skidding logs with a tractor? or?

[sean donato]

If you're gonna get fussy about those details, you should make that clear from the start of the conversation.

It was quite clear, Rob asked about my definition of made in USA as a response to an prior post about kubota tractors.

 

[Doug]

I would never own one (unless it was free, but then I would trade it for a shuttle shift geared one) because I don't have flat land that I would only be brush hogging. you lose more pto hp with hst, more filters to change, cost about $3500 more. every dealer I talked to said if I want to skid logs, plow, disc, go with gear drive, but if I am brush hogging open flat fields and want the wife to drive it, then get a hst

CORRECT

 

[Doug]

You must have had the only Farmall A that was ever built, that had a diff lock!

SR

YEAH, 10-4 on that. I suspect a lot of younger folks probably never heard of cutting brakes, and certainly would have no concept of how effective they were.

 

[Doug]

Maybe M&W made a diff lock to add on for B & C. It would also work on A. I've never heard of a diff lock on any letter tractors. But every one is different. For the hundreds of thousands of H and M made, I have never seen 2 identical. Diff lock on an A raised my eyebrows too. I loved the A for what it would do. Never thought of using one for skidding, but we always had bigger tractors available.

My dad and his hunting buddies used a full sized Farmall for hunting the Slana River valley in the 60's. Economical, reliable, never broke, and always got us where we were going. Back-in-the-day

 

[Sawyer Rob]

My dad and his hunting buddies used a full sized Farmall for hunting the Slana River valley in the 60's. Economical, reliable, never broke, and always got us where we were going. Back-in-the-day

I pulled camping gear into Caribou Hills with my tractor and a trailer.

SR

 

[Mad Professor]

You use it as a hobby machine, ie your livelihood doesn't depend on it working, you're not using it to farm. That's called hobby use. Same as I use my most of my equipment.
My current tractors stand just as much chance of making it 80+ years as anything from 1940 does. Wait, the numbers are grossly in my favor. 5 models of tractors, sharing 3 engines, and 4 transmissions. Hundreds of thousands of tractors sold in the 25 year production run, even the newer machines share 70%+ parts. Oh, whait the engines used are the D05 series, prolific in industrial use, million more made and sold to this very day.
In 1979 kubota celebrated selling 700,000 tractors and has sold over 1 million tractors in the usa alone to this date. Compact and sub compact tractors make up the majority of their sales. (FYI, nearly all the tractors kubota make are made nere in America too.)
The 9n in all its variants, didn't total 100,000 units built and sold.
so to put it simply, yes my crap will still be around, your old junk will run out of parts and fade to memory just like all antique stuff does.

105,000 9N, 160,000 2N, 442,000 8N , 267,000 Ford-Ferguson

 

[kenmbz]

Our neighbor and his friends (circa the 1940's and 50's) bought a harley davidson to hunt with.
They said it did great pulling bears out of the woods.
I asked if he liked driving the harley on the local highways, he just looked at me and said, why would I do that.

Saw lots of pictures of him and friends from his younger days, with a bear or deer being dragged with a tarp out of the woods. He had a great gun collection which we would fire behind his house, we just had to bring ammo.

He did get rid of the Harley at some point, too much maintenance for the amount of use.

wonder if they skidded logs with it too? The whole family were lumberjacks.
They built their own houses (with help from others in town).
Wish I had pictures of all their hand and power saws, but this was back in the 70's

 

[StihlPotlicker]

Hilly ground shouldn't be an issue in and off itself. Actually, I can think of MANY applications where I would prefer an HST on a hill instead of gears primarily because I can go from forward to reverse while on the side of a hill without touching the clutch. Pulling a ground implement all day, on the other hand, is a different story. Its not that an HST can't do it, but I do question whether or not the hydraulic systems on most CUTs and SCUTs have adequate cooling for that kind of work. Personally, I wouldn't trust a HST that had 3k hours on it and had spent a lot its time pulling a plow. I wouldn't even give it a 2nd thought on a gear drive though.

