Financial viability of small forwarders/tractor trailer

[josharb87]

Have a look at @IronMike ‘s posts for inspiration, or even threads

 

 

 

 

 

[Sviatoslav Tulin]

We use mini tractor intensively, it is very handy on country jobs,in tight forest,big estates even big back gardens.Hard to say about profit but we do odd landscaping job so need it anyway.

[spuddog0507]

Read most of the above and some good points made, i have a small outfit that i use on mainly our own jobs or salvaging wind blown timber that we have been paid to sort out, as most of the work is generally down footpaths with in blocks of forestry from 100 - 900 acres it makes cense for us to run a small tractor and forwarding trailer, we all so have a Igland 4.2 tonne winch for it as well, it all seems to work well and even tho when it comes to the timber salvaging its at my expence but it works, main of the timber we salvage we process in to firewood our selves and sell on,, the trailer i have is about ready for a bit of a refurb and the crane needs a bit of attension as it was only one of the cheaper ones and was bought to do 2 jobs but thats 10+ yrs since, knowing what i know now i would not skimp on the crane as there is some very good small cranes out there today, only done a few paid extraction jobs with it and i was charging £28hr with a £2 a mile transport charge 1 way, i like extracting with mine and only problem is getting me off it,,

[Malus]

Looks like a good combo there Spud, thanks for the pointers. 

 

Consensus seems to be that they are useful for the right job but there isn't necessarily enough work out there for them to make much money. I'll keep mulling it over for the next couple of months. 

 

As for the dedicated small forwarders I don't think I want to spend my entire life forwarding timber and I think you might have to to get a return on the investment. I think they're about £30-60k, would have to move a lot of wood to make that pay. My thinking was that a trailer behind the tractor is another string in the bow and keeps life a bit more interesting. I think if I could get a month or two of work for it a year I'd be happy. I can see the benefit of those dedicated forwarders though, they all look like really handy machines and far more efficient than tractor/trailer. 

 

Just another thought - I had originally intended to get a rotating grab for my 2.6t digger and make up a little trailer to tow along with it. I was put off by the price of the grabs though, about £3k+vat - nearing half the price of a forwarding trailer for the tractor. Mini digger would be limited to short runs though. 

[spuddog0507]

50 minutes ago, Malus said:

Looks like a good combo there Spud, thanks for the pointers. 

 

Consensus seems to be that they are useful for the right job but there isn't necessarily enough work out there for them to make much money. I'll keep mulling it over for the next couple of months. 

 

As for the dedicated small forwarders I don't think I want to spend my entire life forwarding timber and I think you might have to to get a return on the investment. I think they're about £30-60k, would have to move a lot of wood to make that pay. My thinking was that a trailer behind the tractor is another string in the bow and keeps life a bit more interesting. I think if I could get a month or two of work for it a year I'd be happy. I can see the benefit of those dedicated forwarders though, they all look like really handy machines and far more efficient than tractor/trailer. 

 

Just another thought - I had originally intended to get a rotating grab for my 2.6t digger and make up a little trailer to tow along with it. I was put off by the price of the grabs though, about £3k+vat - nearing half the price of a forwarding trailer for the tractor. Mini digger would be limited to short runs though. 

Tractor and trailer does ok for us, i was working along side a log bullet mini forwarder on a job 2 year ago and i could move at least twice as much at a time and when your on a long haul it makes a diffarence,, then there is the resale issue as well, a small tractor will appeal to a much larger selling audience than a purpose built forwarder,, i think i would get back what i paid for mine and about the same for the trailer and crane, we use a little 2,8t  digger with a fixed grab and it works well in thinings as we stack the timber ryde side and windrow the brash with it as with it being a fixed grab you can rake or push brash with it which i find is very labour saving,,

Going to look at a job next wk where some windblown has taken a drystone wall down so its price for windblown clearance then rebuild the wall, could be 25 -30 tonne of timber which will be ours for the removal of it so tractor n trailer and the winch come in to there own in this situation, we will sever the trees and winch back in to the woodland whole, then sned and process with in the wood hence no brash to drag back, it all works out most days then one day you get every thing going wrong !! get your trailer with crane then make a braket up to swap grab between trailer and digger, but when you put it back on tractor put half a gallon of oil to dump out of grab n rotator as you would be putting hydraulic oil in to the back end of your tractor which aint good but the other way your UTO out of tractor in to digger would be fine,,  

[spuddog0507]

ment to add photos to last post,, 

[MattyF]

That is a nice size trailer spud… would be a better bet than mine which Is a riko but forget the model number .. perhaps 370?? It is only 1.5 tonne , yours looks like 3t ? And has the benefit of the extending boom which makes a huge difference when loading thinnings that are not stacked roadside.

[slack ma girdle]

There is no right or wrong,  all of the above machines have there strengths and weakness,  you will have to adapt your work practices to suit their strengths.

No one machine will do everything.

Small forwarders are nimble, i haven't needed my winch since I've had the log bullet, but are no good over long distances.

Tractors and forwarders are much quicker,  carry alot more, but are a royal pain in the arse to manoeuvre amongst trees.

 

[spuddog0507]

14 hours ago, MattyF said:

That is a nice size trailer spud… would be a better bet than mine which Is a riko but forget the model number .. perhaps 370?? It is only 1.5 tonne , yours looks like 3t ? And has the benefit of the extending boom which makes a huge difference when loading thinnings that are not stacked roadside.

Yes i looked at the Riko ones and some others supplied by ryteck, then decided to build one it was originally built for use behind a quad but spent more time on its side than on its wheels do we redesigned it for use either at 4ft wide behind a quad or at 5ft,6" when behind the tractor, 3tonne on it when behind tractor but some times it will of been more, 3mte beech n oak thinnings soon start adding up,, 

[josharb87]

I’ll echo Slack ma girdles comments, I’ve a miniforwarder, it comes into its own when needing to deal with a mess, being able to back in, sorting into piles then forwarding out, it’s nimbleness and off road ability runs circles around trailers. Plus user comfort. But long easy drives it’s much slower in transport speed. There at other makes though that will do 25kmh 
 

I’ve often thought about a set up like Matty F - an alpine tractor that could do other duties and a trailer, I’d really like to try a reverse drive alpine with a trailer, but for me, I’m worried I’d miss the aforementioned pluses of the forwarder too much. No difference/saving in price either