Does anyone watch Big Timber on Netflix? The guy doesn't seem like someone you'd want to work for. Say's he can't afford new equipment and then complains when the old stuff breaks down. A lot of it is lack of maintainence. When you see a hyd. hose that's showing the steel braid is a pretty good sign you should replace it before it blows and who wouldn't keep spare fan belts for their old yarder that's their main machine to get logs?
I suspect like all reality shows it is embellished for tv. If it wasn’t, nobody would watch it. Drama, breakdowns and disasters equals viewers which equals more money for the producers
Yeah its entertainment, not much more. Guy runs some pretty old stuff in rough shape to try and run a business with.
I have never seen the show, but what you are describing is exactly the way the unsuccessful loggers (which is most of them) around here operate.
Being laid up right now ,i watch that nonsense every morning . Its entertainment i guess. The way he loves old junk im getting ready to send him a personal invitation to my yard to load up on some more,as im not far from where they operate. I sold my 49 KB5 International to a friend a while back .Somehow he became involved with the wreck recovery show .They came and filmed us dragging the old truck off my property. The first thing we told them was we dont want to be doing anything stupid on film ,last i heard was they had canceled the episode we were filmed for. So much for my acting career.
He apparently runs the last independent mill on Vancouver Island. The way he does things doesn't look very efficient at all. Using an excavator with a thumb for loading logs? There's a reason they make specific log loaders. Logs continually getting stuck on a stump, you've got a chainsaw, cut the stump and problem solved. It doesn't seem to matter if it's Highway thru Hell, Goldrush. Mud Mountain Haulers or this show, they all claim there is no added drama and it's all 100% real. HtH is probably closest to how things actually go but was just watching an episode where the mechanic is pulling a stuck semi and is struggling. Notices a highway patrol is running alongside the truck, because the trailer brakes are on, to tell the driver. He keeps driving until the highway patrol runs up to tell him. Wouldn't anyone sensible stop when you see someone running alongside the vehicle you're towing? I'd say Goldrush is the worst by a longshot for fake reality.
If a TV crew ever approached me first thing would be you can record but I'm not doing re-shoots or drama. Take it or leave it.
From what I've looked into, the people on these shows can get up to $10K each per episode in the US. Even half of that in Canada could explain why they allow all the BS.
My dignity is worth more than $10k.
If your business and finances were suffering a bit the extra money would be tempting.
Sometimes ya gotta run old junk stuff to survive. Thats how i was able to farm for 40years. I worked off-farm and patched my old worn out equipment as needed on a shoestring budget. Eventually i was able to afford better equipment in time to retire with no debt. Nice equipment is great but sometimes not feasible for the size of operation. Hey, as long as it gets the job done and is relatively easy to repair and get parts for, it doesn’t have to look pretty. I have never tried to keep up with my neighbours equipment-wise. I farmed for myself-not the bank
If you have seen any of my posts, you would see my mainline equipment dates from 1984-1999. I use some stuff which is much older. But, if you are going to do that, you have to expect to repair it, and, if you don't maintain it, the repairs are going to be much more extensive. The ones I am talking about, when they see a wheel seal leaking, they say, "I've got to get my loads this week, I'll worry about that later". Then when the bearings burn up and the bearing siezes to the spindle and destroys that, and the hub, too-"I need you to work all night on it, why do I have such terrible luck!, etc., etc.
If you rely on old equipment like a yarder, you should have a good stock of spare parts and do even more preventative maintainence. With all the money he has tied up in old junk, maybe it would have been better getting some newer equipment. Not brand new but maybe under 10K hours with maintainence records that isn't 25+ years old.
I agree with you guys on running old junk 86 Kenworth ,1972 Lima, 1972 American speaks for my fleet. It pays the bills and actually its not that hard to keep running. In the Big Timber line up his logging gear is pretty good for a Gypo ,the grapple yarder looks decent the steel spar for its age seems good to. Loading with the excavator works ok when you have the room in the landing. The lack of proper whistles when they are yarding sucks .The hooker and the rigging slinger need bugs to run the whistles from thier end radios dont cut it when your setting chokers . A little more manpower would help ,no chaser in the landing slows things down big time . On the grapple yarding side i had to wonder when they skin the grapple back ,drop it beside the log and tag a choker to the log beside the grapple ,thats reserved for stuff thats out of reach. Taking one of the hoes and rigging it as a backspar would double thier grapple yarding production. Theres my 2 cents worth from the arm chair.
