The Logging Thread

I think so the feller/buncher could not waste time bunching/forwarding to where the skidder could easily get at it. Just keep it straight out knocking down timber, bunch what's convenient but not waste time.
 
That set-up is the ruination of the woods imo. Huge equipment payments so huge volumes of wood must be moved. Big business feeding big business and the logger just deals with more and more pressure to produce more and buy more/newer/bigger/faster and more expensive equipment.
 
I would tend to agree with you re ruination. But which came first, chicken or egg- Big equipment/big payments/huge wood volumes needed, or low prices at the mill due to the economics of the market place as a whole causes bigger/faster equipment to try to make a buck, which used to be made "easier" because wood brought more $ than it does now.
 
Loved watching that vid, but couldn't help but feel the whole operation was over machined. A harvester will cut, delimb, grade and stack in 1 operation. An 8 wheel drive forwarder will take the material right to the trucks and load them if needs be. Work on the worst of ground without needing a push too.
 
That was my feelings, exactly, Ed.
Whole thing could have been slimmed down a LOT.
 
No, it wouldn't be any slower, just more rationel.
Bigger isn't always better.
We clearcut a lot around here and no disrespect, but our method is more efficient than that.
Why tie a machine up doing just one thing, when the whole process of felling, limbing, bucking and stacking can be done by one machine.
 
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You would have to change every thing down the line, including trucking and processing at the mill. The mills that deal with these tree length sticks have giant merchandisers that cut the log to best suit the intended product. You would lose time loading and unloading the trucks and put the cut to length operation in the hands of the harvester, not the mill. I would be willing to bet that if there was a faster and better way, an operation that big would be all over it.
 
Probably.
Here the logs are graded and cut to different lengths for different gradings by the harvester. It is a split second ( almost) computerized process and does not involve the mill.
Also our logging trucks are build in a way so they can transport different lengths of logs.

So we are basically having two different systems from felling to mill.
To my mind yours still have too much of the American " bigger is better"mentality, though.
 
Well, as long as we are posting cool logging vids, check this one out, it features good ole boys and the sounds of diesel power that'll paint your soul, if you are into that sort of thing

http://youtu.be/-tLX_Kjd5mY
 
I do love the sound of a Deere diesel and that one was running strong. Loggers are cut from a unique mold.
 
I thought it was cool that when he was getting yanked out of the hole, he still had the trees attached to his winch. It's all about the trees.
 
No, it wouldn't be any slower, just more rationel.
Bigger isn't always better.
We clearcut a lot around here and no disrespect, but our method is more efficient than that.
Why tie a machine up doing just one thing, when the whole process of felling, limbing, bucking and stacking can be done by one machine.

Well maybe you should contact them and fill them in. One machine doing all that you say would be nowhere close to as fast. Also I know you love to hear it Stig, but. It's not flat here. Far from it in most places. My logging experience starts where the guys in these vids ends. Highlead. So while I'm no expert on conventional logging. Unlike you and Ed, I don't immediately presume that I would know a much better way of doing it from watching a YouTube vid.
 
And as we all know, Europe is flat as a pancake all over.
I may just have mentioned it before, that unlike you, I have logged in differen scenarios and different parts of the world.

Also, again unlike you, I don't have an ounce of patriotism in me, so I don't automatically assume something is the best way, just because it is the way it is done in my country and then get righteously offended when nasty foreigners claim to have better ways.
Quite the opposite, in fact. Except for the ridiculously long bars for every occasion, I've modelled much of my own way of doing things on stuff learned from Americans like Jerry B.

I should probably toss a smiley here, so you'll know I'm not too serious;)
 
It was just an observation Squish. I might be wrong. But I know mechanised harvesting really well, and I know that operation was flawed. Hell, they had a big excavator there with a Waratah head doing noting but delimbing and a single crosscut. If they worked that at the face of the operation you could have eliminated the feller buncher, the grapple skidder, the dozer and the rehandler. Funny enough, If you put in 'Tigercat Harvester' into youtube, there are dozens of videos from operations in Canada. So obviously Canadian companies are thinking the same thing.

Here's what I mean -

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/znYFIpqVP4g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znYFIpqVP4g

As for steep ground, this video is indicative of the ground in most of Wales and Scotland -

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/5oHLQ4053Ho" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oHLQ4053Ho


Edit: this forum software sucks. Why will it not embed videos for me?
 
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