# Samson AmSteel Skidding Rope?



## Philobite (Feb 25, 2008)

Does anyone have any experience with using AmSteel Blue Rope for skidding? I'm in redwood country and use 5/8" swaged wire rope to skid from a Hyster winch on our D7, but would like to use the AmSteel synthetic instead.

Any experience with it for skidding out there? And where on the internet can one purchase it in 9/16 or 5/8" with rigging?

Thanks, Eric


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## 2dogs (Feb 25, 2008)

Try these guys.

http://www.wesspur.com/rope/amsteel-blue.html


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## Slamm (Feb 25, 2008)

Here is a study for the synthetic line:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=5/8+skidder+cable

Sam


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## Philobite (Feb 28, 2008)

Thanks,

I ended up getting 160' of 5/8" from:

Roberts Supply Co.
PO Box 7
2842 Main St
Springfield, OR 97477
Business:	(541) 746-6528

$5.14/ft for 5/8", threw in shipping and they spliced in a hardened metal ring on one end and a loop on the other for me. I'll wrap the rope around the winch drum and drop it back thru the end loop. Sending me a fid and various splicing instructions as well. 

They're very knowledgeable. I'll post how it works for skidding redwood logs and maybe post some pics.


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## rtrsam (Mar 1, 2008)

I bought some 1/2" and 5/8" from Bailey's a few years back. They would not put eyes in it for me so I got the directions from Amsteel.com (or whatever their website is) and got the fids from a marine shop and did it myself (had a guy learn to do it). A little more about that in a minute.

Took the 1/2" with two eyes in it, and hooked it up between a Cat 941 and a Deere 650. Deere parked, brake on, tippers and blade down, pulled it backwards across a gravel parking lot. Hooked up between the Cat 941 and a Deere 850...941 spun out and dug a hole. Backed up about two feet and the rope was on the ground (not much stretch).

Sent the stuff out with a trail crew and they broke the 5/8". I think they let it go slack when it was rigged through a block, then when it went back under tension it probably picked up the block sideways and cut itself on the edge of the block. I wasn't there, so... This was done with a hand powered 8,000 lb capacity griphoist.

When you put the eyes in, the website directions say to use some sort of twine to sew the eye in place. You shoudl first put it inder tension, release the tension, then sew the eye in position before you flex the recently tensioned rope. It stretches enough to break the thread if you sew it up while it is "relaxed". Also get a heavy thimble to protect the eye.

Anyone know about tying the stuff in a knot? Marine place said go for it, it's fine, but I've never tracked down Amsteel to ask.

Never used it on a winch, but 4 wheelers use it a lot.


Edit: I forgot, I also recently bought a 600' spool of 5/8" from Acme Rigging in Ukiah. Big money (I am sure Acme gave me a good price, it's just expensive) but I do a lot of work on trails in remote areas where you've got to pack it in...worth it! Last I heard it is not being used a lot in helicopter work, anyone know why?


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## Gologit (Mar 1, 2008)

Philobite said:


> Thanks,
> 
> I ended up getting 160' of 5/8" from:
> 
> ...



Good idea. Give it some time and some real-world use and let us know how it holds up. Especially abrasion-wise. I'd be interested in how much strength it loses due to surface wear and how much abrasion it can take before you have to junk it. Thanks, Bob.


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## 2dogs (Mar 1, 2008)

rtrsam said:


> I bought some 1/2" and 5/8" from Bailey's a few years back. They would not put eyes in it for me so I got the directions from Amsteel.com (or whatever their website is) and got the fids from a marine shop and did it myself (had a guy learn to do it). A little more about that in a minute.
> 
> Took the 1/2" with two eyes in it, and hooked it up between a Cat 941 and a Deere 650. Deere parked, brake on, tippers and blade down, pulled it backwards across a gravel parking lot. Hooked up between the Cat 941 and a Deere 850...941 spun out and dug a hole. Backed up about two feet and the rope was on the ground (not much stretch).
> 
> ...




Could you provide more info on what kind of trail work you do?


