I've never been around it happening and was wondering. Can an excavator do most of the work. Just dig around the roots and push it over up top. then clean up with a dozer later on? load trees with excavator. How's it work exactly. Like from trees being there. To trees not being there. Paint a picture into my mind What are you guys thinking when you pull up to a site that needs to be cleared. etc etc. Help me please I envy you guys. -Michael-
Landclearing... I don't do it anymore, but here's what we did. Every site is different, depending on what the terrain, timber, and moisture conditions are. It's a little different than flat out logging, because when logging you aren't really worried about contaminating the topsoil with brush. Here's what I used for equipment: 1. 32" bar power saw, or feller buncher if terrain permits 2. excavator with a hydraulic thumb or grapple, stump splitter attachment 3. cat with a ripper mounted stump splitter, and a pin-on rake 4. grapple skidder, or cat with winch and chokers Here's one possible way to go about doing it. It isn't the only way. All trees with merchantable logs are felled, limbed, and bucked, either by hand or with a feller buncher. Excavators work their way into the mess, pitching logs to one side, and brush and tops to the other. If the ground is flat enough, a cat with a brush rake can sweep the ground first. Logs can be skidded out when there's room to get to them. The stumps are left behind, so the brush doesn't get ground into the dirt when they are taken out. Once the brush is in windrows or piles, a cat or an excavator with a stump splitter can begin busting the stumps into halves or quarters depending on their size. Again, the excavator goes through, taking the stumps out and throwing them to one side. A cat with rake sweeps them to the piles, where the excavator piles them on. Great pains are taken to keep dirt out of the burn piles, since 'dirt don't burn'. Piles are lit with burn fuel (usually some combination of diesel and used motor oil) and tended by excavators until they're a flat pile of ashes. The area may then be disked, if flat enough, and gone over with hand labor to get rid of any sticks or roots that were missed. If big rocks were encountered, they may need to be loaded up and hauled off. If burning is not possible for some reason, the same may need to be done with the brush and stumps.
Back in our heyday of landclearing we had two and for a while three D8s with rakes (full rakes, not the pin on kind) that did everything from knocking the trees down to tending the fires. Now most of the big land clearing around here is done, and the little bit that goes on now we use an excavator with a thumb to knock down and pile the trees, (after timber has been salvaged) and a dozer to push them to the pile & clean up brush. Many other techneques work well, just depends on the situation. We have in the past used a crane with a clamshell bucket to pile the brush, and in dry conditons a wheel loader with a brush rake can do a very nice job, I would imagine a track loader with a brush rake would be a mean tool as long as the trees are not too big. When we were clearing at our sand pit there was a couple of acers of small (10-15') pine trees that had to come out, I knocked them over and pushed them into a row with the dozer and then the loader would push the rows into one big pile at the far end.
Thanks guys! Any pictures of dozers with " rakes " on them? Any pictures of landclearing would be great Would size excavator would be recommend etc. -Michael-
heres what we use our 750 our LTC-290 stump grinder our hydro-ax
our LTC-210 the chipper and cat 525 skidder hope you enjoy the pics
I push them from up high with my PC400. You have to be very careful!!!!!!!! Any kind of tree work is dangerous!!!!Then I get the tree between the bucket & the stick and cut the stump off. Feed the tree into a big chipper if it's pine. If it's hardwood I have the crew cut them up into 16" pieces and feed the brush into the chipper. We can't burn up here so I call a friend with a 100 yard trailer and he takes them to a shredder. I haven't met a tree yet that 400 can't knock over!
Has anyone tried the stump ripper rhino makes? thanks
I've only ever used an excavator to clear land, and it works very well. Even with a 150 size excavator I was able to push over 36" Fir trees after scratching around the roots a bit, and as the tree topples over it pops the roots out of the ground with it so once it's down out comes the chainsaw to cut up the tree. Then move it aside and grab the root with the thumb and place it on the pile. Of course the bigger the excavator the easier it works. In these pictures I'm using a 330 Deere to pull some stumps out of some fairly soft ground. Even with a smooth bucket it was no problem at all.
I use a Rome K/G blade on the dozer to clear timber with.It works good on small bush or bigger trees & stumps.I will usualy cut everyting down piling it in windrows then I remove the K/G blade and put the strait blade back on the dozer to pile the timber.Generaly make a series of small piles around the cleared area and the landowner can either burn them or leave them for the wildlife .The smaller piles will rot down in 3 to 5 years .It just depends on what the customer wants.
here in new england the hardwoods grab into our rocky siol pretty tight. not to say you cannot take the full stump out with a machine, but when you do the rootball ends up being substantial and filled with a lot of dirt - which dont burn too well! rhino makes an attachment to replace the bucket that looks like a two tooth claw and supposedly rips out stumps with much less dirt. I am into my project now where I have cleared many trees, have the good wood removed, brush piled, but the stumps remain. SO thats next and before I tackle with my 36" bucket and take up a bunch of dirt I was wondering about one of these rippers. would like to burn as many stumps as possible.
In minnesota the machine of choice is a large dozer. If you have to have a clean site with no piles and debris then leave the stumps on the trees. Makes the stumps easier to get burnt. Push the trees out and push to the burn site. As you passes to the pile get to smaller particles you;ll have to roll the brush to allow the dirt to fall out. A good operator can do it with just the blade, if your not that accomplished a rake wood be benificial. Once you start your fire, use the push fan on the dozer to fan the fire into a frenzy. Dont be in a hurry to bunch your fire to tight, as the hole burns in the middle push fresh material in, than drive from pile to pile tending your fires. Should be able to grub an acre an hour, burning takes more time.
There is quite a bit of information on this thread, YoungOne. There is also a picture of a dozer with a 45' scrub rake which is used on a cattle station in the Northern Territory, for clearing new fencelines, on this thread, posts #60 & #64. We use wheel loaders for clearing land here, because that is what we have. Our trees are not as big as some I see in the US, but our malle stumps can hang on and one advantage of the wheel loader is that we have a lot of lifting power to lift the stumps out. With a really stubborn stump, we cut the roots around it and then it will come out. We do push out a lot of large pine trees and the advantage of the wheel loader there, is we can push higher up the tree and it gives us a lot more leverage. They are much faster than a dozer and good for cleaning up, but no comparison whatsoever in hilly terrain and wet conditions like I see in the US, in fact you just would not use them in those conditions. Our terrrain is flat and nearly always dry. The trees are just pushed in to piles and burnt. Rn'R.
If you are doing a small job for yourself and don't want to spend a lot of money, a 30,000# excavator such as a cat 315 would probably do the trick. If you could get one with a thumb that could make the job even easier. You can pretty much do it all with that one machine. Such as taking down trees, stacking them, raking up debris, and just grubbing out the whole site. When taking down the more stubborn trees that won't easily go over, cut the roots on three sides with the bucket, then push the tree towards the side where you left the roots uncut. The uncut side of roots will anchor the tree on that side and make it fall with more predictability. Happy clearing.
Hey Nice airplane Diggerman!!! Here's a picture of a big maple stump I pulled out with an EX150 Hitachi that shows that if you have the patience it will get the job done!