Appalachian Yarding Operations

[KYLogger]

I know there has been some discussion on this topic on here before, however as my business continues to grow and the good timber is in increasingly difficult terrain please humor me! I have done alot of research on this topic (online mostly) And I know there was a big push in the late 70's and early 80's for yarder logging in this area by the govt. They even went as far to engineer and make plans available for the "Appalachian Thinner" a dozer mounted shop built yarder that "could be built in any well equipped loggers shop". Skidder mounted such as the Ecologger and trailer yarders were also being researched. There was a good deal of university studies done on the matter as well. I know there were a few outfits that used them around here, however they never really caught hold. I feel it was due to inexperience, unwillingness to change, initial overhead, learning curve etc... I truly feel there is a niche for the market especially on government land and land that is too rough for practical ground skidding, especially with the cost and environmental concerns of road building. The logging business is incredibly fierce around here (as I am sure it is everywhere) and I would need every advantage I can get!

Anyway, if anybody has any experience with this specific topic, or knowledge of it please enlighten me! On the same note any experience with the smaller yarders, or yoaders (another option I was considering) or gypo yarder ideas pour it on me!

Thanks,
Tom

 

[northmanlogging]

All you really need for a yarder is two winches, one to lift the main line the other to pull the turn in. everything else can be done manually, guy lines, climbing a spar tree etc.

But having more drums makes things way more fun. Like uphill yarding (the logs coming down from above...) or an honest haulback that drags the carriage back to the brush apes.

A yoder is great because it fills the gap for log loading and yarding in one piece of equipment, but they are pretty spendy. I'm not positive but I'm pretty damn sure a guy could rig up a couple of smaller pullmasters or timberpro winches on a smaller machine like a 120 rather then the usual 300 sized machines, and have a pretty decent yoder for smaller sized timber. You still have to buy and excavator and all the parts to make it a yoder though...

The skidder mount yarders where pretty cool, but didn't really catch on anywhere, yeah they got 4 wheel drive but you still have to build a road to get the wood out so might as well get a real yarder right.

I've said it before... but there are outfits that make small yarders, Kohler, and some German company I can't pronounce... Both have a small yarder that can be towed behind a 3/4 ton truck, to bigger yarders that need bigger trucks to move. Also the venerable Christi yarder, usually mounted on a Mack truck (about the same size as a cement truck).

The Koller is nice cause it has a fancy remote control, and only 2-3 people are needed to make it a productive machine, one on top of the hill, one in the bushes, and maybe a hooktender/shovel op, although there is no reason the chaser(guy on top of the hill) can't run the shovel as well as chase.

The down side to a yarder is it takes time to set up and lots of peeps to make it run smooth, hence high cost, the big yarders out here have large crews: Shovel op, processor op, hook tender, side rod, chaser, yarder engineer, rigging slinger, and choker setter sometimes two. Not to mention 2 or more cutters trying to stay in front of the yarder.

The other thing is maintaining your lines (usually the hook tenders job) lives depend on everything being in good shape, so you have to keep an eye on several thousand feet of wire rope, at roughly $2. a foot or more...

All this being said... my gypo yarder is just a couple of duece and a half winches mounted to a frame with a transfer case off an old tow truck to divert power, forward, reverse, neutral, and some other gear that is either forward or reverse but the same speed as one or the other... (confusing huh). A better motor, one with a real clutch and more then 10 hp would make it almost productive for small acreage. Ideally 20-30 hp with a high and low gear... but I digress. If you find the larger half track winches your doing even better, they only hold about 200 feet of 1/2 line but they certainly do the job.

 

[HuskStihl]

Great reply NM

 

[northmanlogging]

If your going to go the yarder route, make damn sure you have good solid tail holds, both on your mainline and your guy lines, any one of them comes loose... well we'll probably read about it in the papers

 

[KYLogger]

I appreciate the info! We are mostly thinning, high grade (and some not so high grade )hardwood. 10,000 bdft is an excellent day for us. I definitely anticipate a learning curve. And I am not sure that I am going to go this route. I just like the fact especially with a swing type yarder I could be very versatile, jammer logging etc... (would suck to pull cable for that though) Got any pics of your yarder?

