Just returned from a road trip to Lillooet BC with Brian Fitzpatrick. I spied this setup from the highway when we rolled into town. Went back the next day to take a closer look. I would love to see one of these rigs up and running just for the fun of it. The video is here http://adventuresinmikeslife.blogspot.ca/2012/08/timberjack-skidder-with-mini-tower-on.html
4-53 Detroits?
Got to be a Norwegian built double drum Igland winch on the Timberjack with the tower in post 3, right? Sigurd
Looks similar to the "Skylead" three drum yarders made in Enderby, BC. They came with a "Maki" dropline carriage. The skyline was 7/8" swaged line and the skidding line (mainline) was 1/2". The skidding line went through the carriage and became the dropline, so dropline length was only limited by what was on the skidding line drum. On one setting north of Ft. St. John, we were gravity feeding this carriage (no haulback) 1200' downhill and, with the lift we had, were able to log 300' either side of the haulback at the back. One man rigging crew and the owner was operator and chaser. And only three 5/8" guylines! Amazing little machine.
Easy Money...seriously? 1200 feet with one of these!! How big was the wood on that job? Did the gravity return on the carriage work pretty good...or did you need to horse it down the line a bit? here is a link to a few unique yarders that I found on the weekend http://http://www.pbase.com/rustygrapple/other_yarders
I think the biggest tree on the setting was 36" on the butt. The wood was a mixture of pine, spruce and balsam and very thick. There were six chokers on sliders so I was able to wood each turn down if I wanted. As long as the carriage was high enough in the air and there were no hangups, things worked fine. There was no problem with gravity feeding the carriage. It came whistling down the hill twice as fast as any haulback could have pulled it.
Nice!...I'd love to see one of those things working. Were there any particular downsides to these type of yarders?...repairs, power....I'm thinking maybe operator comfort..?
Well, at 40' the pipe was a bit on the short side, though this is true of all mini-yarders. The best solution to this was to park the yarder right in the centre of a gully and log up (or down) it, pulling the wood in from the tops of ridges between gullies. Also, the fellow I worked for had bought the non-motorized Maki carriage. This was fine when yarding uphill as I had no trouble pulling slack on the dropline from the machine but, when logging downhill, the operator had to pull all of your slack in the landing before sending the carriage back to you. This was very awkward. Maki made a carriage with a small engine on it that powered a radio controlled slack puller. This feature would have easily tripled production on downhill yarding. The cab, like the other yarder seen here, was strategically mounted so the operator was only one step from the ground. This made a great difference in the time it took the operator to undo chokers.
Skylead in Oregon 2012 The guy in the photo owns this rig and loves it. Pretty far from home (Enderby, BC) but I guess these were sent all over the place. This is the only trailer mounted Skylead I've seen in person. I'm amazed at what these little buggers can pull.