Large, dead ash clearance job. Advice appreciated

[Big J]

54 minutes ago, dumper said:

All the branches will decrease the load capacity of the forwarder I think you are on the optimistic side with your calculations

 

I know, but I'll also have 30ft lengths, instead of 10ft lengths. You're never more than 75m from a ride in this woodland too.

 

I did some willow coppicing for a friend at Christmas, felling and extracting similar sized stems for branch logging. It took me 6 hours to extract enough material to fill 42 builders bags, and that was on a 500m extraction route. They were hand felled too, and not ideally presented for uplift (the trees were along a river bank, felled into the field, meaning I had to lift them tip first). This ash would be much quicker.

 

26 minutes ago, doobin said:

How much will it cost just to put a mulcher through it? Only fair way for the client is to price this option up, then if you want the chip you can undertake to remove them for this price. The chip value is your profit.

 

That's a fair point, but I'd rather try to present a no cost option to the landowner if possible.

[Big J]

Speaking to Logbullet today, they've a new machine coming at the end of the year that will make an ideal carrier for a tree shear. I'll sell my forwarder at that point and upgrade, and be well equipped for this job, should it materialise.

[Rough Hewn]

Speaking to Logbullet today, they've a new machine coming at the end of the year that will make an ideal carrier for a tree shear. I'll sell my forwarder at that point and upgrade, and be well equipped for this job, should it materialise.

Onwards and upwards
[emoji106][emoji106][emoji106]

[Spruce Pirate]

Sounds interesting J.  I've often wondered about a similar set up for 1st thinnings in spruce, but never got as far as actually costing anything.

 

A couple of thoughts...… When you load the whole tree onto the forwarding trailer, with them being largely dead, brittle ash you're likely to break a lot of the branches off.  Some of these will get left behind in the wood, mostly the smaller ones, but hopefully you'll retain many in the bunk.  This might actually increase the capacity per load if I'm not mistaken?  The same at the point of chipping, hopefully it will be more compact, resulting in more material per grab getting fed into the chipper. 

 

Jenkys are extracting brash from the mats along the road for us and chipping into walking floors in the wood, so there must be some sort of money in it.  Clearfell, after everything has been extracted the forwarder lifts all the mats, stacks brash at roadside, tracked chipper comes in, loaded by excavator with grab straight into a walking floor.  Commercial operation, non-grant aided as far as I know, customer getting a return on the brash.

 

On a slight downside, if the spacing is that tight then a 30' pole is going to be quite something to manoeuvre around!  Either you're going to skin the retained trees which isn't going to be good or you're going to break the poles, especially as they're brittle ash.  Realistically I'd think you'd probably do both which is the worst combination.    There are good reasons for short-wood working in thinnings as opposed to long-wood.

 

Be interested to see how you get on with it and if the figures add up.

 

 

[Big J]

1 hour ago, Spruce Pirate said:

Sounds interesting J.  I've often wondered about a similar set up for 1st thinnings in spruce, but never got as far as actually costing anything.

 

A couple of thoughts...… When you load the whole tree onto the forwarding trailer, with them being largely dead, brittle ash you're likely to break a lot of the branches off.  Some of these will get left behind in the wood, mostly the smaller ones, but hopefully you'll retain many in the bunk.  This might actually increase the capacity per load if I'm not mistaken?  The same at the point of chipping, hopefully it will be more compact, resulting in more material per grab getting fed into the chipper. 

 

Jenkys are extracting brash from the mats along the road for us and chipping into walking floors in the wood, so there must be some sort of money in it.  Clearfell, after everything has been extracted the forwarder lifts all the mats, stacks brash at roadside, tracked chipper comes in, loaded by excavator with grab straight into a walking floor.  Commercial operation, non-grant aided as far as I know, customer getting a return on the brash.

 

On a slight downside, if the spacing is that tight then a 30' pole is going to be quite something to manoeuvre around!  Either you're going to skin the retained trees which isn't going to be good or you're going to break the poles, especially as they're brittle ash.  Realistically I'd think you'd probably do both which is the worst combination.    There are good reasons for short-wood working in thinnings as opposed to long-wood.

 

Be interested to see how you get on with it and if the figures add up.

 

 

Always nice to get your input Wallis

 

You're making me think that I ought to be extracting the brash from the 3000t spruce clearfell we're doing. It's a super short extraction distance and there is plenty of it. I'll have a think about who to approach regarding the brash down here.

