened again. Took a good look at the hooks, they were some cheap hooks that didnt have much of a hook to them, so they didnt close around enough of the strap to hold. Ended up using a carabiner that I had on my climbing gear and managed to thread it through the loop that went around the eye of the strap that attached the hook to the strap and went from there.
On the way home stopped back at Autozone and got my money back.

 

[TJ-Bill]

Just a note.. I never ever use straps with metal hooks for hauling anything, just in case what happened to you happens. think what would have happened if you would have been in front of the hook when it came flying back.. I have a couple straps with hooks that I won, I normally use then to secure loads in the trailer.

Most likely sounds like you had little choice here, but I thought I'd mention it.

 

[avalancher]

Just a note.. I never ever use straps with metal hooks for hauling anything, just in case what happened to you happens. think what would have happened if you would have been in front of the hook when it came flying back.. I have a couple straps with hooks that I won, I normally use then to secure loads in the trailer.

Most likely sounds like you had little choice here, but I thought I'd mention it.

Oh, I agree with you on that one, I have never used one before with metal hooks. My strap that I use has no hooks, just eyes sewn in. But like you said, I didnt have much choice yesterday.

 

[Agnes]

Thanks WoodDoc

These pics are exactly what I was hoping you would post. Your ingenuity never ceases to amaze me. Being a self sufficient one man show requires us to work smart and let the equipment do the hard work.

Can you take a picture of the bottom of that ramp? I like your setup it will definitely save may back.....

I think you could build this same setup for the Chevy S-10 and it would work fine. Ordinary ramps, that would also work, and the winch are both available from either Northern Tools or Harbor freight. I built my own ramps because I am also a woodsmith:

Now, the proof is in the pudding. Look at the size of that log that I was able to drag on board by myself with this assembly:

That log weighs in excess of 350 lb. Had it been oak, it would have weighed at least 500 lb. In that case, the tailgate may not have handled it.

 

[AOD]

I want to create a new maul to handle the huge tough rounds. It is going to be called the Viking mall and it's going to weigh 50 pounds with a 1" steel pipe handle. It will have the endorsement of Odin and will destroy any logs that dare oppose it.

 

[avalancher]

20 minutes of swinging that thing and you will be ready for the hot tub!

 

[Wood Doctor]

I want to create a new maul to handle the huge tough rounds. It is going to be called the Viking mall and it's going to weigh 50 pounds with a 1" steel pipe handle. It will have the endorsement of Odin and will destroy any logs that dare oppose it.

That's pointless. I have split huge rounds into firewood that are bigger than the one pictured above using two wedges and a 10-lb sledge hammer. Just work your way around the outside, use your head sometimes, and the job gets done.

An 8-lb maul cleans up. When it's oak or maple, it's even a breeze--kind of like SuperSplit commercials.

 

[AOD]

The point of the Viking maul is not so much to split wood more efficiently, but to make a new and stronger person out of the operator.

 

[chainsaw1]

Here is a Crane so to speak that i built on the back of my wood trailer. It works alot better than i thought it was going to, i have a 3000# ATV winch mounted on 3in sch. 40 black pipe that is in 4in sch. 40 pipe than i bought 1100 1/4 ball barings that fit per in the 4in around the 3in pipe, so i just lift the log and swing it in. As you can see i can lift some very big logs in with it and it saves on my back. The wood i have in their is some i just went and picked up this weekend because i am waiting on my saw so i just found some laying around.

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

I can't comment on loading, since I cheat. I get mine loaded with a big commercial log grapple, for free. Some of it goes to 48" round, and 30" long. Too heavy for me!

Unloading is by 3 boy power, with occasional help from Dad on the bigger ones.

The problem comes with the tailgate. My nissan tailgate is bent pretty badly, to the point where the latches are difficult to work. Iv'e used a come-a-long to straigten it, but it's still pretty bad.

I'm looking for a new one, and I'll reinforce it before I roll heavy rounds across it.

Watch that gate of yours, Wood Doctor. It's starting already, and it only gets worse. It's a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time. I'd so some reinforcing now, if you can.

Once on the ground, it gets sawn or split down to manageable size. If it needs to travel to the splitter, my 1000# hand truck does the job.

 

[AOD]

Do any of you guys rip big or tough rounds with your saw? I found this works great for tough stuff, and once it is ripped it seems to split way easier. Some gnarly stuff I couldnt split at all and just saw ripped down to it;s final size. My PP330 has its chain at about 23 degrees and rips quite nicely. Go parallel to the bark and you;ll cut cast and make curly fries. Going at it from the end is really slow and makes bug dust.

 

[stihl sawing]

Do any of you guys rip big or tough rounds with your saw? I found this works great for tough stuff, and once it is ripped it seems to split way easier. Some gnarly stuff I couldnt split at all and just saw ripped down to it;s final size. My PP330 has its chain at about 23 degrees and rips quite nicely. Go parallel to the bark and you;ll cut cast and make curly fries. Going at it from the end is really slow and makes bug dust.

Yup, Do it all the time so i can pick em up to put in the truck.

 

[danrclem]

Do any of you guys rip big or tough rounds with your saw? I found this works great for tough stuff, and once it is ripped it seems to split way easier. Some gnarly stuff I couldnt split at all and just saw ripped down to it;s final size. My PP330 has its chain at about 23 degrees and rips quite nicely. Go parallel to the bark and you;ll cut cast and make curly fries. Going at it from the end is really slow and makes bug dust.

Same here. That's one of the reasons that I bought the 372.