I'm thinking mini-feller with a circular carbide blade to knock them over and then rotate it 90 degrees to cut them into manageable lengths.....
However, the little PT425 doesn't have enough weight to counter balance a 40' 12" diameter locust tree falling in the wrong direction! :laughing:
One safety note about tongs on the FEL, in general, that I've found... Lets say you pull up to a log and pick it up from the end and drag it. That's fine. However, there were a couple times where there was a tree or stump in my way and I wanted to push the log with the tongs, at an angle, to get it around the obstruction, then pull it away. I've found 3-4 times that when pushing a log with the tongs gripping the log, and turning the wheel, I can get the far end of the log to stick in the dirt or a branch grabs another tree, and that will cause the PT to want to drive up over the outside wheels.
So, for example, the log is laying left-right across a slope. I come at it from the uphill side at a 90 degree angle on the right end of the log. I grab it with the tongs. I had the steering wheel turned to the left and pushed the log off to my left. The log grabbed something, the left side of the PT came up and wanted to tip to the right, which is now downhill a bit. Not just a PT pucker where the rear comes up because of heavy weight... both left tires come off the ground and the tractor wants to tip over both the right side wheels. I was past the oscillation point, the unit was locked in a sharp left turn and both left tires came off the ground. I was on a side-slope and instantly noticed I was tipping towards the down-slope side. Let off the pedal and slap the joystick into float resolved it instantly, but had an inexperienced PT operator not recognized this, or had I been going too fast, or been fatigued, etc... I think I could have forced the PT to tip on its side to the downhill side very easily. After I figured that out, I stopped doing that! :laughing: (Doctor, why does my eye hurt when I drink coffee? Take the spoon out of the cup kinda thing...). So, live and learn about loads, center of gravity, slopes, etc... I always try to drag out from the downhill side now, turning towards a parallel path to straight down the hill and not cross-slope now.
I also found the tongs very useful for pulling out trees that have been felled, but hung in a snag or stopped by grape vines. Remember, these are pole-sized trees around 40'-60' in length and under 12" in diameter at the stump. My woods are thick and about 1 in 10 will get hung in another tree or grape vines at the tops connected to other trees. This happens when I'm taking the first few trees out of an area and don't have a good clearing to drop them into. Most of the time I can just drop another tree onto the hung tree and both will them come to the ground. However, once in a while, there's no other tree to drop onto them, or the snag is too severe, and I definitely don't want to go under a hung tree or leave it to fall on its own. In the past, I'd get a couple chains and cable and pull it down with my Suburban or a come along. Now I can just grab the stump end, lift it up an inch or two and back the tree out of the snag. Very nice. :thumbsup:
