Melodeon

They won the Overall Innovation Arena Award at the Ploughing Championships: Forestry machine wins innovation award

Doesn't create a great impression, does it? They've had a good bit of press coverage for the launch, you'd think they'd have made sure the website quoted in all the articles was actually working. They have a bunch of pictures on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/FalconForwarder Attached should be a scan of the IFJ article. IFJ_06-09-2014_Falcon_Forwarder.pdf

That Irish Farmers Journal link is mostly behind a paywall, here's an article on the same machine from the Farming Independent: At last an Irish kit that targets private woodland - Independent.ie

In an Otterbox Defender case on my belt, usually around the back above the left buttock I'm usually a 'lone-worker' out in the forest with a chainsaw, so having the phone on my person at all times is essential, in my opinion.

Here you go:Avesta-Vagnen ATV Miniskotare Flakvagn Vedvagn Skogsvagn AvestaVagnen

Just got the Sugihara 13" light pro bar for my 550XP! It's a thing of beauty and a joy to behold My problem now is that I'm currently clearing headlands and firebreaks and some of the cutting is more akin to rotavating, so I'll be leaving the old Husky bar on it for the moment!

Yeah, the 3080 cab certainly wasn't designed for a rotating seat. There's room to fit one all right, but next to no leg room for the operator to stay in it while rotating it, and even less leg room when it's facing backwards. It could be time to come up a decade or two in tractor technology

Thanks for all the feedback folks, it's certainly giving me food for thought! I tried kneeling on the seat, and while it's broadly okay, I think I'd probably be positioned a bit too far back and too high up to really comfortably use levers mounted behind the seat, and the view upwards is pretty restricted by the big overhang of the roof at the rear. It could certainly be made to work though. The fuel tank of the 3080 is mounted on top of the rear axle behind/under the cab, so converting the cab to a proper full flat floor would entail fitting another fuel tank somewhere. Not simple by any means. There's certainly scope for fitting a rotating seat, but even with the seat slid all the way forward, and because the steering wheel doesn't tilt up out of the way, and the awkward fuel tank location mentioned previously (and me not being Oscar Pist..., erm, Douglas Bader), there's really nowhere for my feet to go except to stick them straight out the back window. Of course, I could always go for full radio control on the crane and then I could operate it from pretty much anywhere convenient...

Is it, quite literally, a pain in the neck? Further to my previous thread about kitting up to do my own thinning work (http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/large-equipment/67823-economics-running-older-harvester-forwarder-farm-forest.html), I'm investigating my forwarding options. I have a small 'fleet' of tractors here, the residue of my farming operations, but the biggest (and the only 4x4) is a 1988 MF 3080. It's a perfectly functional tractor and has plenty of life left in it, but it obviously has no 'Reverse Drive' function, as seen on forestry-spec Valtras and a few others. The 3080 world pull and operate a suitably sized forwarding trailer/crane outfit just fine, but I'm wondering would the lack of a rotating seat be a deal breaker? I did a LOT of mowing on that tractor with a trailed mower, and I well remember the sore neck and back I suffered from the constant twisting and turning to watch the mower. Does anyone operate a crane from the cab of a conventional tractor, or are they all operated from the ground or the drawbar of the trailer?

Yeah, what were the rope and chain supposed to be doing???

Words fail me [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsfqXaCJyug]Lumberjacking - Near Miss with Chainsaw - YouTube[/ame]

I've been making enquiries along those lines already!

It was adverts like that (and indeed an earlier iteration of that specific one!) that spurred me to pose the opening questions in the first place! I find myself gravitating towards a midi-digger/stroke head set up at the moment, something along these lines: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXwFxRsNIsM]Kesla 20SH harvesting head on 8 tonne Neuson excavator - YouTube[/ame] Still not 'cheap' by any means, but I'd be getting new equipment (the harvester parts!) and I'd have plenty of work for the digger too.

I'm investigating that route too!

No offence taken whatsoever! This kind of realistic feedback is exactly what I need to hear. I haven't won the lottery or anything like that, but the funds ARE (currently!) available for me to kit myself up to do a significant amount of the work myself and if I'm ever going to do it, this is the time to do so. There's more to this than just the raw economics too; I/we've always been pretty self-sufficient down the decades here on the farm, and I think I have some sort of genetic aversion to paying someone to do something I just KNOW I could do myself. As I said, I have my basic chainsaw tickets and I've no doubt I'd get through the 1st thinning well enough if I took it on, but the years continue to pass by and as I get older, the trees get bigger, and there'll come a point at which I can't or don't want to carry on doing that. A 'harvester' of some sort would keep me occupied cutting trees until my concerned family force me off of it on account of the danger I pose to myself and others.

