Tractors and wood! Show your pics

[Gordon Gould]

Frozen isn’t my choice for working on steep ground I’d rather do it in the early summer/late spring with a little moisture when you’re most likely to have good traction. Ruts really won’t hurt anything other then looking ugly I’d be thinking more about your own safety and when is the best time for traction so you’re less likely to pull yourself around as well. One thing I do sometimes on a thinning stand when hand falling to jumping the stump so the tree is less likely to get hung up or domino falling especially in the corridors.

We have a different climate here and different species so our trade offs on the best time to harvest are different. In general, here in the NE, late spring and early summer is a difficult time to do thinning or TSI work on many sites. Unlike your thick, tough barked Doug Fir our trees are going through there major annual growth spurt of the year and at that time and the bark is extremely tender. The new sap wood is wet, and soft and the bark is very vulnerable to damage. If you just touch the bark of a keep tree it gets rubbed off. So between that and the mud/ruts and soil compression caused from working on wet ground spring and into early summer is typically a poor time to be logging here.

gg

 

[John_Mc]

Hey 2 bit,

I have never used that "Amsteel Blue Rope", but it seems very interesting.

I have used, and still have some "Bluewater River Rescue Rope", and it's the only rope I have that floats except for some cheap lowgrade dockline for my fishing boat.

KC

I don't know that I would be using Bluewater River Rescue Rope for skidding logs. It has too much elasticity for logging use, which can be quite dangerous if it breaks (more elasticity = more stored energy when under load. That energy is going somewhere if it breaks. The rope and anything still attached to it will take off like it was shot out of a cannon. Hopefully it's not directed at you.) It's also less abrasion resistant than the Amsteel Blue. Amsteel Blue is Is very inelastic and much stronger: Amsteel blue is made of Dyneema, which is claimed to be the strongest fiber known to man (significantly stronger than Kevlar).

Some stats for 1/2" rope:

	1/2" Amsteel Blue	1/2" Bluewater RR
breaking strength	30,000+ lbs	4,000 lbs
elasticity	0.96% at 10,000 lbs	9.1% at 1,000 lbs

Bluewater Rescue Rope is fantastic stuff for what it is designed for (water rescue) the fact that it floats is a major plus in that sort of work. It's just not designed for logging type applications. (BRR rope floats very high in the water, Amsteel Blue just barely floats - specific gravity is 0.98% - so it's almost the same weight as water.)

 

[Skeans1]

We have a different climate here and different species so our trade offs on the best time to harvest are different. In general, here in the NE, late spring and early summer is a difficult time to do thinning or TSI work on many sites. Unlike your thick, tough barked Doug Fir our trees are going through there major annual growth spurt of the year and at that time and the bark is extremely tender. The new sap wood is wet, and soft and the bark is very vulnerable to damage. If you just touch the bark of a keep tree it gets rubbed off. So between that and the mud/ruts and soil compression caused from working on wet ground spring is typically a poor time to be logging here.

gg

Late spring to early summer is when our bark is slipping as well when thinning it’s possible to do it when the bark is slipping it just take a different attitude as well as planning. Like right now our bark is just starting to slip so I start cutting differently, when big bonus to cutting in the spring is you can see the growth. I’ve done hardwood thins before and most of the time I’ve done them in late spring early summer for these exact reasons.

 

[Woodstock Walt]

I agree with all the reasons listed above for logging on frozen ground. The narrow R1's on my tractor really churn up and cut into the ground while trying to skid logs on thawed forest floor. It's not bad just travelling, but putting a load on and pulling with them causes enough slippage to dig deep ruts in the woods around here. Not necessarily an issue for a property that's being used exclusively as a wood lot, but I spend a lot of time walking and snowmobiling around my property and just don't want the ruts.

Additionally, I find that my tractor gets the best traction on bare, frozen ground. As I said before, the thawed, soft forest floor allows for some wheel spin and slippage. Adding chains to the equation only multiplies the destruction. However, once the ground freezes I put my studded aquiline chains on and the tractor will have so much traction that it will usually stall before it spins. Night and day difference compared to thawed ground.

And finally, I buck up my logs with a chainsaw, so I like how clean the logs stay while twitching in the winter compared to summer. The thawed topsoil around here really packs into the bark of heavy hardwood logs when they're skidded, and it makes for a lot of saw filing when it comes time to buck them up. The frozen soil doesn't pack into the bark so much, and if there's snow on the ground then the logs stay very clean and I can go a lot longer between saw filings.

Just my .02 cents.

 

[MF RED in MT]

Hey john Mc,

You are correct, I would not use any of my ropes for skidding logs, I only use my 3/8" chains for skidding logs.

About the static line (very low stretch) rescue rope that I do have, I was discussing how I'd use the rope to free up a small tree that is wedged into another tree.

And only if it looked like a little mechanical advantage would free the wedged tree.

KC

 

[Joel/ak]

This is how my wife does wood.

 

[two_bit_score]

Hey 2 bit,

I have never used that "Amsteel Blue Rope", but it seems very interesting.

I have used, and still have some "Bluewater River Rescue Rope", and it's the only rope I have that floats except for some cheap lowgrade dockline for my fishing boat.

KC

Check it out: AmsteelBlue.com - Best price on genuine Amsteel™ Blue Synthetic Winch Lines and Rope

 

[Sawyer Rob]

My buddy came over today to help with firewood, sure takes a lot of the work out of firewood, cutting over a wagon or trailer,

Anyway, best part is, he brought his two boys with him, so it was pretty easy to put a board in place and roll these big boys onto my splitters beam,

We ran some BIG oak through the 4-way,

and we over filled three of my half cord boxes with splits,

Not too bad for a few hours of work, and we didn't work steady either...

We have half of the downed oak cut/split/in boxes now, so next we need to go skid out the other half!

SR

 

[Jstpssng]

best part is, he brought his two boys with him,

That looks like a good day's work. Many hands make for light work... especially when some of those are powered by younger muscles!

 

[Agvg]

This snatch block is a real time saver, here using to lift the log over rocks, self realeasing makes a bit difference.