# Heavy iron



## Gologit (Mar 30, 2014)




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## treeslayer2003 (Mar 30, 2014)

that's a hell of a donkey.....museum?


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## Gologit (Mar 30, 2014)




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## Gologit (Mar 30, 2014)

treeslayer2003 said:


> that's a hell of a donkey.....museum?


 
Yup. Humboldt County Logging Museum in Eureka, Ca. The pictures are an old Washington Iron Works slackline yarder from about 1926.


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## treeslayer2003 (Mar 30, 2014)

they didn't have a carriage back then did they? you say its a yarder, did they go thru a block rigged high for lift?
sorry, mountain stuff from way back.......i'm curios. mules worked the flat land here.


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## slowp (Mar 30, 2014)

treeslayer2003 said:


> they didn't have a carriage back then did they? you say its a yarder, did they go thru a block rigged high for lift?
> sorry, mountain stuff from way back.......i'm curios. mules worked the flat land here.


 
Spar trees were rigged up.


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## HuskStihl (Mar 30, 2014)

Gologit said:


>


I'll bet you burned yourself more than a few times on that old girl when you were first cutting your teeth in logging


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## treeslayer2003 (Mar 30, 2014)

Jon.
Bob, I really was just curios.


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## Gologit (Mar 30, 2014)

treeslayer2003 said:


> they didn't have a carriage back then did they? you say its a yarder, did they go thru a block rigged high for lift?
> sorry, mountain stuff from way back.......i'm curios. mules worked the flat land here.



You could use that rig for a skyline show if you rigged a spar tree or you could run a straight skid if the end of the log was sniped. There was a lot of that.
When that thing was being used nobody paid much attention to how bad the ground got torn up. Erosion control wasn't an issue, sad to say. We paid for that in later years.
I don't know how much it could pull...a whole lot I'd guess. I wonder what it took for tail holds? When I was a kid starting out in the woods we'd find old busted up pieces of rusty 2" cable lying around. Some of the ends were frayed in a breakage pattern and I always wondered what kind of force it would take to snap rigging that size. 
I never worked around steam ground lead equipment like that...Diesel yarders and Cats were already the norm when I started out. Sure would have liked to watch that old Washington pull, though. Must have been impressive.


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## Gologit (Mar 30, 2014)

HuskStihl said:


> I'll bet you burned yourself more than a few times on that old girl when you were first cutting your teeth in logging




Little bit before my time, Jon. We used to find stuff like this abandoned in the woods when I was a boy. We were too poor for playground equipment so we used what we found.


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## northmanlogging (Mar 30, 2014)

That may be the biggest steam yarder I've ever seen, three drums too, most of the ones you see around here only have 2 drums.

There is/used to be a steam logging show in Pomeroy once a year, 2nd weekend in June or so. They had a Yarder and a loader running of live steam last I knew, Bunch of other old Iron wandering around too.

Keep wanting to go down and check it out, but I know I'll get involved somehow and bore the snot outa the war Dept.


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## treeslayer2003 (Mar 30, 2014)

now the arch looks more familier, that's a nice one. small donky looks better to me to, no hills but they used um to get cypress out the swap sometimes.


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## treeslayer2003 (Mar 30, 2014)

don't look like y'all have as bad a rust that we do. a lot of stuff is just gone over here.


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## slowp (Mar 30, 2014)

found this illustration on the innernet. Remember, you can put twisters on the stumps that the tail tree is guyed out to, and get real complicated to keep that tree up. 
Humptulips could 'splain much better.


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## 2dogs (Mar 30, 2014)

Here is a little bit newer and a whole lot smaller donkey winch. It is in the shop right now but we will take it back to the jobsite as soon as it's fixed and the weather cooperates.


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## 2dogs (Mar 30, 2014)

Patty I have an old Skookum catalog you and Benjamin may have looked at back in November. It had several drawings like that with lots of BIG blocks like that 24" block in your drawing. The last block I hung in a tree was a 4" Mckissick and it was just to get a little more lift.


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## treeslayer2003 (Mar 30, 2014)

thanks Ms. P, picture is worth a thousand words. it all makes more sense now.
2dogs, that's pretty neat. I didn't know y'all still used stuff like that.
any where we would use that here [swamp] it would not be legal to do so.


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## treeslayer2003 (Mar 30, 2014)

2dogs, how much will that little rig bring up the hill? 500 bft.....1000?


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## 2dogs (Mar 30, 2014)

treeslayer2003 said:


> 2dogs, how much will that little rig bring up the hill? 500 bft.....1000?


It is a 12,000lb DP hydraulic winch powered by a Kohler 25hp air cooled gas motor. What it can pull volume wise is all about friction. Right now we are pulling euc up a steep hill using a lift pulley (near the crest of the hill) and then dragging the load a short distance on the ground. The winch will pull 12k, how it is rigged determines how much wood is moved. It sure is not a yarder.


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## treeslayer2003 (Mar 30, 2014)

so its a lot different than what a skidder would just winch up a hill then.
wish I knew more about rigging, that skill has been lost here for a couple generations.
seems like small cable.


