Steiner logging

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This is just south of Kincardine, it hit a couple of spots there. Little farther in they got hit with horizontal wind and hail. I don't know which storm did the damage. The trees at my house went down around 4:00. This little spot is gonna keep us busy for awhile. North side of Lucknow also got hit bad. I seen some of the damage in Tiviotdale today too. I was there years ago as a volunteer to clean up the last one they had.
 
Decided I needed to spend some time and build the grapple for my loader forks. Spent 3 hours cutting, drilling and welded to get it put together. Massive failure so spent 2 hours cutting everything off and starting over again. Took most of the day today to do it but at least now it works. I might still change it and make it a little longer but it does work good. Old stone fork style grapple would only open 30", this one opens 48". much better.
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Refined my arch abit and had some time to play with it today. The darn winch handle vibrated loose and is long gone. Was pulling some pretty big stuff around another tree and maybe bent the hitch a little. Couple hours and I got some wood piled up. Won't be able to get it home until the wheat is off so I've been just cutting stuff down.
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Bumping this thread back up...I’m looking at doing some clean-up on a off camber portion of my property and was wondering how one of these would do? I’ve heard these things can comfortably handle 25° side-hilling and push like a little dozer and have a super low center of gravity , my Kubota pushes great but is uncomfortable tall for this kind of work.

I’ve been in contact with a guy who has both models 420 and 425 for sale , the 425 shows 6,000 hours but is diesel and the 420 has half the time on it but is gas.
 
Jeff, I have the duals for my Steiners and they help on side hills and soft ground. Steiners are articulated so travelling across slopes and pushing will turn you sideways and likely not going in the direction you want to go. To push you have to get the front wheels up in the air and trying to go the direction you want on a slope is difficult then. They do push well on level ground though. The best machine for moving dirt on a slope is likely a mini excavator.
 
Jeff, I have the duals for my Steiners and they help on side hills and soft ground. Steiners are articulated so travelling across slopes and pushing will turn you sideways and likely not going in the direction you want to go. To push you have to get the front wheels up in the air and trying to go the direction you want on a slope is difficult then. They do push well on level ground though. The best machine for moving dirt on a slope is likely a mini excavator.

I looked at my post above and I did a bad job of describing what I’m looking at doing. I’ll not be doing much if any pushing while side hilling just moving along the bottom side of a road I cut years back then squaring up to the slope and pushing small brush and junk wood into a ravine. The first 30’ on the bottom side of the road in question is too steep (45°+) to put any kind equipment on but it levels out to around a 20° slope. I’m not trying to move much if any dirt..just Honeysuckle and rotten garbage that’s been laying down for years.
 
We had a Steiner diesel at the golf course I was mechanic at. Maybe model 420... can't remember. We also had a variety of different commercial mower types, tractors, etc. The steiner was pretty badass for difficult to mow slopes. Had a finish and a brush mower and would mow 35 degree slopes if you went up and backed down. It had the 8 tires and hydraulic push blade that graded gravel well. But not as well as a big tractor and scrape blade. I feel like the steiner will go anywhere an excavator will but you don't have the backup/safety of the boom if you get into a hairy situation. Not the easiest to get out of in a hurry but it's very unlikely to roll over. In fact, with the 8 tires, it would probably wheelie and flip backwards before it rolled over sideways. It is also pretty light so can tend to want to walk up on top of what you're pushing if the blade is floating and material builds up too much.

I will say it had low ground clearance but since the wheelbase is so short, that was rarely an issue. However, because of the low ground clearance, I did have to constantly remove grass and sticks that got pushed into the forward/backward pedal area from backing up in brush. The brush would build up inside the foot area and prevent backward pedal movement. We also had constant trouble with the belts on the finish mower. So much so that Steiner flew someone down to troubleshoot. But due to the aggressive tires and sensitive turf, we mostly used the brush mower with the Steiner and used a John Deere 2500 or Toro 3500 for groomed steep slopes.
 
We had a Steiner diesel at the golf course I was mechanic at. Maybe model 420... can't remember. We also had a variety of different commercial mower types, tractors, etc. The steiner was pretty badass for difficult to mow slopes. Had a finish and a brush mower and would mow 35 degree slopes if you went up and backed down. It had the 8 tires and hydraulic push blade that graded gravel well. But not as well as a big tractor and scrape blade. I feel like the steiner will go anywhere an excavator will but you don't have the backup/safety of the boom if you get into a hairy situation. Not the easiest to get out of in a hurry but it's very unlikely to roll over. In fact, with the 8 tires, it would probably wheelie and flip backwards before it rolled over sideways. It is also pretty light so can tend to want to walk up on top of what you're pushing if the blade is floating and material builds up too much.

I will say it had low ground clearance but since the wheelbase is so short, that was rarely an issue. However, because of the low ground clearance, I did have to constantly remove grass and sticks that got pushed into the forward/backward pedal area from backing up in brush. The brush would build up inside the foot area and prevent backward pedal movement. We also had constant trouble with the belts on the finish mower. So much so that Steiner flew someone down to troubleshoot. But due to the aggressive tires and sensitive turf, we mostly used the brush mower with the Steiner and used a John Deere 2500 or Toro 3500 for groomed steep slopes.
As you said the dually wheel kits look like they’d make the thing damn near square ..like as wide as long which has to really make the thing stable. I wouldn’t be doing any mowing with it and nether machine has a deck just a 2-way multipurpose blade.

I’m realistic about what I’m doing with the machine, I know it’s not a dozer or mini-excavator but at the price point I can buy one and work at my pace. The ground clearance did worry me a little but I just figured it would be something you just deal with.
 
@JeffHK454 It was pretty unstoppable and one of my favorite machines. Every single other piece of equipment we had got stuck at some point (didn't have a track-based machine) but never once the Steiner. The axles are permanently locked since it articulates and doesn't need a differential. Between that and the torque availability (hydraulic drive), all tires would always turn. I wish I had one for my farm in the mountains. I would say with a blade and duallies, it would be longer than wide. The wheelbase is probably about square. It was very loud and rattly though (with just 100 hours). Way louder than the bigger mowers. It must have had had rubber engine mounts but it felt like it didn't.
 
Just FYI, in my experience they push dirt/gravel better using the 4' blade, rather than the 5' blade.
You can get them stuck, BTDT, but they will go more places than just about any other wheeled tractor, especially with the duals on.
And as I said early on in this thread, if you come across a deal on a Ventrac (new version of the Steiner) buy it, they are much more refined!
 
And before someone pipes in and says I should install a roll bar on it if you look close you will see that I built the log arch frame out of 2 steiner roll bars that I cut down. We never ever used them so I cut them up. Guess I better pay better attention next time.
As my Daddy used to say (frequently) - "If'n you'd a'asked me I'd a tole you that was a bad idea..."
 
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