Quacker152
ArboristSite Member
At age 18, I took over cutting firewood in 1979 after the death of my father. I haven’t missed a year cutting since. Now in my fifties I am finding it is necessary to change the way I work. My coworkers laugh when I complain that my chainsaws keep getting too hot and must be rested more often!!! As some have said on AS, I am finding more big trees to workup, making it very hard handle for an “old man”. What follows is my system to handle large rounds without hurting so bad when I get back to work Monday!!
After inheriting a 1979 Ford F250 4x4 that was my father-in-law’s. I looked at HF to get ideas for a loading boom to use in 3 places; truck, trailer and splitter.
I used the mount from a 10 foot mesh satellite dish. The mount slips over a 3’ pipe. The main boom arm is 2” box steel, with an extension piece sliding inside with a HF snatch block pulley mounted on the end. The support jack is a 4 ton making the boom easy to raise and changing the hook distance back and forth from the mount pole.
The winch is a HF Badland 2000#, $49.00 with coupon. The included winch remote is made to mount on a handlebar, it will work but I modded a Ramsey winch remote that I had laying around because it was stronger built and a longer cable is needed.
A marine battery powers the winch to load and unload trunk and trailer without charging.
AS member tbow made me a battery box to protect from big rounds crushing the battery.
Pipe was scrounged to make each custom mount for the 3 places. The truck mount is bolted through the stake hole, to the bed and frame. The trailer is the same way and the splitter was just finagled on.
Moving the boom is very easy, it lifts off the pipe; walk off truck tailgate onto trailer, slipping it onto the trailer pipe. Long battery cables allow the battery to sit on the tailgate while boom is being moved.
The tongs were from a flea market for $35.00. They worked better after I sharpened the points.
Using the boom last year, I found some changes were needed. The remote was lengthened. Also extended the boom base around 10 inches.
The tongs needed the hook chain shortened.
The winch relay wouldn’t go down sometimes, needing smacking with a stick of wood. Luckily I had purchased the year extended warranty, so I have a new one to start the season with.
Using the snatch block, the winch had no problem lifting any round I cut. Most of the time I used a single line with no problem! It’s better if the ground is level while loading, the round weight will swing the boom around. It is hard to swing a large round uphill.
Using the single line you can pull a round quickly to you then lift it.
Splitting large rounds is a lot easier, I hold on to one side and keep working it down. Then lift the other half to work it.
In the images you can see hydraulic pump I made to power my splitter. After selling our old ford tractor, I had to barrow one to split with. I made the unit from a Briggs 11hp elect. start, a pump, tank and hoses from a John Deere combine. They are mounted on a pressure washer cart. It works great, has plenty of power. I still use it even though I now have a 3010 John Deere to run it. It takes the load off my hydro pump, which is very expensive to replace.
I hope I have covered it all. I will answer any questions, if I can!!
Multiple Photo's to follow.
After inheriting a 1979 Ford F250 4x4 that was my father-in-law’s. I looked at HF to get ideas for a loading boom to use in 3 places; truck, trailer and splitter.
I used the mount from a 10 foot mesh satellite dish. The mount slips over a 3’ pipe. The main boom arm is 2” box steel, with an extension piece sliding inside with a HF snatch block pulley mounted on the end. The support jack is a 4 ton making the boom easy to raise and changing the hook distance back and forth from the mount pole.
The winch is a HF Badland 2000#, $49.00 with coupon. The included winch remote is made to mount on a handlebar, it will work but I modded a Ramsey winch remote that I had laying around because it was stronger built and a longer cable is needed.
A marine battery powers the winch to load and unload trunk and trailer without charging.
AS member tbow made me a battery box to protect from big rounds crushing the battery.
Pipe was scrounged to make each custom mount for the 3 places. The truck mount is bolted through the stake hole, to the bed and frame. The trailer is the same way and the splitter was just finagled on.
Moving the boom is very easy, it lifts off the pipe; walk off truck tailgate onto trailer, slipping it onto the trailer pipe. Long battery cables allow the battery to sit on the tailgate while boom is being moved.
The tongs were from a flea market for $35.00. They worked better after I sharpened the points.
Using the boom last year, I found some changes were needed. The remote was lengthened. Also extended the boom base around 10 inches.
The tongs needed the hook chain shortened.
The winch relay wouldn’t go down sometimes, needing smacking with a stick of wood. Luckily I had purchased the year extended warranty, so I have a new one to start the season with.
Using the snatch block, the winch had no problem lifting any round I cut. Most of the time I used a single line with no problem! It’s better if the ground is level while loading, the round weight will swing the boom around. It is hard to swing a large round uphill.
Using the single line you can pull a round quickly to you then lift it.
Splitting large rounds is a lot easier, I hold on to one side and keep working it down. Then lift the other half to work it.
In the images you can see hydraulic pump I made to power my splitter. After selling our old ford tractor, I had to barrow one to split with. I made the unit from a Briggs 11hp elect. start, a pump, tank and hoses from a John Deere combine. They are mounted on a pressure washer cart. It works great, has plenty of power. I still use it even though I now have a 3010 John Deere to run it. It takes the load off my hydro pump, which is very expensive to replace.
I hope I have covered it all. I will answer any questions, if I can!!
Multiple Photo's to follow.
show him how nuts you are and make it work! That's what I do when they tell me that.
