Not logging necessarily, but some pictures.

[flushcut]

What do one of these haul back blocks look like? And what are they rated at? Do I want one? Maybe I will pay $50 plus freight?

Shooting from the hip here, Think manhole lid sized sheeve, many many ton wll, yes you need one but doubt you will ever use one, 50 bucks ain't gonna cut it. That might get you the pallet to start the shipping process.

 

[treebogan]

What do one of these haul back blocks look like? And what are they rated at? Do I want one? Maybe I will pay $50 plus freight?

The K series was what we used bridling and as a corner or tail rope block.

Maybe 25" long? Its been thankfully quite a while since I handled one.

 

[gf beranek]

I hung a few of those in the trees. Brutal

 

[treebogan]

I hung a few of those in the trees. Brutal

Especially when the sweat running down your arms makes it even harder to grip the rope you are pulling it up on.

 

[gf beranek]

Generally I always set a pass-block and line and let the ground crew pull it up. But a few times I did it by hand.

Once in a big leaner hanging over a canyon. (Pepperwood Creek, High climbers and timber fallers) When the block left the ground it swung out over the canyon, over a hundred feet below me, and it was swinging like a pendulum. Oh, it was like hanging on to a whale that was breaching.

It was impossible to pull the block up while it was swinging, way to heavy, but at the end of each swing, it come light, and I could cinch on the line and gain a foot or two at a time. Pure misery. But I got it.

I earned my keep that day. Whew!

 

[stikine]

Here's the one I drug out many years ago. Guess I should have taken better care of it. But it will clean up. My size 13 shoe for comparison.

Young 1369 blocks are still made and quite expensive if you Google them. Listed as 66 lbs. and I believe it.

I should display it next to the big shackle my wife picked up off the beach out front.

 

[stikine]

There are some enormous blocks around town here from the steam donkey and A-frame logging days.

 

[lxskllr]

You aren't kidding when you say they're expensive. $2,032. That's like leaving a pretty decent used car in the woods when you're done logging.

 

[pantheraba]

Great pictures. Excellent to see how Stout those are. Thanks.

 

[cory]

Re their weight, the joke always was- if these are the young blocks, I hate to see the old ones!

 

[gf beranek]

Ha!

 

[lxskllr]

When I looked up the price, one of the sales sites said it was lightweight. I looked at the specs, and it said 66#. I wonder how much the heavy ones weigh? I thought my new CMI block was kinda heavy :^D

 

[gf beranek]

Here's a block I found at the Scotia Logging Museum. Hundred years old they said. Heck, I'm 72.

 

[lxskllr]

Ah, that's the "heavy" one. You could move the world with that thing.

 

[cory]

Yeah that bad boy be definetly full growed!

 

[gf beranek]

Imagine packing that sucker on a slope. They used Donkeys. Steam was the means to move everything. It made the work a heck of a lot easier.

I'm fortunate to have met, and get to know personally, some of the fine people who worked in the woods and went to sea during the transition from steam to diesel. Listening to their stories put color into those old black and photos.

 

[stikine]

Yeah, Jer, those big ass blocks were certainly hauled up with cable and not human power. I'm always amazed by the inginuity of the loggers of that era.

 

[gf beranek]

They were practical men.

 

[stikine]

Yup, but some of them were true thinkers. Some of the old skyline systems are truly remarkable.

 

[treebogan]

@stikine

A fresh set of bearings in that block of yours and it would run sweetly as the day it was made .

I found a skootum block on a site once, it had been left sometime in the 1970s.We used it to hold skyline extensions on spar trees , untill the foreman felled a spar tree without first removing the block and smashed it.

Later he lost most of this thumb by trying to adjust a tieback extension for the yarder just as a 40 tonn digger sinched it tight.

He was

 

[stikine]

@stikine

A fresh set of bearings in that block of yours and it would run sweetly as the day it was made .

I found a skootum block on a site once, it had been left sometime in the 1970s.We used it to hold skyline extensions on spar trees , untill the foreman felled a spar tree without first removing the block and smashed it.

Later he lost most of this thumb by trying to adjust a tieback extension for the yarder just as a 40 tonn digger sinched it tight.

He was

Yup, Mike it just needs a bit of grease and attention. Bad on me for being lapse.

 

[treebogan]

Yup, Mike it just needs a bit of grease and attention. Bad on me for being lapse.

Tie it to a rope and drag it a few miles down a freshly graded gravel road. That will clean it up.

Then change the bearings.

Then send it to me!

 

[cory]

They were practical men.

Wow, that is quite an assessment.

Quite a simple turn of phrase that says massive volumes in just 4 words. Typical for that giant of timber and tree writing who dwells right here among us at the House.

It reminds me of a line from the book, "Coming into the Country" by John McPhee. I never read the book but my old logging partner did and he mentioned a line from it that always stuck with me. A hardcore backwoods Alaskan was being described, and the main thing I remember about this guy is that he used a D8 bulldozer to tow his entire house and shop building out into the wilderness to do mining there. He just was that kind of guy and the author described him as "a man of maximum practicality"

 

[Burnham]

Old Time High Lead Logging Blocks | The Tree House (masterblasterhome.com)

 

[stikine]

Great resurrection B, I will have to read through.