Curlycherry1
Addicted to ArboristSite
:agree2:
I tried to talk a coworker out of buying a rubber tracked skidsteer. He bought it anyway then had a lot of buyers remorse after having to replace one of the tracks. He cut/broke it in the woods dragging logs, caught a limb between the track and one of the end sprockets. While he was replacing the track, he found that the idlers needed a lot of work. Rubber tracked models are nice if you can afford the upkeep, tires are a lot cheaper.
A good friend has a bobcat with tracks and he has kept careful track of his expenses running it and he said it costs him $7/hour for track and carrage expenses while running that machine. He said when it is moving those tracks are wearing.
Last winter while cutting up some logs into lumber on his property I watched (in horror) and he came towards me down the snow covered gravel driveway and the tracks started to slide. He had absolutely ZERO control of that skid steer going down the tiny little slope of a driveway. Later on he could barely make it back up the hill. His 4WD Kubota had zero problems with the same hill.
Even a small tractor with a skidding winch on the back is aformidable force in the woods. I put a Farmi skidding winch on my Ford 9N and was able to single handedly cut and split about 700 face cords of wood per year for about 8 years. It put me though college and kept me in money in highschool.
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