Can anyone provide an opinion on if levelers are better for felling/shovelling than flat based machines? Aside from the comfort factor. I'm talking about straight production.
It depends on the economics, machine operator skill/ experience, terrain, tree size, what other machines (combinations)are on the crew. If harvesting small blocks on flat ground most of the time, with a bit of moderate slope, then a leveler may not be required. Steep terrain and every day in good wood, cutting for good cable yarders then the leveler and cable assist are more likely to pay. Small woodlots - 4 flat base machines in dry conditions with some slope in one crew. One machine could stay bucking, piling and loading trucks while the other 3 shoveled. Hyundai double grousers Komatsu 300 on dry ground with grouser extensions There are examples of Caterpillar forestry swing machines(non-leveling, D-FM series, low cab) in cable assist situations felling trees that have gone okay. By adding grouser extensions, etc Cat/ satco not on wire Cat 552 on wire https://youtu.be/A0RRpHLLvUk Tigercat 855 on wire Canadians think it is worthwhile putting a tilt on the Madill 2850C US - wildfire timber recovery John Deeres tethered. https://youtu.be/Jz0E273LiWw The Tigercat LSX870D is probably one of the more expensive machines having closed circuit track drive.
Can you swing a big log uphill with a flat base machine?
Hey Plebeian, is it correct that levellers were developed by a bloke from Tauranga?
Washington Iron Works/ Allied ATH 28 was probably the first of the leveling tree harvester followed by others such as Timbco. Hyundai on an ecoforst wire. (behind the logmax)
I don't know that there was a lot of difference in production capabilities in the base machines themselves. From what I saw, production was dependent on the terrain and type of forests you were working in. Tilters do bring in maintenance issues with all the joints between the carbody and house. All of them that I looked at for trade ins were loose under there. Fixing that stuff was a pain. They also seemed to get a lot of leaking hoses and fittings as well. Tilters do make is a lot more comfortable for the operators when working steep ground. I do believe that the first tilters that I was aware of were the Washington brand loggers. The first successful ones I worked on were Timberjacks. I believe they were 2518s but I could be wrong about that.
The Timbco's were developed starting in the early 1970s. Timbco made early machines that had tracks and the engine down configuration. Timbco then partnered with Timberjack making parts for the Timberjack engine down machine. They split up and Timbco developed the engine up machine. Timbco was sold to Partek (Valmet) in 2000.
The story around these parts was that the engineer for Timberjack developed the idea there and then left the company to form Timbco. There was management conflict about costs and such at Timberjack. Probably all just stories I guess. I worked for the Timberjack dealer at that time and all those machines were bunchers. Never saw a Timbco working in the woods until a year or so after the 2518s showed up. Never cared for either machine as they involved a lot of climbing up and down and they always seemed to quit running a half a mile up or down a draw from the road.
That's kinda what I was asking,I can shovel big wood uphill with the flatbase but would a leveler be better?
The 568 has plenty of reach but the steeper ground is challenging. Uphill shoveling Cat 552 and Summit wire https://bioenergyinternational.com/...-logger-for-extreme-duty-steep-slope-logging/
Those things look impressive. But capital cost is huge and they look maxed out. Id think an old 071 Madill running butt rigging and 2 or 3 beads and 4 ambitious young guys would would shine on those settings. And be a more sustainable long term. Maybe its just my old fart attitude showing,but we sure have complicated things.
Less people means less insurance cost.
4 ambitious youngish guys and a moderate cable logging skill level and one breaks a leg and is very difficult to replace or replace him with a beginner who also gets hurt etc. Beckett Logging (with older 552 on wire) Forest Enterprises/ Speirs Logging Te Karaka/ Gisborne NZ (equivalent to about us$4.2 million in machinery replacing most on 4 to 5 year turnover)1) 855e on 2)wire machine 3) shovel 4)635H skidder 5)568 processor 6)538 loader 7)538 loader. (Port scene - 538 lifted into ship's hold to stack. @10.30)
Its hard to argue what you say i know im thinking like a dinasour . Thats some extremely well organized looking logging in those videos . Lots of wood minimal labor. Just makes a guy wonder what the rest of the population will do for a living.