 

As regards the ash, there are only a couple of blocks (out of dozens) with ash as tall as 30ft. It's mostly averaging 18-25ft. I would guess that most of the smaller branches would be extremely brittle and would snap off. That's probably desirable actually, as it wouldn't make good chip.

[LGP Eddie]

12 hours ago, Spruce Pirate said:

Sounds interesting J.  I've often wondered about a similar set up for 1st thinnings in spruce, but never got as far as actually costing anything.

 

A couple of thoughts...… When you load the whole tree onto the forwarding trailer, with them being largely dead, brittle ash you're likely to break a lot of the branches off.  Some of these will get left behind in the wood, mostly the smaller ones, but hopefully you'll retain many in the bunk.  This might actually increase the capacity per load if I'm not mistaken?  The same at the point of chipping, hopefully it will be more compact, resulting in more material per grab getting fed into the chipper. 

 

Jenkys are extracting brash from the mats along the road for us and chipping into walking floors in the wood, so there must be some sort of money in it.  Clearfell, after everything has been extracted the forwarder lifts all the mats, stacks brash at roadside, tracked chipper comes in, loaded by excavator with grab straight into a walking floor.  Commercial operation, non-grant aided as far as I know, customer getting a return on the brash.

 

On a slight downside, if the spacing is that tight then a 30' pole is going to be quite something to manoeuvre around!  Either you're going to skin the retained trees which isn't going to be good or you're going to break the poles, especially as they're brittle ash.  Realistically I'd think you'd probably do both which is the worst combination.    There are good reasons for short-wood working in thinnings as opposed to long-wood.

 

Be interested to see how you get on with it and if the figures add up.

 

 

Some good points here and that’s why I figure a dangle mount Felling Head will be a nightmare.

At least with a shear and collector you can take a couple of bites, hold it vertically or steer it if required and land it fairly gently.

 

Logbullet certainly won’t be going down any other route than making provision for a Felling Head I’d imagine.

 

Get a call in to John Craig J tell him you want a narrow Elliator building but leave the Excavator dipper on for a Shear!??

 

 

 

Eddie 

Edited October 1, 2019 by LGP Eddie

[rowan lee]

Big J - As always an interesting read, sure does get myself and others on here thinking (I'm sitting in an office now waiting to log drillcore not sticks when the rain clears off). I've been following your brain tease threads on here since you started the low impact business last year. With all these interesting jobs you do, ever thought of strapping a gopro to your chest and setting up a youtube channel. I think it would be a big success, and some nice additional revenue to be made potentially. I understand that it may not be your thing though, but I reckon it would be fascinating, and can't think of anybody documenting low impact vlogs at the mintue.

[Big J]

41 minutes ago, rowan lee said:

Big J - As always an interesting read, sure does get myself and others on here thinking (I'm sitting in an office now waiting to log drillcore not sticks when the rain clears off). I've been following your brain tease threads on here since you started the low impact business last year. With all these interesting jobs you do, ever thought of strapping a gopro to your chest and setting up a youtube channel. I think it would be a big success, and some nice additional revenue to be made potentially. I understand that it may not be your thing though, but I reckon it would be fascinating, and can't think of anybody documenting low impact vlogs at the mintue.

It's an interesting suggestion, but I barely ever even take photos myself. Most of the photos of my sites come from the guys working for me. I'm not much of one for self publicity ?

 

I'm also not sure if I can be entirely considered low impact anymore. Here are a few photos of one of the two sites we're presently working on: 

 

 

 

 

The saw in the last photo is a 372xp with a 24" bar (for scale)

[Mark Bolam]

On ‎30‎/‎09‎/‎2019 at 10:04, Big J said:

 

I know, but I'll also have 30ft lengths, instead of 10ft lengths. You're never more than 75m from a ride in this woodland too.

 

I did some willow coppicing for a friend at Christmas, felling and extracting similar sized stems for branch logging. It took me 6 hours to extract enough material to fill 42 builders bags, and that was on a 500m extraction route. They were hand felled too, and not ideally presented for uplift (the trees were along a river bank, felled into the field, meaning I had to lift them tip first). This ash would be much quicker.

 

 

That's a fair point, but I'd rather try to present a no cost option to the landowner if possible.

Just out of interest J, why?

[Big J]

2 hours ago, Mark Bolam said:

Just out of interest J, why?

Because I believe that it can be done as a job that is profitable for me and cost neutral for the landowner