best skidding and truck combo for firewood operation

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*** Would you believe I had to split this post in half cuz the forum wont exempt a post this long? :p ***

Other ways to save time:

  1. Make sure your saws are sharp and in perfect working order. Keep extra chains in your toolbox and sharpen the dull ones in your workshop.
  2. Don't try and limb with a saw that's too heavy and makes you tiered or buck with a saw that's too small and takes too long. I frequently switch back and forth between saws when I'm limbing and bucking the tree.
  3. If possible skid the tree to where you want to block it up and split the wood right there.
  4. Plan it right and you can get away with never stacking up the wood at all during the entire process. (If you dry it in a loose pile and you measure it loosely). Note that drying it in a loose pile takes longer and you have to watch out for fungus and rot. In a good spot sunny and windy spot you can still dry a loose pile for sale the next fall if it's winter or spring cut or after a full year if it's summer or fall cut. The summer months are the essential drying period. A pile that has had June, July, August and September to dry in a good spot will be dryer than a pile sitting for a full year in a less than ideal spot. Wood gets worse rather than better if it sits for over a year.
  5. If you are selling it as 16 inch pieces try and keep the pieces 15-17 inches. Don't cheat yourself and cut them overly long because that requires more wood and more transport. Also when rough estimating a cord by dumping it in a truck or trailer loosely don't give them way too much wood. Just make sure you aren't giving them too little.
  6. A modifies loader bucket can be constructed which is made to so you can stack in half a cord (or whatever) or make one where you can throw the wood in loosely. (That style requires some careful testing and calculation though if you want to measure it that way).
  7. You waste a lot of time if you deal with people that only want small amounts, especially if you have to deliver.
I'm thinking a conveyor might help speed up the process and minimize the handling. Your thoughts?

I don't use one, but I've seen people that do. I've also seen a factory made wood splitter with it's own conveyer at an equipment show. (A very nicely built unit with lots of speed, power and durability, and you can even drive it around, but it was pricey at $9000 CAN).

My opinion is that it is only efficient you are buying scrap logs from a sawmill or you gather up all your wood together on a big pile before you split it. You don't want to have to move the conveyer more than a few times a day,a and even then you don't want to move it very far. Obviously when you move the conveyer you're going to have to move your truck or trailer to be directly under the conveyer so the wood falls in it.

So basically after you split a piece drop it on the conveyer and it goes in the trailer. If the wood is already split then you'd be better off using a loader tractor (if you have one). Also, normally when you split it you aren't bringing it direct to the customer, so in that case you'd have to unload it again and then load it back up again when it's seasoned. Bottom line I don't recommend a conveyer.

Originally posted by wolfman
I have to do now is figure out whether I should by the 372 or the Dolmar 7900 and I am good.:p I guess my only question to you would be what would the minimum hp tractor be? I was thinking about something in the 40-50 ho range....is this too small? Thanks again.

Um, 372 XP I guess, but I don't even want to get sucked into the saw vs saw debates. ;)

40-50 hp? That's plenty. Tractors in that size have a PTO and hydraulic remotes standard and most of them are available with loaders and/ or 4WD. The only disadvantages you'd have with a 40 hp as opposed to a 65 hp is: (1) The hydraulic flow is normally less than so you'd have slightly slower less powerful woodsplitter (2) The pulling power is less (3) PTO attachments like a winch will be less powerful. (4) You wont be modding the front bucket any time soon to hold more wood cuz the loader power will be slightly less. (You should still be able to get a full cord loaded in 2-4 bucketfuls though)

The pulling power is still enough to pull whatever you normally want to pull and you can always cut the tree in half in pull the halves separately. I'd actually saw that 40-50 hp is ideal for this kind of thing unless you want to cut 300 + cord or you do heavy farm work on the side with it.

]Originally posted by tawilson That's what I figured, but I have seen them for sale with a pump that connects to the PTO. My old homemade splitter works good, but I want something I can put a 4-way wedge on.

Like I said I think hydraulic remote is better if you have can attach it. (Some tractors don't have it). If you do go that rout, then tell me how you like it cuz as I said I've only seen that style very rarely.

As for 4 way wedge, it works well on wood up to 12" in diameter but when you get into gnarly or large diameter wood then it tends to get stuck and not be able to split it. I use the plain old 2 way most of the time. (If you get 4 way make sure it's detachable and you can put a 2 way in).

Originally posted by Newfie
"I was thinking about something in the 40-50 ho range...."I'm using a 4WD 38hp Kubota w/ Farmi 351. Great size, a compromise between power and size. Harvested 30 cords last week working 3 days by myself. Will haul 3-4 12" trees up and down and all around without a complaint. 6' heavy duty loader on the front for loading firewood or for stacking logs and trees on the landing. I have the AG tires and have found no need for chains to get traction in the snow or ice.

As for a splitter, I've been using a 6.5hp 27 ton cub cadet that works great for 20- 30 cords a year.

That's a good set up. I wouldn't feel disadvantaged in the least using that for a part time operation. I don't use chains either.
 
Chainsaw,
Great info there, thanks for taking the time. My fledgling operation is all on my own property, and I have an area that is mostly flat bedrock that I have been dragging the logs to and I will process them and let the wood season right there. I was thinking about a conveyor from the splitter to the pile. Now I'm scooping them with the loader on my tractor. Not a big deal and probably not worth the expense for a conveyor.
I plan on letting the wood season in a pile. Can the pile get to big for the wood to season? The weathers getting warmer and rain is forcast this week so I'll drag some more trees out tomorrow then I plan on being in process mode for a while.
Again, thanks.
 
