Lots of nice pics here, just wondering what is the average life expectency of a front line yarder, skidder, shear and so on. I know there are some good ole pieces that are back up or to take out when have bigger jobs, when do you guys go new? thanks
Forestry equipment gets run real hard without a lot of top line maintenance. Logging shovels can go between five to ten years depending on the operation. Shovel loggers go less and those working under a tower go a lot longer. I haven't worked on yarders but have seen many over twenty years and older. Feller bunchers seem to run between five and eight years, wheel skidders about the same and track skidders are mostly dependent on location and operating type. Some people only use the track skidders to do the adverse terrain in a setting and take the cream with the wheel skidders. Others use the track skidders full time as long as the local control allows it. I've seen lots of log processors in the twelve to eighteen thousand hour range but most people trade out of them somewhere over ten thousand hours. One also has to remember that the appearance generally means nothing to a logging operator. Smashed hoods, dented doors and broken windows don't usually prevent a machine from bringing in logs. Oil is cheap to a point so it takes a lot of dripping before a leak absolutely has to be fixed. Not a lot of logging contractors are able to purchase new nowadays. Good used will be looked at real hard before a decision is made to buy new.
Thanks for the info. Is there a good market for decent used equipment?
You will have to define what you mean by "good market." Forestry iron is sold at auctions, at private treaty, franchised dealers and curb stoners. You take your chances in any of these markets.
In logging, machinery tends to be beat until it is obsolete. Steel spar yarders tend to need a five or six man crew and wages become an issue, when a grapple swing yarder can do a very similar job with two or three men. Lots of still useable spars have gone to the scrapper these days, more's the pity. It's looking like mobile yarders in B.C. have gone the way of the sleds and wooden trees that preceeded them (an even more labour intensive way of getting the wood out). The last outfit I worked for kept a 90 footer just for the odd tough corner, or to man and put to work for a month or so in the fall to get their quota if they were behind. Otherwise it was an anachronism.