This is a 518G skidder mounted with a tree shear on it I was wondering if anyone else has one or been around one.
Nice setup. I sure as heck could use one around here
It works good but I have a few problems I need to work out of it. I also have been trying to figure out who made the machine because it is a specal made thing. Caterpillar said it was origanally a reggular skidder with a winch. In the cuts that I do the shear is nice because it is not restricted because of fire danger. Mainly the trees I cut are juniper, plus a big selling point to a land owner is that I can pile trees as I go. I think that I will try to put some before picture on here, it is a completly better looking machine now than when I got it.
nice rig you got there and hurry up with them pic's :notworthy
Here is one of it in action and a before picture
That kind of shear feller-buncher head used to be very common here, but nowadays everybody uses a similar head with a saw in the bottom because shears tend to split and damage sawlogs. The only time anyone around here uses shears is on crews that only cut pulpwood. The heads are usually mounted on tractors that look very much like that one, except that they are made for the purpose, they drive toward the head, usually hydrostatically so they are capable of infinite speeds. A good operator in the woods here will never bring his wheels to a complete stop. He can cut about 500 tons per day. The only skidder I have ever seen with a cutter head is one a friend had with a flat shear mounted in place of the blade, with the grapple boom still on the back. It was very good on small sites so you just had to have one machine. If I had to guess I would say that your machine is a shop-built conversion. does it still drive toward the engine?
Foward is toward the shear head. The whole cab is facing the wrong way and it takes a little getting used to the steering, being backward and all. This machine orinally came from Tennesse, or around there, and before me and the guy I bought it from, it was in Washington. It makes a great machine for clearing juniper, being that, that wood only get used as firewood or just burnt in piles. Those trees are not very good for anything, and where we are at it is to far away from any type of biomass plant,or other type of plant.
I think that is a Albrite head or hidro ax we ran sevrial difrent machines with that type head around here in the early 80s I hope that helps you.
I wonder if one could mount that thing on a wheel loader?
Years ago Clark converted a 45B wheel loader to a feller buncher called a 45FB with limited sucess. They had problems with the Perkins engine and the fact that the loader didn't have the guarding in place to protect against the rigors of logging so they added bolt on guards that weren't heavy enough. The machine really worked well when it came to cutting and bunching but it never could compete with the purpose built machines like Hydroax and Barko.
This is good machine for what it is used for. However I have had a hard time finding any info on it. The problems I had were hydraulic and in the shear head. So finding the root of the problem with no flow chart or specs was hard. but after some educated guess's, and good help from hydraulic guys, I got it solved. That is why the purpose built machine is better. It is nice because for most of parts the 518 skidder parts easy to find and very available.
One another note to toyaround, this machine came from your neck of the woods. Who do you work or log for?
So what does this have, one gear forward and 2 or 3 in reverse? Looks like it has to run backwards so the tranny would work backwards to?
this has three foward and three reverse