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## joesawer (Mar 1, 2008)

I have never seen it on a helicopter job.
Knots are not considered viable with amsteel. They either roll out or greatly reduce the tensile strength.
I think that DG soil or any other fine sandy soil that would get into the relatively loose fibers would greatly reduce the life span of the rope.


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## Philobite (Mar 1, 2008)

rtrsam said:


> When you put the eyes in, the website directions say to use some sort of twine to sew the eye in place. You should first put it under tension, release the tension, then sew the eye in position before you flex the recently tensioned rope. It stretches enough to break the thread if you sew it up while it is "relaxed". Also get a heavy thimble to protect the eye.



Thanks for the helpful pointers. That makes a lot of sense. Stan at Roberts Supply also suggested that, from time-to-time, at the end where there is the metal ring in the end loop that serves as both a pull handle and where the choker bull slider rests that I release the end loop stitching and sort of massage the loop further up into the main rope and re-stitch so as to move the point where the metal ring wears on rope.

Oh, if anyone does order rope in less than the full 600' spool length, ask the vendor if they have any spools coming close to the end. For example, if you were ordering 150', they may have a spool with 170' on it. The extra 20' they can't sell and may be willing to throw it in or greatly reduce the price on the extra just to be rid of it. It's a big capital expense for them to inventory the stuff.

As to helicopter logging: the advantage of AmSteel is light weight and secondarily the ability to repair in field. The disadvantages are that it can be cut, and it can be damaged by spot abrasion (heat from instantaneous friction in one spot). The risk of either of these in heli logging are relatively high due to the horizontal as well as fast motion of the chopper. Snag a loop on a knot, log end or big branch or rock when lifting, or drag across a living tree or branch when traversing under tension and game over. A wire rope couldn't care less. What is 300 lbs of weight advantage in rope (at $1,000-$1500/cable) when the logs are in the tens of thousands of pounds? Wire rope is a known cost and durability entity to them.


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## stihl019 (Mar 1, 2008)

ya i have experience using that synthetic blue rope on a john deere 540b. in this application the synthetic works pretty well. just becareful not to rub it against anything when pulling in because it will break fairly easy of sharper objects. i think you said you were dealing with roberts supply and yes there very knowledgable.


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## rtrsam (Mar 3, 2008)

2dogs said:


> Could you provide more info on what kind of trail work you do?



I work on hiking trails. If you're on the Central Coast, I worked on the Waterfall trail at Julia Pfeiffer Burns SP in 1995. Also built the bridges going up Limekiln Creek at Limekiln.

I supervise crews mostly


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## hammerlogging (Mar 3, 2008)

Philobite-

How far do you (will you/ should you) drag with that D7?


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## Philobite (Mar 3, 2008)

hammerlogging said:


> How far do you (will you/ should you) drag with that D7?



Not sure if you mean length of bull line choker sets (which I've covered above), or length of the skid back to the landing. If you mean skids back to landings, the average skid is probably 150 yards, with some being 30-50 and some being 250 yards. I'll typically skid 2-3 logs, depending on size. Some big logs, or whole trees that are a straight shot to the landing, I can only do one log at a time. On steep climbs I let the winch brake out, leaving the load behind, climb the hill, and then spool the load back in.


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## hammerlogging (Mar 3, 2008)

I meant length of skid- your 150 yd average is a good reference. I've cut for only one crew running a 450J and they'd run some awfully long (and rocky) drags with it but that was sort of need based at the time, the skidder was down or something, got to move wood. Around SE TN its kind of wierd cause the mills open (and in theory close out) jobs so nobody has their own dozer. But a dozer, with the fuly functional blade, is so important for quality jobs, proper water bars, etc. So if I get one tool to start my own side, but in VA where I'm headed, I'm thinking a dozer is the place to start, rather than a skidder. One day at a time, but paired with a older 6 wheel forwarder and I could probably get the longer drags and fewer landings landowners want.