Hi Brushcutter! Thanks for the comprehensive replies, there's lots of stuff to ponder there. The operator would be ME! I've never driven a timber harvester, but I have a LOT of years of operating farm machinery and moderately heavy plant behind me. I mean, how hard can it be? Spanner-twirling on big greasy heavy stuff holds no great fear for me, but electrical gremlins are a different prospect all right. I'm into my 50's now and am pretty much 'retired' from conventional farming, and have almost the entire farm under forestry at this stage. I spend my days rambling about the plantations armed with a pruning saw, a DBH tape, and aerosol tree marking paint. That's when I'm not on a tractor flailing the ride lines and headlands or on a digger taking out the remnants of the old paddock fences or generally tidying up or maintaining/extending the internal roads. I have CS30/31 and currently do all the tending/thinning in the hardwood sections using a quad and homebuilt forwarding trailer. In short, I'm VERY keen on personally doing as much of the work in my forest as I can, and I'd really like to extend this to the softwoods too. Swinging a chainsaw is all fine and dandy at the moment, but I'm getting older and the trees are getting bigger, and I figure a suitable harvester would keep me making sawdust for a good few years yet. Realistically, we're looking at 600-800 cubic meters per annum for the reasonably foreseeable future so long as the machinery is up to it and I'm able to operate it. There's also the prospect of purchasing a plot of semi-mature Sitka nearby, which would bump that figure up to 1000-1200 cubic meters per annum. I'm well served by sawmills around here and have an excellent public road network going right through the place. There's even a motorway 2 miles away! The mill purchasing managers I've talked to have been very keen to deal on whatever basis I decide to go with: standing in the wood, at roadside, etc. I realise that these figures are ridiculously small from the point of view of the professional forestry contractor, but I'm just kicking the notion around to see if it could work under my particular situation.

Would anyone be able to venture an opinion on the running costs of an older harvester/forwarder outfit? Something like a Timberjack 770 harvester and an 810 forwarder, for example? We're looking at the economics of taking on the thinning of our own softwood plantations, and these sort of machines are in the 'affordable if you squint your eyes up just right' range, but the ongoing running costs are something we need to put some sort of figures on. For instance, how much diesel, oils, filters, bars, chains, etc might such an outfit consume to cut 1000 cubic meters of Norway Spruce in 1st/2nd thinnings and extract a distance of 2-300 meters on a level 'easy' site? We're a couple of years away from starting the operation at the moment, but the difference between prices being offered for standing vs. roadside are prompting us to look at the DIY option.

ARB do off-the-shelf winch bumpers for Mazda/Ford, available from Devon 4x4 (and others, no doubt). EXTREMELY not cheap!: Ford/Mazda ARB Bumpers

You'll love this then; I give you the Thudguard Infant Safety Hat: Thudguard® - Infant Safety Hat

Freudian slip: when you say one thing, but mean your mother.

What do you guys think? I'm considering hauling the old camper van across the Irish Sea to the Confor Woodland Show 2013, but am wondering if it'd be worth the time and expense. I know it used to be a one day show, which I normally wouldn't bother travelling for, but they've increased it to two days and are promoting it as a biennial sister show to APF. So, will there be two days worth of 'stuff' to see and do, thus justifying the trip?

Brilliant! Consider that idea ...erm ...'borrowed'

Here's an idea on prices, your local hydraulics place will be similar: Hoses: Hydraulic Hose. Couplers: Quick Release Couplers for Hydraulic Services.

I've found Time-Serts to be a far better job than Helicoils in things that need to be fastened and unfastened more that once in the lifetime of the component. Sparkplugs are pretty much the definition of threaded things that need to be used and reused frequently. Time-Sert do sparkplug kits: + TIME-SERT® SPARK PLUG THREAD REPAIR KITS + spark plug stripped thread repair kits for spark plug problems, thread stripped spark plug repairs in damaged threads in spark plug hole stripped out approved thread repair, aluminum head spark plug repair Wurth UK are the UK agents.

My non-chainsaw work boots are the Haix Airpower X11 Mid: Airpower X11 mid, Robust, easy to use and comfortable - S3-boot for any personal protective equipment area - HAIX.COM I adore them! They've currently lasted almost 3 times longer that the usual 'cheapo' DIY shop boots I use to buy, and there's no sign of them failing yet. Light, comfortable, not too hot, not too cool; I highly recommend them.