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## northmanlogging (Mar 31, 2014)

The basic idea behind tower/spar tree logging, it to get the butts off the ground, like the arch on a skidder only taller. Once you get one end clear of the stumps and mess, and have most of the weight on the sky line, then you can pull an impressive amount of wood.

2dogs rig could use a second winch for lift, or a dummy line and a christy type carriage... but I digress...

A simple and effective method is to just hang a good sized block 20'-30' up in a stout tree and run the skidders line through it, you have to manually pull line down hill, but you get some lift from the tree and can pull more wood with less stress on the machine.


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## slowp (Mar 31, 2014)

Here's one that a group of boys took on as a restoration project. I keep forgetting to ask what happened to it. They were trying to sell it, and if that didn't work, it was off to the scrap yard for it. They pulled it in the Logger's Jubilee parade.


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## treeslayer2003 (Mar 31, 2014)

scrap yard???? oh no!


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## madhatte (Mar 31, 2014)

We found part of an old steam yarder on one of our sale units not too long ago. Probably dates to the mid-1940's. I haven't taken pictures yet. I'll try to remember to next time I'm in the neighborhood.


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## Trx250r180 (Mar 31, 2014)

treeslayer2003 said:


> scrap yard???? oh no!


yup i scrapped out a set of donkey drums not long ago ,about 10 years ago scrapped a large old arch bigger than the one in the picture ,it is either yard art or scrap around here the old logging stuff ,i tried to sell it ,got sick of listing to people himm and hamm so the whole thing went in with a load of cars


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## treeslayer2003 (Mar 31, 2014)

no ya can't save um all, but them boys put all that work in that one.


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## HuskStihl (Mar 31, 2014)

Trx250r180 said:


> yup i scrapped out a set of donkey drums not long ago ,about 10 years ago scrapped a large old arch bigger than the one in the picture ,it is either yard art or scrap around here the old logging stuff ,i tried to sell it ,got sick of listing to people himm and hamm so the whole thing went in with a load of carsView attachment 342173
> View attachment 342174
> View attachment 342175
> View attachment 342176
> View attachment 342178


You're a monster!


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## Trx250r180 (Mar 31, 2014)

HuskStihl said:


> You're a monster!


You spelt Satin wrong


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## Trx250r180 (Mar 31, 2014)

treeslayer2003 said:


> so its a lot different than what a skidder would just winch up a hill then.
> wish I knew more about rigging, that skill has been lost here for a couple generations.
> seems like small cable.



Here is one of my mini portable yarders ,4x4 wrecker ,the boom extends out and goes almost strait up in the air ,with the wheel lift down on the ground ,i can pull a lot with it ,but is very slow ,i milled up these logs ,framing timbers on my front porch were framed with some of this fir 
sorry for the slight derail but i know you guys like pictures


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## 2dogs (Mar 31, 2014)

Trx250r180 said:


> You spelt Satin wrong


Uhm...nope, too easy.


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## 2dogs (Mar 31, 2014)

Trx250r180 said:


> Here is one of my mini portable yarders ,4x4 wrecker ,the boom extends out and goes almost strait up in the air ,with the wheel lift down on the ground ,i can pull a lot with it ,but is very slow ,i milled up these logs ,framing timbers on my front porch were framed with some of this fir
> sorry for the slight derail but i know you guys like pictures View attachment 342200
> View attachment 342201
> View attachment 342202
> View attachment 342203


 Pics are good.


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## 1270d (Mar 31, 2014)

It would have been neat to see in person those skid mounted donkeys moved themselves around. I have seen some old photos of one dragging down a road.


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## northmanlogging (Mar 31, 2014)

I've thought about rebuilding one of the old yarders, throw a diesel on it, park it on a trailer and spend a small fortune on building a tower and rigging it...


But then its cheaper to get a used yarder in the end. Found a skagit bu-30? on a kenworth truck for 29k... and an eco logger in oregon for about the same price.


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## OlympicYJ (Apr 5, 2014)

Brian, hope you didn't scrap that nice little set of drums! If you still have em and aren't in a hurry to get rid of em I'd be interested in a year or two.

Wes


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## Trx250r180 (Apr 7, 2014)

OlympicYJ said:


> Brian, hope you didn't scrap that nice little set of drums! If you still have em and aren't in a hurry to get rid of em I'd be interested in a year or two.
> 
> Wes


 Sorry it did get scrapped already ,it was a usable set if some things were fixed up ,i guess it's last use was a pile driver for making docks at lake sutherland


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## northmanlogging (Apr 7, 2014)

You come across any kind of salvageable equipment like that give me a holler, I may be interested. Might not have any money though...


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## OlympicYJ (Apr 7, 2014)

Noooo!!!! well shoot if ya have any cool stuff like that come your way let me know! Always on the lookout for cool old iron that could be resurrected.


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## OlympicYJ (Apr 7, 2014)

Northy ya beat me by seconds lol


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## 2dogs (Apr 8, 2014)

This dozer yarder was at the shop when I picked up the winch today.


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## 2dogs (Apr 8, 2014)

Forgot this one.


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## Gologit (Apr 8, 2014)

2dogs said:


> This dozer yarder was at the shop when I picked up the winch today.



Nice.


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## northmanlogging (Apr 8, 2014)

That dozer is cool as Hel... I'd like to see it in action though


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