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## Philobite (Mar 3, 2008)

hammerlogging said:


> I meant length of skid- your 150 yd average is a good reference. I've cut for only one crew running a 450J and they'd run some awfully long (and rocky) drags with it but that was sort of need based at the time, the skidder was down or something, got to move wood. Around SE TN its kind of wierd cause the mills open (and in theory close out) jobs so nobody has their own dozer. But a dozer, with the fuly functional blade, is so important for quality jobs, proper water bars, etc. So if I get one tool to start my own side, but in VA where I'm headed, I'm thinking a dozer is the place to start, rather than a skidder. One day at a time, but paired with a older 6 wheel forwarder and I could probably get the longer drags and fewer landings landowners want.



That is weird how they do it in SE TN.

To us the dozer with blade, as you say, is the magic tool. Being able to shove stuff out of the way, cut or clean up trails, shove wood debris off landings, cutting water bars, and using the blade to balance (and even recover) on steeps and as a solid brake when dismounting to set chokers, are all necessary here. A couple pointers that I've discovered:

Our D7 is all manual. That means everything from shifting to forward/reverse selection to winch control is mechanical force, and that puts a lot of stress and abuse on your hands, wrists arms, back and legs. This past season my right hand went numb and I ended up wearing a carpal-tunnel brace which helped. Consider the cost/benefit of a model with hydrostatic tranny and other power-assists if you're going to be doing much Cat work.
Our D7 has a pony motor to start. If you get one with the pony, go over that little motor and tranny with a fine tooth comb and maintain it well.
Make a commitment to changing the lubricants regularly. It's makes me sad to think of buying and then recycling multiple 5 gallon bucket$ of lubricant every year but that's what I've got to do.
Get a Cat with a wet clutch, not a dry one if you're going to be skidding, and keep it adjusted tight.
Consider blade width when you decide on a model. Ours is 13' and change, and it is often too wide for my liking. A D6 or similar would suit narrower trails better, but the D7 is sure nice for grunting the big logs.
Wear a helmet and full face gear in place whenever you're on the trails. Branch slaps and pokes will end your career in a nasty hurry.


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## Philobite (Mar 11, 2008)

*AmSteel Blue minor update*

So far two days skidding in tanoak and I've got to say we're enjoying the ultra-light weight and no springiness or torsion of the AmSteel Blue 5/8" compared to wire rope. Most skids are three trees, limbed so three chokers, and pull distance of 100'. Each tree averages 2000lbs or so (X 3 trees=6,000), so we're not working the rope hard.

We're enjoying being able to carry the chokers in one hand and the other pulling out the rope 100' with a couple fingers through the ring instead of feeling like an overworked draft-horse. Huge difference in fatigue level.

There are some things you shouldn't do with it that you'd do with a wire rope, especially having the rope go over or around a log or stump or other friction or sharp edge. And you don't set chokers radically opposite from each other in order to reduce side friction, but so far we're lovin' it.

I'll take some pics later and post them.


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## Philobite (Mar 15, 2008)

*another update*

Another update: No pics yet (sorry, they'll come).

We've been using the D7 w/Hyster D7D winch and 160' of Samson AmSteel Blue 5/8" rope skidding some really large, green (freshly felled) tanoak up out of a ravine. 30" dbh and 75' tall, with branches and foliage, often 2 trees at a time. Such trees would be in the 7-10,000lb range. The loading is such that the CAT squats a bit and rolls back unless I have the brake set and blade down.

For those of you that know the D7, skidding a couple logs at a time this heavy means that the engine is grunting under a heavy load in second gear while dragging to the landing. It's a pretty heavy load and I wanted to give the rope a real workout before redwood season begins. So the AmSteel 5/8" is able to handle the same kinds of pull load that wire is. What remains to be seen is durability, particularly at the termination, and how it stands up to various situations and dusty dirt in the summer.

One note is that under such heavy loads the rope can slightly bury in the spool, so the next time you pull it out you have to occasionally give it a yank to unbury it a bit, but this is fairly easy to do. In only one case did it bury enough that I had to hook to a tree and drive off a few feet to unbury it.


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## Philobite (May 7, 2008)

*Large redwood skidding update*

Here's the update and pics I promised. (Hover over the "i" on the pick and click to see more info.) We skidded the deck shown in the first few photos yesterday using the AmSteel Blue, 5/8" x 160'. (The later pics in the series are from last year's season). That's a 346xp w/20" bar limbing saw for scale.