Looking at the presented 2021 stats about 3 forestry workers per week are getting injured to the extent they are spending more than a week off work. I will have to look up how many cable crews are still running choker-setters as their main method of cable log extraction. What do the other people do? The legal medicinal green leaf operation probably does not struggle to attract staff. Swing yarder crew (1x swing yarder, 2 x shovels, 1 x processor 1x loader)2 dozer guyline holds. Similar operations might have an extra (chainsaw operator) Quality Controler checking length and diameters on the ground. The engineers are still trying to program/develop new options for old yarders.
I don't believe I've ever seen a landing site that large and using that many machines. Typical operations here are the yarder with the processor handling the landed trees into logs and a shovel sorting and loading trucks. Sometimes there is a dozer or skidder parked nearby to help push loaded trucks out of the hole where they were loaded. Somewhere I have a video of a typical yarder logging show in this area.
It was 70 s and 80 s when i was working in the bush. I dont remember accident rates as you have listed above ,but maybe we had our heads buried in the sand. The company i worked for certainly had good safety practices as did most others we were associated with.The operation above looks very impressive ,but we could never find space for a landing that size,even a dry land sort was a major blasting and excavation project down at the beach. Long story short in simpler times a lot more guys working earning good wages ,wood going to mills nearby ,not on to a ship going to who knows where. More good jobs . Id bet you could say 25% of the homeless here now might have had those jobs and there was enough cash in the system to deal with the rest of the mess we see now. And its only getting worse every day . Sry about the poor pic,a typical landing on the coast. Jam the yarder in on the bank,enough room for the shovel to stack a couple of loads . A truck and 2 simple machines ,probably 8 guys working .Maybe 5 6 loads a day.
Around here, I don't know if you could even get insurance with manual falling. If you could, you couldn't pay it. Some loggers aren't even allowed to have a chainsaw on the job by their insurance companies.
I went to work for the Lazy W back in 1972. They gave me the choice to work in the mill or the woods tree planting. I went into the mill and a day later two brothers were killed on two different logging shows. Made up my mind that there was no future out there. Twenty years ago or so I had a cousin killed setting chokers. Taking men off the ground is worth every penny that was ever spent doing it.
The lower crew in post #13 have added a hydraulic harvestline, Sany base. The available 071 looked like a fix everything with rusty cable etc. The John Deere harvestline claims 400 metric tonnes (440 us short tons) or more some days. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=837960090682347
As someone who has had numerous leveling machines including the very first 855 tigercat in North America, multiple different tethering systems and a handful of yarders I can tell you that a leveling shovel does help in the very steep spots as a flat bottom is spending a lot of its swing power just to overcome gravity. Now a short boomed leveling shovel is not going to be your go-to for all out shovel logging as they just do not have the reach and therefore you add multiple swings to a unit. The best is a leveler for the nasty crap feeding a 568 Cat. Right now we are producing more with our '071 and Mexican crew then we did (yes, i have sold all my base machines) with tethered logging. Not to mention I paid $65,000 for that 071 with an acme carriage versus 1.4 million for my 855 and falcon base machine. They each have their place but you're never going to get away from guys on the ground out here on the Washington coast.
I wonder if the stress on the owner that owes the millions on these high tech machines is counted in the list of work place hazards. It seems that once you are indebted to that kind of iron in many cases it seems you have joined the race to the bottom. Hope the tower work is going good for you.
I dont wish the multi millions of debt on anyone especially with having to rely on todays labor pool to pay for it.
