I'm wondering why the use of forwarders hasn't caught on in North America like it has in European/Scandanavian countries? It would seem to me that having a knuckle boom on a skidder with a tow-behind trailer would be better for the forest, better for the logs and end up yielding more money for the logger.
forwarders
- Thread starter rmihalek
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Lumberjack
Banned
One logger around here has a one without a trailer. He has a bunk on the back. It looks like a cool rig.
JJackson
ArboristSite Operative
Bob they do use forwarders, especially in plantation. A skidder will ausually be used with a feller bucher, a forwarder is usually used with a single/double grip harvester. Forwarders are used mainly when the harvester is able to delimb and cut the wood to length, which a feller bucher is not able to do. Each system has its benefits are far as cost, environental damage etc... I seenmore than a few forwarders back home in New Brunswick and no dout in Maine also. Things such as terrain ,tree size/type/density and final product all determine which is the best system to use, and of course availbilty in the area.
Forwarders are used in tandem with processors up very often. Mostly when cutting aspen and pine for pulp.
MasterBlaster
TreeHouse Elder
What's a forwarder? :alien:
MB, think skidder, but instead of a winch or grapple on the back it has a bunk to hold CTL logs.
HORSELOGGER
ArboristSite Lurker
heres an old Iron Mule http://www.threelakestruck.com/Images/Log/75Iron Mule.jpg
Iron mules are popular up here and very well regarded. There is one for at the local stihl dealer that I have been lusting over. The good thing with a iron mule is you can pull them with a p/u truck.
HORSELOGGER
ArboristSite Lurker
whats the asking price on the one for sale?
Husky137
Addicted to ArboristSite
Nice machine! Don't tell me you guys call those logs?:biggrinbounce2:
Timberjackboy
ArboristSite Operative
Forwarders-harvesters
I just took a mechanized Forestry course, i ran a Rottnee Solid forwarder, a ponssee beaver harvester and a Hynudai escavator witha patu head. I found that this set up is best used in planations or flat ground. That forwarder had to be almost exactly level to load or else shed tip very easily when youw ent to reach for a log. I even saw it almost tip over and it was unloading while it was sitting on a the road but he just ahd the boom extened out to far. The harvestors had a hard time limbing the old jack pine and larger black spruce expecially if they ahd alot of crooks in them. The harvestors are best in he flat ground too becase the booms are longer then a buncher and thus they are not as stable when you reach quite aways out to grab a tree. Preferable i liked running the hyundai it felt more stable and you could se better with the Ponsee the boom was stuck right in front of the cab, the hyundais boom was also much stronger you could pretty much put a tree where ever you w anted to with that beast. I never got a chance to cut much hardwood but the instructors informed us in big hard wood the machines had a difficult time limbing, Iknow in a limby spruce you had to run the heads back and fourth a few times to break off the limbs.
I just took a mechanized Forestry course, i ran a Rottnee Solid forwarder, a ponssee beaver harvester and a Hynudai escavator witha patu head. I found that this set up is best used in planations or flat ground. That forwarder had to be almost exactly level to load or else shed tip very easily when youw ent to reach for a log. I even saw it almost tip over and it was unloading while it was sitting on a the road but he just ahd the boom extened out to far. The harvestors had a hard time limbing the old jack pine and larger black spruce expecially if they ahd alot of crooks in them. The harvestors are best in he flat ground too becase the booms are longer then a buncher and thus they are not as stable when you reach quite aways out to grab a tree. Preferable i liked running the hyundai it felt more stable and you could se better with the Ponsee the boom was stuck right in front of the cab, the hyundais boom was also much stronger you could pretty much put a tree where ever you w anted to with that beast. I never got a chance to cut much hardwood but the instructors informed us in big hard wood the machines had a difficult time limbing, Iknow in a limby spruce you had to run the heads back and fourth a few times to break off the limbs.
Timberjackboy
ArboristSite Operative
The grapple Skidder and buncher set up i think would be less head aches although you also gotta have a delimber and slasher so you gotta pay out mroe money for the machines
Timberjackboy said:
all depends on your interpretation of flat ground I've harvested downhill where the ground was so steep the machine couldn't go back up if it wanted to there were no hydraulic stabilisers on our old valmet 832 forwarder and the bunk would tip until it caught the stops but on the rottne above it has a pretty good hydraulic stabilising ram.
We have been using forwarders for 10 years now. We have 12 of them, 6 544 valmets, 1 644 valmet, 3 546 double bunk valmets, and 2 1710D timberjacks. We use them for any round wood we do. You cut way down on fuel, labor and time running them with harvester. If you don't have a self loading truck then the forwarders can load trailers or trucks.
sILlogger
Addicted to ArboristSite
that place looks like an airplane crashed...:jawdrop:
extraspecialman
ArboristSite Operative
dont see any forwarders around here,but you will see the occasional 6x6 Army truck used to pull loaded trailers to the hard road.WV is not known for flat land,so mechanical operations are few around here
I never get the luxury of flat land either. I've been doing hills for years now. Last fall I setup this operation doing mountain sides in Tennessee. The pictures are deceiving, the ground if flat, but it's mountain side.
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