With one exception we skidded two logs at a time, up some very, very steep grades with no problems. (ie, winch hanging over the edge and winching up about 45 degree grades.) Most leads were 50'-110' out. I felled, limbed and bucked two days ago, and then yesterday my 82 year old father ran the winch while I set the chokers. Then back up those thigh busting steeps with each choker set to drive the CAT to skid to the landing.

Working the steep grades is made _so much nicer_ with the light and easy to work AmSteel Blue, over the 5/8" wire rope I used last year. My hands, shoulders and legs are not all beat up and I have the energy to really place the chokes where I want and snake the rope where it's best. I feel so much safer not having that big spring coiled up and not spending all my energy and safety margin just getting the wire rope to cooperate and move.


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## moray (May 15, 2008)

Interesting stuff, Philobite. Your pictures reminded me of the time, years ago, when I helped build a cabin in the hills above Philo. We milled all the wood from trees on the property.

You mentioned how the Amsteel Blue would sometimes get slightly buried in the spool. Is this just a harmless irritation, or do you think it is hard on the rope? From an engineering point of view, winding the rope and winching would ideally be two separate operations--you pull with a capstan winch, but wind on a separate spool. Is such a thing available for your D7?


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## 2dogs (May 15, 2008)

Nice pics!


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## Philobite (May 15, 2008)

moray said:


> Interesting stuff, Philobite. Your pictures reminded me of the time, years ago, when I helped build a cabin in the hills above Philo. We milled all the wood from trees on the property.



Wow! No way! Now when was that? Where was it, and who was it? I grew up here in the 60's and 70's so likely knew the folks. We're up Nash Mill Rd.



moray said:


> You mentioned how the Amsteel Blue would sometimes get slightly buried in the spool. Is this just a harmless irritation, or do you think it is hard on the rope? From an engineering point of view, winding the rope and winching would ideally be two separate operations--you pull with a capstan winch, but wind on a separate spool. Is such a thing available for your D7?



No the burying is a very minor irritation and totally harmless. Not hard on the rope. Don't know about the availability of the capstan winch, but it would all need to be operable with simplicity from the driver's seat for safety reasons. That's the beauty of the simple spool.


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## woodfarmer (May 15, 2008)

great pics, keep them coming


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## WidowMaker (May 16, 2008)

What's the trick here, I get a blank page when I click the link???


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## Philobite (May 22, 2008)

*Broken - repaired*

Yesterday I managed to break the Amsteel Blue 5/8". It was totally my fault.

I was skidding two 25' x 2' logs up a steep grade and then horizontally onto the CAT trail. There was a tanoak in the way and only about 3 feet of the logs were above that when I tried to pull them around the tanoak... not wise on my part. In addition the CAT was at an acute angle so the line was not spooling straight onto the winch but was against the side of the rounded drum corner. Finally I had only about 12 feet of line out so there was no "give" to tell me how tight things were.

In any case the rope parted right where it was passing over the rounded winch drum corner... so failure was from extreme immovable load and rotating winch and a rather sharp bend over the side of the winch. It'd call it a friction heat plus overload failure.

Behavior of the rope during the break was superb. It did not snap or do anything violent. It merely parted and jumped about a foot and lay on the ground.

And now for the cool part. Despite never having done so before, by following the instructions we were able to repair the rope in about an hour, losing about 4 feet of rope in the break and repair, and then we put some massive loads on it with no problem. The repair seems just as strong as the original rope.

Try that with a wire rope. I've busted a bull line before... without the steel cage on the CAT the recoil would would have taken my head off (I'm so glad no choker setter was nearby to be injured or killed), and it took a whole day to run to the rigging place to have them put a new end nubbin on it, and I lost the 20 feet off the cable length too.

Anyway, thumbs up to the rope and thumbs down to my poor call on trying to skid around the tree. I cured that tree with a chainsaw.:greenchainsaw:


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## WidowMaker (May 22, 2008)

Been trying to convince my son in laws that we should be using this in place of wire rope to skid wood logs with, think this might do it...


