My 1st try at milling, looking back

[Javillonian]

I've got one thread going but thought I'd start another because it's a different subject. It's been almost ten years now and I wish I had taken a camera more often but I did get some good pics. So I was finishing up a remodel of our house that I built 45 years ago. I like rustic wood and wanted a big slab table for the dinning room, I remembered a large fir tree that I removed from a fence when I was doing some work for the Forest Service, I called my contact and managed to get salvage rights to it. Problem was it was 800 feet below the nearest road, half was flat and half was very steep. The tree was a little over 50" at the point I wanted to cut and I only had a 32" bar on a 440 stihl. I've always liked the challenge of figuring things out so here's what I did. To cut it----I made my own version of of a cs mill that did not have a support on the bar tip, that way I could go up one side of the log and down the other and make a 52" cut with a 32" bar, Pic will explain better. Next I needed to get the slabs up 800 feet to the road, so I found on craigs list an old hippie guy that had a hydraulic wench, I drove 150 miles and got it for 400$, he said he thought it had at least 200" feet of new 5/16 cable on it, when I got home I spooled it out across a field and it had 1200', I was stoked!. But it was just the winch with no power, so I took my 8 hp wood splitter and mated up next to it for power, you can see the setup on the lumber rack of my truck in a pic. Next I built a cart and a jack system to lift the slabs up and slide the cart under them, The slabs were 6" thick 50" wide and 11'-12'long, wet and extremely heavy, I'd guess well over 1000lb. and I'm doing this completely solo. Next I cleared a path from the tree to my truck, the only feasible rout had 8 dogleg corners in it, so how was I going to winch the cart thru the corners? So I built eight devices that housed a pully, they had a short arm that would open up the pulley and drop the cable when pressure came up against it, I tied these off to trees on the outside of the corners, when the cart came up against the device it would open up, the cart would then be pulled toward the next device and around the corner, It worked amazingly well. I ended up bringing out about a dozen slabs and some big chunks for lumber. It was fun sitting up on top of my truck running the winch, It felt like I was fishing and bringing in a whale, the truck would bend down and shake as the cart rolled over rock ledges and holes, more than a few times it would pull down and strain so hard that I would get nervous so I'd stop and run down the hill to see what was wrong, One time the cart wandered of the path and came up against a tree, but usually it just needed a bit more power to get over a ledge. When the cable released at the corners the truck would bounce up hard so could easily make a mental note of where I was at. After drying the slabs for a couple years, I planed them down and made my table (see pic), It was a project!

 

[Maintenance supervisor]

Thats AWESOME, the first time I used a winch to pull logs through terrain I quickly realized how important it was to use a nose cone of some kind to help them navigate bumps.
At first I used old cow feed buckets with a hole burned in the bottom that way I could slip the bucket down the cable and over the fron of the beam . Id usually get about 6-7 pulls a bucket.
Tree pots could work also? They make a heavy duty poly one for this specific purpose but....

 

[Javillonian]

Thats AWESOME, the first time I used a winch to pull logs through terrain I quickly realized how important it was to use a nose cone of some kind to help them navigate bumps.
At first I used old cow feed buckets with a hole burned in the bottom that way I could slip the bucket down the cable and over the fron of the beam . Id usually get about 6-7 pulls a bucket.
Tree pots could work also? They make a heavy duty poly one for this specific purpose but....

Here's what I put together to get my logs in, it's really light weight so I can walk it easily over to the log and then back the truck up to it, that way I don't have to maneuver the thing around behind the truck in tight places, if it's to steep to drive I put the ski on it and then pull it up and out to flat ground via a pulley. It's bent up a little because I pulled a big log up a hill, I thought I was up to where it was flat so I stopped and backed up to take the cable loop of the ball, but when I stepped out I saw the log start rolling backwards, I braced for the slack to come tight and jerk the truck but the cable loop had flipped of the ball and away the log and trailer went down the hill, flipped a few time

 

[Houndsong]

I've got one thread going but thought I'd start another because it's a different subject. It's been almost ten years now and I wish I had taken a camera more often but I did get some good pics. So I was finishing up a remodel of our house that I built 45 years ago. I like rustic wood and wanted a big slab table for the dinning room, I remembered a large fir tree that I removed from a fence when I was doing some work for the Forest Service, I called my contact and managed to get salvage rights to it. Problem was it was 800 feet below the nearest road, half was flat and half was very steep. The tree was a little over 50" at the point I wanted to cut and I only had a 32" bar on a 440 stihl. I've always liked the challenge of figuring things out so here's what I did. To cut it----I made my own version of of a cs mill that did not have a support on the bar tip, that way I could go up one side of the log and down the other and make a 52" cut with a 32" bar, Pic will explain better. Next I needed to get the slabs up 800 feet to the road, so I found on craigs list an old hippie guy that had a hydraulic wench, I drove 150 miles and got it for 400$, he said he thought it had at least 200" feet of new 5/16 cable on it, when I got home I spooled it out across a field and it had 1200', I was stoked!. But it was just the winch with no power, so I took my 8 hp wood splitter and mated up next to it for power, you can see the setup on the lumber rack of my truck in a pic. Next I built a cart and a jack system to lift the slabs up and slide the cart under them, The slabs were 6" thick 50" wide and 11'-12'long, wet and extremely heavy, I'd guess well over 1000lb. and I'm doing this completely solo. Next I cleared a path from the tree to my truck, the only feasible rout had 8 dogleg corners in it, so how was I going to winch the cart thru the corners? So I built eight devices that housed a pully, they had a short arm that would open up the pulley and drop the cable when pressure came up against it, I tied these off to trees on the outside of the corners, when the cart came up against the device it would open up, the cart would then be pulled toward the next device and around the corner, It worked amazingly well. I ended up bringing out about a dozen slabs and some big chunks for lumber. It was fun sitting up on top of my truck running the winch, It felt like I was fishing and bringing in a whale, the truck would bend down and shake as the cart rolled over rock ledges and holes, more than a few times it would pull down and strain so hard that I would get nervous so I'd stop and run down the hill to see what was wrong, One time the cart wandered of the path and came up against a tree, but usually it just needed a bit more power to get over a ledge. When the cable released at the corners the truck would bounce up hard so could easily make a mental note of where I was at. After drying the slabs for a couple years, I planed them down and made my table (see pic), It was a project!View attachment 981934View attachment 981937View attachment 981939View attachment 981940View attachment 981942

#JOY indeed

 

[djg james]

I just say this thread. Pretty ingenious. I don't understand your corners contraption but it doesn't matter since this is well beyond anything I would try. I like your three wheel cart. Wish I had one. Beautiful table.