Advice on machinery for moving timber

[Ambisawrous]

I am taking timber out of our own woods, mainly oversize so comes out either in rings for selling, in 4ft for boiler or good stuff in stems for milling. The main issue is getting around in the pretty densely populated woods. Our telehandler is just too big, 3t digger will be useful for loading trailers but can’t tow them as we need speed. Have been using quad bike with 8’ x 4’ trailer up to now non tipping, this has been better than I thought it would be and is fast to get to and from yard and woods, tow about 500kg including trailer. The improvement I am going to do is make a tipping trailer. Still going to look at compact tractor though as really would like to run a small winch as a lot of the trees are leaners and need to get them to deck. Also would allow a 1-1.5t trailer.
Skidsteers are just a loader so I do think a compact tractor with loader is the way ahead if you need to tow anything. Need to make a log arch to get stems to side of woods as well. Then the big machines can take over.

[william127]

7 hours ago, Ambisawrous said:

I am taking timber out of our own woods, mainly oversize so comes out either in rings for selling, in 4ft for boiler or good stuff in stems for milling. The main issue is getting around in the pretty densely populated woods. Our telehandler is just too big, 3t digger will be useful for loading trailers but can’t tow them as we need speed. Have been using quad bike with 8’ x 4’ trailer up to now non tipping, this has been better than I thought it would be and is fast to get to and from yard and woods, tow about 500kg including trailer. The improvement I am going to do is make a tipping trailer. Still going to look at compact tractor though as really would like to run a small winch as a lot of the trees are leaners and need to get them to deck. Also would allow a 1-1.5t trailer.
Skidsteers are just a loader so I do think a compact tractor with loader is the way ahead if you need to tow anything. Need to make a log arch to get stems to side of woods as well. Then the big machines can take over.

Quad bike and trailer can be surprisingly efficient. Using my old p6e ifor Williams, loading with 750ish kg of hornbeam with the 1.5 ton digger in the woods, drag quad bike and loaded trailer 50 yards onto decent track with the digger, then a 500 yard blast to the barn. Unload by hand, using the  1 in 5 slope of the barn floor to assist, piled as rough as anything to stack with the digger later.

Our quickest round trip was 22 minutes, 25 was average. A third man staying in the barn to assist with dragging off and save opening/closing doors and gates would probably saved 5 minutes a trip.

I don't think a tipper suitable for a quad bike would have saved us much time as it would have reduced our payload and probably been physically smaller as well as more delicate than my stripped and reinforced P6e!

 

[drinksloe]

I hve a tipping trailer for my quad and quite a handy wee trailer, for general use hardcore, leafs, hard core etc.

But the hieght of the ground doesn't allow the tipping mechanism to full tip before it hits ground/the pile of stuff u have dumped. So u end up with a load of 'skid mark' piles instead of a decent tidy heap.

 

Never used it with timber so not sure how it would work, not sur eif u drive away would be enough wieght on the deck so it didn't just drag the logs along with u.

 

Must admit i just hand ball them on/off have thought about tie a rope/sling/choker rond the whole load and driving off so they pull out the back, but u still need to stack them anyway so not a lot of benefit.

 

 

I' imagine a wee compact tractor or normal tractor with loadr would be by far the most versitile as it can do so many other things with hydralic spools, linkage, towing etc.

Other machines may be better for specific tasks and more specialised  rally all depends wot ur wanting and how u want to use it.

Everyones circumstances will be different so will machine choice