Sounds good.

The only time I had a pile that was almost too big for proper drying was last year was really rainy all summer and I had a pile about 40 feet wide, 100 feet long and 8 feet high. There was some fungas developing in some places, but the wood still dried well and everyone that I sold it to didn't report any problems with burning it.

Out of all the wood 99% was perfect and the fungas was on maybe 1% of the pieces. It was barely noticable but it was the only time I've ever had fungas on wood that wasn't over a year old or wasn't lying in grass and weeds.

So basically make it 4-8 feet high to keep it off the ground, becuase the wood that is directly on the ground dries the least well.

From now on I'm still going to make the piles as high as I can dump with the loder (8 feet) but I'm gonna keep them maybe 15 feet wide maximum and really long.

I don't think it would be a god idea to make a tall pyramid style pile with a conveger. I've seen people make them 20-30 feet high but I don't think that's a good way to dry wood.
 
wood

You can get a decent 4-wheeler now a days for a good price. Mounta a winch on the rear rack with a roller fair lead, This may not yard as much as a small tractor, but it will go much more places and will manever around much better and be much cheaper to run, and much faster. For this job I would reccoment an older susuki King Quad, or a honda foreman. Although the king quad has super low range and a locking front differential and probaly easier on gas. A tandam trailor will haul around a cord in a hlaf so you can haul more wood then you can even with a ton truck, and you can pull the trailor with a regular halfton or 3/4 ton. You can also pick up a decent small tractor as well for a reasonable price to load with.
 
Newfie said:
"I was thinking about something in the 40-50 ho range...."


I'm using a 4WD 38hp Kubota w/ Farmi 351. Great size, a compromise between power and size. Harvested 30 cords last week working 3 days by myself. Will haul 3-4 12" trees up and down and all around without a complaint. 6' heavy duty loader on the front for loading firewood or for stacking logs and trees on the landing. I have the AG tires and have found no need for chains to get traction in the snow or ice.

As for a splitter, I've been using a 6.5hp 27 ton cub cadet that works great for 20- 30 cords a year.

Newfie: finally, i've found someone mentioning the Farmi rear loader. I'm new on this list...a farmer,sometimes tree cutter, sometimes renovator.
I am looking for a used good shape Farmi 351, or maybe even a 251. Have you any comments about how yours handles? Can you dig a 40"trench with it?Can you modify it with a grapple? And , does it just trip-dump, quickly?or is there some control to it?
I have 2 Pasquali 988's articulated (one for sale) with 33 hp. My thought was to flip around my wheels so that they span only 36" across, and then would be "in the trench" cut by the 40"gravel bucket, continuously, backward. Theoretically, my helper could pull my dump trailer straddling , along just ahead of the cut, and i could dump straight up into it each time. Do you think this would work well with the 351? I also have a larger , heavier, articulated PGS at 50+ hp.
Thanks for any clues!
 
Not sure what kind of gizmo you are talking about Pasquali. My Farmi 351 is a forestry winch. I use it to winch in logs or trees and hook them up to the butt plate and skid them out. Good luck in your search though.
 
Newfie said:
Not sure what kind of gizmo you are talking about Pasquali. My Farmi 351 is a forestry winch. I use it to winch in logs or trees and hook them up to the butt plate and skid them out. Good luck in your search though.


I checked the dealer's specs, and yours must be a JL 351, whereas the rearloader/bucket i was after is a TK351.
Thanks for your reply. I am further educated.
 
What are the better brands of new compact tractors?What is the prefered transmission fo work in the woods?
 
I’ve grown up using Kubota tractors. For my money the Japanese engineers pay more attention to the end user and less to the firkin marketing bozo’s. My current machine is an L3130 4wd(30 hp and @3600 pounds) with hybrid galaxy tires (between a turf and an ag tire), a 9000 pound hydraulic skidding winch from Garmond and a quick disconnect loader with a HD dirt bucket and a set of @3.5’ forks. I got the hydrostatic transmission, you lose some speed but for tight quarters maneuvering you can’t beat it.

This machine is on the light side for woods work, but perfect for backyards, which is where I do most of my operating. I can drive over good turf 20 or 30 times and not tear things up.

As for skidding, I can easily haul 2, 14” x 35’ trees with some large branches still attached. If the ground is real rough I can release the winch, drive over or up the bad section and winch the trees after me.

I put some sides on a pallet which I use to load the truck. Just park the pallet in front of the splitter and fill it up with split wood, then lift the pallet up into the truck with the forks. I usually offload by hand as the pallet is kind of rickety, if I did more volume I would have a steel one made up so that I could dump with it. It takes 4 or 5 pallets to make a load in the 1 ton. I sell wood for 150$ per load, green wood. This is not enough money and I only do it as a favor for people I like.

For a splitter I have a 5.5 hp super split. I rip cut all the big wood to manageable pieces.
For limbing I use a 55 rancher with an 18”.325 pitch chain, for rip sawing and bucking I have a 66 Stihl with a 20” 3/8 chain.

Tractors are a great tool. Mine isn’t so much a source of income on its own, it just makes me a whole lot better at what I do, wreck and remove trees from backyards.

my tractor with the implements above sold for $25,000 2 years ago.
 
My skidder

This is what i use for skidding. 1977 white 260 with a grapple.The more u can pull out at once the more your going to make.
 
I know that I'm in the minority here but I do most of my firewood with my team of horses. Wolfman, if any of your horses can drive, you can skid with them. I agree that the tractor with a loader is nice to have but if money was an object for you, you could buy some harness and get to work pretty cheaply.
 

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