 

[northmanlogging]

lets see... Thats all for now, I think there is some more in my profile though, the war dept. posted most of my pic to the interweb. its really quite small, but does the job.

 

[northmanlogging]

You can modify jammer logging with a sort of hiline, jammer being usually a boom truck and single drum winch, you can run a static line off the end of the boom, add some weight and a block to the live line and presto you got a shotgun carriage. You only have to drag the line out once if everything works well... which it probably won't... If you go this rout run two blocks on the static line with your weight (usually a nice fat short log) and chokers hanging from these, one block on either end, using one block tends to cause it to get bound up and not want to run freely down the static line.

 

[northmanlogging]

took some digging but here's some more, and proof that my fat ass can still climb trees...

 

[northmanlogging]

never mind there not working...

 

[slowp]

How sturdy are the hardwoods? Out here Douglas-fir is the favorite tree to rig in. What is the shape of the land? For yarder logging, steep is good--steep means good lift and good lift means more payload.

The Koller is a good little yarder.


These guys had one on the landing, one down in the brush and one driving log truck. The two sons would also fall timber, get ahead, then start yarding. The truck driving son would run loader. The one in the brush would also run the processor on the landing. The dad ran the yarder and unhooked the logs.

They moved over here, bought a timber sale and bought a yarder. They'd been skidder loggers before. They already had a processor and a forwarder. They used the forwarder as a tailhold. They caught on quickly and made a go of it.

This Koller was pulled by their log truck. It also has an extension on the tube. They are running a motorized carriage which is common around here.

 

[slowp]

When a federal judge has determined that a skyline system must be used, and you can't build more roads, you put up an intermediate support (jack) on a convex slope.

 

[slowp]

 

[slowp]

 

[slowp]

 

[1270d]

I'm guessing the OP lives in country with bigger hill than where I live in Michigan. That being said, western style of cable logging never caught on here either. One of the main reasons was the amount of wood per setting. It is pretty difficult to get enough volume go justify a harder here. Our trees are too short, and diameter is too small. Our foresters also hate straight lines cut through Tue woods, thereby eliminating cable corridors for thinning operations.

The job I'm cutting now would be a good candidate for a small yarder. Its on a decent slope, soft ground, good timber volume (40 to 50+ cards/acre), clearcut with lots of steep thirty or forty foot deep drains running down the hill. There is only one small tower in the region that I know of.

 

[Humptulips]

The real killer for tower logging is Industrial insurance at about $20/hour/man. That and inexperience. You need men who know what they are doing but you have to keep them working. With so much downtime being typical anyone with something on the ball soon figures out there is a better ocupation out there.

My question for you is can you find enough work to keep some guys busy full time? If you can buy a small yarder. Leave the jerry built stuff in the junkyard where it belongs. Find someone that knows what they are doing and learn from them. No amount of internet reading will teach you 1% of what working with an expereinced man will.

 

[northmanlogging]

lots of thinning is done with yarders out here, its steep gentle men, not just sloped. The motorized carriages where more or less invented to deal with thinning, you let the carriage down to a stopping point then spool out some line and yard back to the stopping point before pulling back up the hill. The christy had an interesting carriage that was all mechanical, where most of the newer ones there is an RC motor in the carriage to control intermediate yarding.

 

[lfnh]

2dogs posted some really good stuff on running Koller Yarders a whilea ago in this thread:
http://www.arboristsite.com/communi...eeding-a-second-mortgage.179516/#post-3155258

 

[slowp]

A Christy Carriage. It slams into the thing with the rude name and that releases a thing so line can be pulled out. You have to move that stop on down the hill as you go.

 

[slowp]