Well gotta run ,Big Timber is on !
Highway Through Hell-----is a dramatized joke.
All reality TV makes me want to puke, I'm going back to antennae TV, at least I can puke for free.
Anything in particular that bothers you? At least the wrecks are real, the ones on the highway anyways. Some of the off road recovery might be staged. I wonder why they pull sideways when it looks like they could pull stuff out the opposite way it went in. Someone on another forum said you shouldn't tow with the boom winches but when they're pulling trucks up the icy hill they always pull directly on the boom winch lines. I like when they are pulling heavy equipment out with the D9 winch Cats.
I like watching Quiring's recoveries. They're a little more interesting than watching a truck being dragged out of a ditch anyways. Wish Quiring would update their youtube channel.
Yeah-the entire show. Dribble not worth air time. Like watching golf. Does anyone really know what hell is like? No one has returned to tell us.
There was a US based Highway to Hell that didn't last long. It gave tow operators a real bad name. An arrogant tow truck driver offered to help a guy put chains on a 3 ton box truck... for $100. I was thinking it doesn't take an hour to put chains on. He was trying to take advantage of the guy.
I've seen that show as well, wasn't a huge fan. Absolutely blew my mind seeing people chaining up cars. Conditions get just as bad on the Coq or any other pass in BC and nobody uses chains on cars and pickups.
A few guys in trucks might put chains on but most trucks are 4 wheel drive now.
Davis Towing is on Youtube. He said the new trucks on order are 2.5 to 3 years away, so is fixing up some of the older trucks. Ron Pratt, Missouri for a range of towing jobs. Wilcox Garage, Ohio and there was another guy from Indiana? who was calm and methodical on his jobs.
Like most things there are several do's and don'ts when it comes to towing. Just a few. #1 Recover it the same way it went in, don't try to make a new path with more resistance #2 If it has a trailer, never unhook it. Landing gear doesn't do well as wheels. #3 There's a thing called a shovel, have one and don't be to lazy to use it, dig out behind wheels. #4 If at all possible when its on its side, off load. If it's a van it will blow the wall out. #5 Don't show up to a gunfight with a knife, know your equipment's capability. #6 Get as close as possible to object your after. You loose leverage with a lot of cable out. #7 For years the standard of the industry was the Holmes 750 rated at 25 tons on full spools, which were big. The 750 was actually 34 tons on the first wrap. That was just the way Holmes rated them. Like most things people over do is loading a recovery truck with way too much cable on the spools. Two 750's operating in tandum with two smart operators can move way more than people think. Truthfully from a old operators point of view-If you can't move the average wreck with a non-rotating 50 ton and 30 ton assist ---you need to find another business. If you need the help of a crane then call one in. But a rotator --that's just Grandiose with a huge towing bill.
Thats big line pull on those wreckers. My 40 ton American is around 20,000 lbs on the bare drum and the 75 ton Lima is 23,000 lbs . Lifting for us is all dependent on parts of line used. With 25 ton line pull looks like you could snap a 3/4" mainline pretty quick if your not careful. In the bush a lot of recovery work was done with Cats 1 1/8" line and block purchase . A whip and a luff the old timers called it , first block run thru another block then to a good stump , second block hooked to the single line on another block then to a stump. Not sure if i described it right. Sometimes it would be rock bolts for a tailhold and 6 or 8 parts of line pulled by the cat or a yarder. I wish had taken more pictures back then of some of the calamities we had. This one was an HDX that ran out of water on the trip down loaded and ran a little short on brakes. I was pulled over in the welding truck when he flew by and watched him flip in the rearview mirror into a deep ditch ,The truck is under that mess . the driver crawled out and walked away crew got to work and dug it out. Took us a month or two in the shop to straighten the truck out and get it hauling again . Amazingly little damage for a truck that was upside down on its roof.
