Kranman Bison

[TimberCutterDartmoor]

Fully specced Bison 6000 (no processor price available that I can see) is £25k. 30t a day at £10 a tonne should see a reasonable return.

 

£10/tonne for a 30 ish minute load turnaround? Blimey, I'll come up with my Bruunett tommorow!

[Big J]

£10/tonne for a 30 ish minute load turnaround? Blimey, I'll come up with my Bruunett tommorow!

 

Supply and demand I suppose. There aren't many people around here with very small machines (the Alstor and the Bison are both 4ft wide) and the terrain can sometimes be difficult. A Bruunett and Vimek would be too large and too heavy - the stands look terrible if you have to cut to allow access for such big machines.

 

We used to cut hardwood firewood at roughly 15 lengths to the tonne. So that means 30 lengths to the bogey load. Cutter will stack the smaller lengths and bigger lengths will be one to the lift anyway. So maybe 10 grabs and you're done. Average extraction route length was about yards at most. I'm not saying I'd manage anywhere near that turnaround speed initially, but the chap we used to use was 20-30 minutes per load, reliably.

[Charlieh]

Having run, operated, maintained and owned fair bit of the smaller scale kit, and this is my most sensible bit of advice on the subject, buy a 4x4 tractor ~(or big alpine) and smallish forwarding trailer

[Chris Sheppard]

Having run, operated, maintained and owned fair bit of the smaller scale kit, and this is my most sensible bit of advice on the subject, buy a 4x4 tractor ~(or big alpine) and smallish forwarding trailer

 

Sounds sensible to me.

 

There's a lot more choice on the smaller trailers now than there ever used to be.

 

Our Kubota lacked a bit of hydraulic speed but it was really surprising where it would wiggle it's way into or pull it's way through, even loaded.

 

The smaller machines don't seem to like travelling through brash as well as a larger purpose built machine, but if you are doing the felling too, then you soon adjust how you work slightly.

 

I think the self powered processor is kind of cool, but it didn't look that quick.

[Tilio-acerion]

Having run, operated, maintained and owned fair bit of the smaller scale kit, and this is my most sensible bit of advice on the subject, buy a 4x4 tractor ~(or big alpine) and smallish forwarding trailer

 

What size trailer were you running and tractor HP? Been thinking for a while about a similar set up, either 3 or 5 ton Riko COT or quite like the look of the 5 ton Kranman with steering drawbar.

[Tilio-acerion]

Sounds sensible to me.

 

There's a lot more choice on the smaller trailers now than there ever used to be.

 

Our Kubota lacked a bit of hydraulic speed but it was really surprising where it would wiggle it's way into or pull it's way through, even loaded.

 

Also what tractor trailer combo were you running? Cheers:thumbup1:

[Big J]

Having run, operated, maintained and owned fair bit of the smaller scale kit, and this is my most sensible bit of advice on the subject, buy a 4x4 tractor ~(or big alpine) and smallish forwarding trailer

 

That's a very interesting point of view. Could you go into more detail as to why? I spent three years with an Alstor extracting what we cut and he always put a good tonnage roadside for minimal cost (in terms of running costs and maintenance). An alpine tractor and forwarding trailer won't fit on one trailer either.

 

Just very interested - I appreciate that there are issues with such small machines, but I'm curious to know if anyone's operated something similar and what the like for like alternatives are. A forwarding trailer would have to be driven to be considered a legitimate alternative. We have a lot of hills and a lot of wet ground.

[timbernut]

What about the riko trailer, you can put the alpine on it ( what they were designed for). Would agree with charlish, the alstors etc are great but tractor more versatile IMO as can be used for other purposes when not forwarding and riko trailer converts to road tow and could deliver milled products. Surely it'd be a win win!😄

[Chris Sheppard]

Also what tractor trailer combo were you running? Cheers:thumbup1:

 

Originally had a 48hp Carraro that I used a JMS 900 trailer behind (the diddy one with quad tyres and a 9ft long crane) and it was OK, but very small load capacity.

 

More latterly, it was a 30odd horsepower Kubota 4wd with a 4T Weimer trailer and crane that was only a couple of years old when we bought it. Typically we could get around 2.5t of 12ft hardwood firewood on a load or around 3T of sftwood sawlogs. On the right sites it was great, and the whole lot stood us in at less than £7k.

 

If I were to do it again, I'd look similar but ideally a slightly newer tractor (so better hydraulics mainly) and a longer crane. Ours only had a 3m long crane but a 4 or 4.5 would have sped the job up a bit. I've never had chance to use a driven trailer before, but can only think it could be a good thing.

[Tom D]

Given that most alpines seem to have a land drive PTO, I think it shouldn't be too hard to make a driven axle trailer, either with a crane or with the crane mounted behind the seat on the tractor.