I work in that crew with the Madil 123 swing yarder and all the Cat machines that was shown.. We are a fully mechanized crew working on the East Coast of the North Island, New Zealand. We also have a JD 909MH on a Falcon Winch assist machine and a Cat 325C tailhold machine that wasnt shown in the video. It looks like a big skid (well it actually was lol) but we were set up on an existing metal pit. There was no skid put in for the setting we are doing so we had to build a small pad for the yarder to sit then pass the wood along side the road back to the metal pit, although we were using it for our skid temporarily. Usually the 330D that is shown passing wood off the yarder is down the hill shoveling into lines, feeding the swing yarder grapple or doing abit of ground base when available and the 320D is a back up loader for times when we do abit of Ground based logging at another skid, work on tight landings so need a machine to shovel from the yarder or need a machine to stay at a old skid and load out the last of the wood. Just thought I'd explain lol P.S I'm new here and really enjoy reading everyone's thoughts on logging. Got a awesome thing going on here
Ok, so to add another scenario to the leveler vs flat base, has any one had experience running a fixed felling head with a flat base excavator? Were boom mods required ? I'm asking because the company I am contacting to have hinted that's what they want us to replace our dangle head machines with . But I just find it hard to justify the cost of a leveler that will depreciate at around 70 bucks an hour. I think komatsu are shortening booms on pc300 s to run them.
Why would you replace a dangle head with a fixed head if your dangle was running just fine?
The forest company i work for is suggesting fixed heads are the way to reduce breakage. Personally I'm happy with the dangle as it's more multi purpose.
The good operator on a dangling directional felling head can put down way more wood and eliminate breakage also. When I ran them I would slack open the grab arms just as the tree was releasing from the stump and let it strip through the head about 20 or 30 ft and then close the grab arms again and it would set it down to the ground softly as it effectively had a counterbalance on the back of it then. The fulcrum point had changed and was very easy on the timber.
The Tigercat 857 is being shown by AB's in NZ in 2 weeks, guess most people will be turning up for the Barbeque. Brand's D-FM on a wire. Did they dry sump the engine on that? Satco stick dangle. CREW'S VIEW: Sam Dixon of Brand Logging with the Falcon Winch Assist TAC Winch Assist with Volvo with felling head Other Youtube video titles 'T-WINCH 30.2 in Australia (level 822 and fixed head -T-winch 30.2 in Australia)' Thomassen's levelling 855e with tigercat 5185 fixed bar saw head. 'Tigercat 5185 / Falcon Winch Assist(Tethered)' Active VMA and a few others chop and change the excavator sticks. https:// www. activevma. co. nz/ machinery /harvester- machines. html One option (always risk in used) is a partially depreciated tilter with a dangle head/ boom and make a fixed boom for the tilter. Some NZ excavator operators have short hard dig booms and a long boom for pond cleaning etc that they swap on the same excavator. Could do the same for a flat bottom excavator too. (long dangle head boom and shorter close it fixed) Remote control operator with a flat bottom excavator on a steep slope, caravan teleops. http: //www .appliedteleoperation. co.nz /full-teleoperation/ Madill said they were looking at making their tilt feller buncher again. I wonder if they might consider factory associated 'ridge runners' too, that could be put on multiple excavator brands. YT vid title 'Ridge Runner 450 Class Tilt Undercarriage installed on a 2850 Madill Log Loader'
The side that I am on has a field mechanic there at least 3 days per week to work on the TigerCat 857. Imo Tigercat needs to get there R&D correct before sending these machines out for purchase. Just like their 180 yarder. It's insane selling these machines and allowing the customer to work the bugs out of them while making payments.
I've been speaking with agents in the madill organization at great lengths about upcoming product lines and ways to make them better. Keep your eyes open for new releases.
Video I took a few years ago out on a job
IIRC this is a block the educators gave the trainee logging planners to figure out, decades ago. High tension power lines/ towers, average tall trees, moderate slope, in full view of the city population to complain about. The big question was 'Whether logging trails were going to be allowed to be pushed in for the steeper terrain' or some office bureaucrat was going to insist on cable or helicopter logging near the high tension lines. One of the solutions decades ago was cable logging away from the powerlines to minimise the logging trails dug into the hill and cable dozer to pull trees away from the power lines. Today's answer is tilt dangle head feller buncher on a wire with bogey skidder with the tracks dug.