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## Philobite (May 22, 2008)

WidowMaker said:


> Been trying to convince my son in laws that we should be using this in place of wire rope to skid wood logs with, think this might do it...



WidowMaker, the term "night and day" doesn't do justice to the actual difference. I simply can't imagine returning to wire rope. By myself I can unspool 75' of rope on the ground, haul the chokers, hooks and rope up a steep hill, set the chokers and then go back and winch logs in. No way that could be done with wire rope. I'd have to have someone run the winch and I'd be worn out after a couple turns. You won't believe the productivity difference if you're running out beyond thirty feet regularly.

What's cool is when I do finally wear out the working end of the rope I can purchase another 20' of rope and splice it in. At the end of the season I'll throw the whole rope in the washer, and get the grit out of it, air dry it, and have a nice rope for next year.

Just make sure you choose the right kind of termination to gather up you choker hooks. What I have is an eye in the end of the rope that holds about a 4" hard metal ring. The choker hooks (3 of them) slide down the rope to rest on that. You need to make sure that the rope itself doesn't bear the brunt of the chocker hooks.


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## moray (May 22, 2008)

Philobite said:


> ... It'd call it a friction heat plus overload failure.
> 
> ...And now for the cool part. Despite never having done so before, by following the instructions we were able to repair the rope in about an hour, losing about 4 feet of rope in the break and repair, and then we put some massive loads on it with no problem. The repair seems just as strong as the original rope.



Very interesting. Did you see any signs of melting at the point of rupture? It seems very likely that is what happened. A sharp bend, a lot of tension, and moving rope add up to heat. A subtle point is that big ropes aren't much better than little ones in this regard. If my little 3/16" rope will start to melt from some combination of bend radius, tension, and rate of pull, your big guy would do only slightly better, and only because the extra surface area of the bigger rope around the bend radius reduces the pressure there.

Can you post us some pictures of your splice repair? And your fid? I would love to see them.


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## Philobite (May 22, 2008)

moray said:


> Very interesting. Did you see any signs of melting at the point of rupture? It seems very likely that is what happened. A sharp bend, a lot of tension, and moving rope add up to heat.



It did seem that there was some apparent melting. The side of the rope got a bit shiny for several inches and the rope sort of thinned down. The damaged area was about a foot long.

I'll try to get some pics of the splice, but we followed these instructions (pdf). Essentially you narrow the tips of both ends, put the end in the fid, then use the fid to burrow up the center of the opposite rope for a few feet (think of a snake swallowing another snake), then do the same for the other. Then you cross-stitch a bit with some smaller string.


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## Philobite (Jun 27, 2008)

*Update*

Just an update:

We've skidded about 55,000 feet of redwood logs so far with the 5/8" Amsteel Blue and we are absolutely sold on it. My older brother sets chokers for me during June and July and he keeps raving about how the rope has changed things for us. In many cases I'll spool out line for him and he'll coil it in his hand, and then swing/throw the chucks and line, 30-50 feet (sometimes uphill) over the brush or up an embankment to where he's setting the chokers.

So far we've broken the line three times... with repairs completed in a an hour or less. Each time the rope behaved safely, and each time it was my fault. The rope is getting shorter from the repairs (by about 20' now), so I just ordered another 60' from Robert's Supply to splice in.

Wire rope? Never again.


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## oldchuck (Jul 2, 2008)

I'm very interested in using the synthetic rope. Just ordered 250' of it today.

My question is how do you thread the stuff through a snatch block?

Thanks in advance.


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## Philobite (Jul 3, 2008)

oldchuck said:


> I'm very interested in using the synthetic rope. Just ordered 250' of it today.
> 
> My question is how do you thread the stuff through a snatch block?
> 
> Thanks in advance.



Sorry, I don't use snatch blocks. But you can have Samson (mfg) send you a very nice manual _gratis _on how to use AmSteel Blue in logging applications, which includes the info you're looking for. Click here.


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## oldchuck (Jul 3, 2008)

Thank you, Philobite....


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