The skidder

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Better look a little closer to the pic...there is a chain around the rim to keep chains from slipping.

That there is innovative. I like it! I goes to show just how worn those tires are! But with those chains on there they are good until the rubber dissentegrates from oxidation.
 
Those are good tires actually. Don't know if you have ever seen it but we've got an old International utility. Tires on it were 30+ years old and stuck a stob through one - ruined. Had a new tire put on and it would spin everytime before the old worn out slick one on the other side. It finally gave up the ghost last year. Stuck a stob through it and it came from together. I was took one for the team and bathed in calcium trying to get it back to level ground where it could be worked on.
 
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. Apparantly , the grapple on the blade on the Clark is also for stacking logs ...

.I have thot about a hydraulic run conveyor for the split wood ...........
.If I run 3/8th " haywire I can get a fair amount on there ... As the timber I,m logging is pretty light and I am doing limited volume I can use a mini butt riggin for High lead . or run 1/2 or 9/16th line for a skyline and shot gun or receeding line for downhill loggin .........

I never went on the field trip, but there was some kind of a yarder set up for bringing in small wood. From what I understand, they had a two drum setup with baling twine tied on for chokers. The guy at the top whacked off the twine to "unhook" the chunks. Maybe I'll do some research and see if I can find any reference to it.
 
I have never messed with a Skagit skidder.
Those gearmatic winches are a different story. I have messed with those way more than any one should ever have to work on any thing.
They are really smooth and slick when they are working right. Which is when they are nearly new or you have just completely rebuilt them. The rest of the time you might as well get used to taking the side cover off and "tuning" on them on a regular basis. Sometimes a daily basis.
One thing to check for is to make sure they are not leaking around the axle. If they are nothing short of a complete tear down will ever get them working at all.
. From what I understand , there were only 2 of them made so it doesn,t suprise me you never ran one .
 
I never went on the field trip, but there was some kind of a yarder set up for bringing in small wood. From what I understand, they had a two drum setup with baling twine tied on for chokers. The guy at the top whacked off the twine to "unhook" the chunks. Maybe I'll do some research and see if I can find any reference to it.
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. Now thats not nice !.. Got any idea how much loggin I,ve done inside the guyline circle with the hay wire on a Madill or Berger,or Washington 208 yarder when I was chasing .......bushel volume logs is there was a good show for it .... Green , wet , Western Hemlock .logs .......
. Hay wire on a skidder drum will move more wood than you may think if the guy useing it has the grey matter between his ears active ......
 
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. Now thats not nice !.. Got any idea how much loggin I,ve done inside the guyline circle with the hay wire on a Madill or Berger,or Washington 208 yarder when I was chasing .......bushel volume logs is there was a good show for it .... Green , wet , Western Hemlock .logs .......
. Hay wire on a skidder drum will move more wood than you may think if the guy useing it has the grey matter between his ears active ......

Huh? Let me explain. There was nothing bad about it. It was a small set up yarder, with small line, with Hay (the alfalfa type) BALING twine used in place of chokers. That orange plasticky twine stuff. The guy at the top--chaser/yarder engineer, used a sharp instrument to cut (whack) the baling twine to unhook the chunks of wood that were sent up. Now, I don't know who or what tied the twine to the line or how. Just heard from somebody who'd been there to see it in operation. They said it worked well.

Since it was going on the East side of the Cascades, there would be an ample supply of baling twine nearby. Not haywire, but the actual twine used to bale actual hay. The alfalfa growers switched to twine in the late 1970s.
 
, Ya can,t log with baler twine .. Maybe trippled with poles 20-30 ft long and 8" on the butt end .......

Hey Tramp, look what I ran across today!

Cool fricken unit, and not bad on price!

http://spokane.craigslist.org/tls/1560536994.html

3m63p53oe5O05T65Rda1j842a9f33a897197d.jpg
 
WOW !! Too bad it,s there not uphere ...

Yeah, that's the crux. . .

It sounds like you already committed to that other unit anyway -- but you could maybe find a flatbed headed from Spokane (or southern BC) to Alaska empty? Offer to buy fuel, that's a win for the trucker, and a win for you.
 
Yeah, that's the crux. . .

It sounds like you already committed to that other unit anyway -- but you could maybe find a flatbed headed from Spokane (or southern BC) to Alaska empty? Offer to buy fuel, that's a win for the trucker, and a win for you.
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.Ya , I gotta keep pluggin along and keep building up slowly ...I would want to go down and ride back up .....but that peice of iron looks like a good deal ....I found a 353 ,but I don,t know how it would bolt up to the hyd pump ..I would prolly need to move the front motor mounts back a bit ..... It wouldn,t be able to pull quite as hard as it could with a 453 , but it would still pull enough for me ...
 
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.Ya , I gotta keep pluggin along and keep building up slowly ...I would want to go down and ride back up .....but that peice of iron looks like a good deal ....I found a 353 ,but I don,t know how it would bolt up to the hyd pump ..I would prolly need to move the front motor mounts back a bit ..... It wouldn,t be able to pull quite as hard as it could with a 453 , but it would still pull enough for me ...

Yeah, you're firewooding all spruce right? Dead standing?
 
Ya . Nice and light ... Not really any market around here for lots of logs , nor is there much supply . But we have lots of beattle killed spruce .. It makes very good environmentally friendly firewood because it burns quite clean being so dry ...

A lot of spoiled brats (hear that hardwood burners!) ;) hate burning spruce. . . And it's not even my first choice, but I burned a few cord of it last year. It keeps the cold away, and it was dead in my woods -- so why not?

Spruce would be a dream to skid, like you said, light. The only thing I hate is limbing the darn things. . . Branches thicker than the hair on a dogs back!
 
This White Spruce has lots of limbs , but they break off very easy ....If they are yarded very far ,few hundred feet most of the limbs are broke off ...The thing I hate about limbing is getting my chain in the snow all the time

Snow keeps the bar cooler right? :laugh:

Can you firewood up there all year, or only in the winter. . . The permafrost thing come into play?
 
Cool fricken unit, and not bad on price!

3m63p53oe5O05T65Rda1j842a9f33a897197d.jpg
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that woudl be a heck of an Appalachian yarder, looks only 3 drums uphill only, but cheap, ideal for 800' spans, light tiurns but steady makes the deck grow day in day out......
 
Cool fricken unit, and not bad on price!

3m63p53oe5O05T65Rda1j842a9f33a897197d.jpg


that woudl be a heck of an Appalachian yarder, looks only 3 drums uphill only, but cheap, ideal for 800' spans, light tiurns but steady makes the deck grow day in day out......

Yeah, you wouldn't be putting no Maki carriage on that skyline. :laugh:

It would be perfect for a shotgun or single-lining though.

It would also be an ideal firewooding unit. I can think of several pumpkins that are out of reach, that I could reel in with that baby.
 
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around here it'd be "look at all those frickin dozer roads you don't have to have"


Snaggin 'em, holler by holler.
 

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