Small Chip Truck Crane

[treesmith]

They closed the 5' pulpwood yards around here years ago. I used to have several guys I could call who would come get any kind of wood but hickory (not sure why but the pulp yard would not take hickory). My first pulpwood truck had a rear loader. The second had a split rack with the loader between the two racks, roughly 60/40 split. My last "log" truck had an actual Big Stick loader with a log heel. Cadillac....hydraulic boom!

 

[MasterBlaster]

I hated unloading the bastard.

 

[treesmith]

Unloading? Never heard of that! They unloaded it for you at the woodyard here.

 

[MasterBlaster]

The woodyard was never a problem...

 

[ruel]

I've often thought about a block mounted central, just a foot in from the chip box door, and one near the cab. with a portable winch and tag line seems like you could float logs up with the first block, then drag back with the second one... Never seen it done tho

 

[Mick!]

As with all these things that seem like a good idea, there’s a reason very few if any people do it.

 

[treesmith]

The woodyard was never a problem...

Ah...thought you meant you had to unload manually at the woodyard. I've heard of that in the olden days.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Only when I went to the dump! The woodyard did the hard part for me.

 

[SeanKroll]

As with all these things that seem like a good idea, there’s a reason very few if any people do it.

How did you save your back before having a tractor and then loader?

Clearly, if you have an extra $20-40k to spend, and can have a second driver and truck to haul, machine-loading is the way.

 

[Mick!]

Then save the money and get a cheap loader.

Skwerl?s quote is solid gold, and could be applied to many pieces of machinery that we use.

 

[SeanKroll]

Do you save the money for a cheap loader by breaking your back loading wood?

 

[Mick!]

I didn’t break my back, I was young dumb and full of cum so lifting heavy things seemed good.

Then I used credit to buy a mini digger and grab.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I was ten feet tall and bulletproof for a long time. Nowadays, not so much...

 

[ruel]

Maybe I'm not full of enough. lifting wood has seemed dumb since 24 when I hurt my shoulder loading rounds for big green

 

[SeanKroll]

Seems like a good place to use a Honda capstan winch or chainsaw-powered Simpson capstan winch, with an overhead rigging point on the rear of the chip box, or just inside (cheap welding). If you don't have a strong point on the top of the box, maybe an arch or something can be fabbed.

If you hoist the log to the rigging point with the rope choked right at the end, you can lower the log down such that the bottom end will stay in place and the top end of the log will fall into the truck bed. Move the choker to the bottom end and it will pull the log up and most of the way in. You won't be able to close the back end without cutting the ends short. Be sure to flush cut all stubs.

 

[Tree09]

For something that will cost a few hundred, you can save your body and get more done. It's a perfectly fine idea.