Firewood Gathering With A Power Trac

   / Firewood Gathering With A Power Trac
  • Thread Starter
#191  
I managed to free myself without cutting down the tree. Just a lot of maneuvering and I ended up climbing the tree with the right rear tire and getting around it. I laughed hard when I did it. A little forehead slap! :laughing:
 
   / Firewood Gathering With A Power Trac #192  
Yes, i slid in from the up hill side, and presto change-o, there's a tree right there between the front and back tire. I was able to lower the bucket and anchor it onto the ground, then articulated up and around.

My "logging" setup on my PT looks very similar to Moss's. I included the tongs after reading one of Moss's posts. I want to grow up and be just like Moss. :laughing:
 
   / Firewood Gathering With A Power Trac
  • Thread Starter
#193  
Yes, i slid in from the up hill side, and presto change-o, there's a tree right there between the front and back tire. I was able to lower the bucket and anchor it onto the ground, then articulated up and around.

My "logging" setup on my PT looks very similar to Moss's. I included the tongs after reading one of Moss's posts. I want to grow up and be just like Moss. :laughing:

Fat and bald? hahaha :laughing:
 
   / Firewood Gathering With A Power Trac
  • Thread Starter
#194  
We have had several discussions regarding the pros and cons of having a log splitter attachment for the PT. I have always maintained that I want as few engines as possible to maintain, therefore, as many PT attachments as possible. A log splitter attachment seemed a natural.

This is my third year heating with wood. The last two years I have had 12" and under locust to deal with. I split right next to my holz hausen wood pile, so there is no need to have the PT free to transport wood. I am currently using my father-in-law's stand alone 20ton splitter with 5hp motor. It is old, solid and works really, really well. :thumbsup:

However, a few weeks ago someone gave me two maple trees. I'm talking big monster maple trees. Well over 36" in diameter, because my 18" saw won't cut through them. We had to quarter the 16" thick rounds. Some quarters weighed over 200 pounds. I got over 120 pieces of firewood from one of the rounds! :shocked:I absolutely had to use the forks on the PT to move them onto the splitter. I just could not lift them. And since they were quartered, they had flat sides on four of the six sides, so I could not roll them all that easy, either.

So, I have made a few decisions...

First, I will NEVER take another "free" monster tree. It just takes too much time and energy to gather, haul, unload, move, split, and stack those huge rounds. I split about half as much wood as I did when using 12" locust in the same amount of time. Much of the time is wasted just moving those huge pieces of wood around.

Second, I will probably stick with the stand alone splitter until it dies. At that point, if it is the engine, I will probably re-power it with a cheap gas engine. If it is the hydraulics, I will probably convert it to PT powered and then commit to small wood only. Just stuff I can lift by hand.

I posted this back in 2010...

As to FIRST: I should have taken my own advice, as I did take another "monster" tree last year and regret it. Huge maple. Lots of work. And maple burns poorly compared to my locust. NEVER AGAIN!!

As to SECOND: The engine in the splitter did have some issues with bad seals and a broken pull starter. Last year I replaced it with a $99 harbor freight 6hp motor. Works great!
 
   / Firewood Gathering With A Power Trac
  • Thread Starter
#195  
You might need to put a crossmember on the angle for the cable setup.

Have you tried pushing the tongs all the way down so the log is forcing them open and then drive forward a few inches while turning the PT or are you just lowering until they unhook? Extending the hitch 12 - 18" would make that easier and would make accessing the logs a little easier if you can not do it as is.

One other possibility - I wonder if it would work better for you if the clevis were connected to the ring with two pieces of chain instead of directly - might let them open more.

Ken

This was from 2015.... A little feedback on the technique :laughing:

Took the suggestion and found that yes, all I have to do in most cases is just drop the log down, push a little further down with the joystick, and the tongs usually pop open nicely. Then just turn the wheel to the side and that tips the tongs up and over the log, and I back away and off I go. Out of the 30 or so logs I did last weekend, I think I only had to get off the seat one time to unhook the tongs, as the tips got caught perfectly in two knotholes on each side of the log! What are the chances? :confused3: hahaha :D
 
   / Firewood Gathering With A Power Trac
  • Thread Starter
#196  
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:

I know I'm rehashing some old stuff here, but this one in particular is a safety issue. Don't push a log too much with the tongs, only drag it, especially on side slopes. Since learning this a few years ago, I have gotten pretty good at doing some advanced planning, not rushing to drop the trees, and making sure I try and drop them so I can access them from the downside of the slope with the PT. Take your time and plan how you're gonna get them out before you drop them. Amazing what a little bad experience will teach you. ;)
 
   / Firewood Gathering With A Power Trac
  • Thread Starter
#197  
So we got our wood burner 9.5 years ago and I started this thread shortly afterwards....

I got 2018-2019 wood done last year, so this is all for 2019-2020 season I'm working on. Nice to be a year ahead, and let the wood dry for well over a year before use. :thumbsup:

Thanks to all that gave suggestions and tips. My firewood gathering activities are pretty productive for my needs, and I'm continuing to try and streamline the process to eliminate handling the wood as much as I can. Currently I spend:

- About 6 hours dropping all the wood for the entire year.
- About 6 hours hauling those trees out of the woods.
- About 8 hours cutting those trees into rounds and tossing the rounds onto the trailer; about 4 trailer loads = 6 cords for me.
- Another 4 hours to unload those 4 trailer loads.
- Then about 12 hours to split 6 cords.
- And another 6 hours to stack it all up.
- And about 4 hours to haul it into the house over the winter.
- So I'm still looking at about 46 hours of work to heat my home each year.

This year, I'm gonna take my splitter out to the property, leave it on the trailer, cut the wood and then split it right on the trailer. That way, when I get home, I won't have to unload rounds off the trailer, split them, and then stack them. I'll just unload splits right from the trailer to the stack.

That should eliminate the step of loading rounds onto the trailer, as I'll be loading them onto the splitter instead. I'll keep track of the time again and see how it goes.

Looking forward to another season of heating with wood. :laughing:
 
   / Firewood Gathering With A Power Trac #198  
I set my splitter up so that I can easily swap out the gas motor for an electric motor. I have not put the gas motor back on since I swapped it for the electric motor. All of my splitting is done next to where I stack the wood which is close to my barn that has electricity.. The electric motor was installed to keep the noise down for the neighbors (I can split at night) but it is also nice not to eat fumes. I could easily hook up the PT to the splitter but I am not going to use my 65 HP motor to split wood. That would even be true for a processor - I want my tractor available to help feed it etc.

Ken
 
   / Firewood Gathering With A Power Trac
  • Thread Starter
#199  
When PJ was living in Montana, he had an electric splitter in his basement. He said he'd hire a kid to help him toss all the rounds he'd need for a year down into his basement, then he'd sit down there and split whenever he felt like it. He was a pretty ingenious guy. Had a neat sliding floor/hatch over the stairs near an outer door. He could open the hatch and open the door, and it was a clear shot to the basement. I miss talking to him. :thumbsup:
 
   / Firewood Gathering With A Power Trac #200  
then he'd sit down there and split whenever he felt like it. He was a pretty ingenious guy. Had a neat sliding floor/hatch over the stairs near an outer door. He could open the hatch and open the door, and it was a clear shot to the basement. I miss talking to him. :thumbsup:

what a great idea!.......Jack
 
 
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