Was on a recovery in 1988, the boss had just bought 4 new 12" wide x 25' special recovery straps, I don't remember the rating but it was high. Both of us were pulling together, Freeway was shut down so we could span cables across. I was righting the trailer end while he was hooked up upfront. I was watching cable and straps like a hawk when I spied the rear recovery strap start to rip. I started paying cable out the boss saw what was going on and did the same. Front tires on mine were about a foot off the ground. I ran out of time I could see and let go of controls and hit the ground. when one broke the other gave way. 5/8" cable in flight when the hooks hit the tail board it put two dish size dents in 1/2" steel, bowed every bit of a inch deep. The new recovery straps came apart where assembled around D ring. The boss had very long conversation with the company that made them, I remember the pull on the straps wasn't even near maximum rating. Cable in flight is a scary deal.
And broken chain parts can fly a long way. Regarding Truck Shop's rule #1, that's what I question on the show. They're using 2 or even 3 trucks to pull sideways or pulling at weird angles that must decrease the pull of the winches instead of pulling the truck and trailer out backwards. Especially if they have a rotator it seems if they are worried the trailer will flip, put a strap around the trailer and use the other truck to pull it backwards. It is interesting seeing some of the wrecks and wondering how they happened.
Back to Big Timber just for a sec. The (2) Detroits in “The Seacrest “ (an ex RCAF crash recovery boat) you think they are 6-71’s or 6-110’s. IIRC, they talk about them putting out around 250 hp each. They don’t show the engines up close very often but lots of overhead shots.
Id bet 671 s I have nt seen a 6 110 around here for many years.
A 6-71 will easily pull 250 HP in a boat. It could easily be a V6-53 with a marine power factor rating.
I wondered that to, but I think I have the answer. Knowing personally a few wrecker drivers, in order to pull a truck out backwards you'd have to set up across the crown of the road, basically have to shut down both lanes. If you watch the show enough, almost never is the road completely closed. When they are pulling sideways, they are only blocking one lane.
Not a lot of alternate routes in rural BC either so shutting down the highway pretty much shuts down all travel on that route. Plus most sections of main highways are just one lane in each direction with a 3rd lane for passing every 30 km or so.
Most of it depends on the terrain along side the highway. If a rig lays over on the edge of the road. It would be righted there and winched forward. But to closing roads to recover a wreck, happens all the time, so what some one had to wait. Just work to get it done as fast as you can.
This one below is owned by Ole Olson's Towing in Minot ND, guess where it came from.---------- Originally/bought new by Fenns Towing in La Grande Ore, then sold to Hagerman in Umatilla ore. Holmes 1801-50 ton, lived a lot of it's life cleaning up wrecks on the famed Meachum Summit top of pass over Blue Mountains which includes the famed Cabbage Hill. I would be willing to bet this recovery unit has seen more action than most ever operated. I deal with the guys at Fenns. A very good outfit.
Is that a trebron stiff leg on the back?
Can't answer that it was added later.
Highway 16 was closed 100% in both directions for 11 hours straight just west of the BC/AB border the other day. Alternating traffic for another 4 hours after that. Only other routes would've been down to Calgary and through Banff or up through to Dawson Creek. Whatever happened there must've been serious unfortunately. Rural living in BC is awesome in a lot of ways but travelling isn't fun.
Wait until you get to the lower mainland and want to go over to the island. The snowflakes that run BC ferries cancel runs for any excuse,bit of snow ,an unexpected breeze out in the gulf , someone had a runny hose. The canceled sailings are unprecidented . Guys working for private marine outfits are all fighting for time off as those outfits never miss a sailing no matter what.
Inlines were rated at 238 in a truck. Guy I work with knows Ole well and has worked with him. They are well known.
Closing a highway so a truck can be pulled out opposite the way it went in looks like it wouldn't take nearly as long and just be easier and also a heck of a lot safer for the towers. One thing I don't think is dramatized is the idiots not slowing down despite pylons and lots of flashing lights. They just passed a law here that tow operators can have flashing blue lights I think it was. I think the idea is people are more likely to slow down for blue lights... Thinking the police are up ahead?
Moved this tow discussion to {Memories for old Truckers}.