I grew up with gear drive tractors, but after a farmer buddies uncle (who takes great care of His tractors) had an issue with a HST coming down a slight hill and it wouldn't hold Him back. the only issue I had with a geared tractor, was when my brother and I, got his ladder stands off of my dad's property and, I took the short cut with tractor and wood wagon, down a 35-40% grade( can't get up it in the fall with leaves on the ground) and my older bothers foot slipped and pushed in the clutch, well you could imagine the instant speed we got thankfully My dad got the wider bucket with His tractor, and I hit a tree with it, that stopped us, because of 2 ( or 3, Grace of God) reasons, but when I hit that tree it threw my brother off the tractor and his foot came off the clutch and I got stopped by the steering wheel now this all happened in a few seconds, that seemed like forever. Now all the hooting and hollering that we did betwixed us, they could hear us back down at the house. (it takes us .5hr to get up on the pipeline/ top of the hill with the tractor) so our wives and rents and BILs and sisters, started to get the quads around and see what was going on! so, after they hear the tractor start back up and hear us coming/ see us they got relieved. Boy am I glad I didn't marry an Italian woman from Long Island like my brother because she gave him a what for. .

 

[fields_mj]

I grew up with gear drive tractors, but after a farmer buddies uncle (who takes great care of His tractors) had an issue with a HST coming down a slight hill and it wouldn't hold Him back. the only issue I had with a geared tractor, was when my brother and I, got his ladder stands off of my dad's property and, I took the short cut with tractor and wood wagon, down a 35-40% grade( can't get up it in the fall with leaves on the ground) and my older bothers foot slipped and pushed in the clutch, well you could imagine the instant speed we got thankfully My dad got the wider bucket with His tractor, and I hit a tree with it, that stopped us, because of 2 ( or 3, Grace of God) reasons, but when I hit that tree it threw my brother off the tractor and his foot came off the clutch and I got stopped by the steering wheel now this all happened in a few seconds, that seemed like forever. Now all the hooting and hollering that we did betwixed us, they could hear us back down at the house. (it takes us .5hr to get up on the pipeline/ top of the hill with the tractor) so our wives and rents and BILs and sisters, started to get the quads around and see what was going on! so, after they hear the tractor start back up and hear us coming/ see us they got relieved. Boy am I glad I didn't marry an Italian woman from Long Island like my brother because she gave him a what for. .

I had a similar experience with the clutch when I first got my tractor, but my experience was MUCH less severe. I was easily able to use the bucket to help get things back under control in a very controlled fashion. I took it as a very fortunate lesson on correctly operating my tractor on a grade. My yard has a couple of small hills in it that can cause me problems on my tractor, but I now plan accordingly and make sure to either have the loader or the 3pt hitch in a position where at least one of them is available to assist if I need to switch directions.

I DID have a somewhat similar experience with an old Minneapolis Molen. We had shot a deer one evening and we used the tractor and bushhog to get it out of the woods (basically threw the deer on top of the bushog). The tractor was known to have a VERY sensitive clutch. Dad was used to operating the machine so he ran it. When we were done and the deer was dressed and in the bed of the truck, our neighbor (who I believe shot the deer, and his grandparents owned the farm, and he had run the tractor before) drove it back up to the barn. Since it was dark, I sat on the fender and held a lantern so he could see (early 90s, flashlights were not so bright back then). He popped the clutch and I went off the back of the tractor with the lantern. On the way down, I made sure to get the lantern away from me without touching the globe or the top. Thankfully, the only resulting issue was that the glob and mantles were trashed. Dad wasn't real happy about his lantern, but he pretty quickly came to the conclusion that everything had worked out for the best considering. We ended up driving the truck up to the barn also so the neighbor could see to get the tractor put away without any more issues. HST would not have had that issue, but I consider that incident to be a training based operator error on all of our parts.

 

[Doug]

I pulled camping gear into Caribou Hills with my tractor and a trailer.

SR

Are you still in Alaska?

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Are you still in Alaska?

Nope, it's been a while since I was there...

SR

 

[rwoods]

My two cents on grapples and forks -

Unless you have a full-size tractor or only handle small stuff, before purchasing either attachment you need to know the lift capacity of your loader and the weight and depth of the grapple or forks you are considering, including the weight and depth of any adapter plate between the attachment and the loader frame. Much of the lifting capacity of a compact tractor can be used up by the weight of the attachment and by the load being forward. The weight and dimensions of most attachments are readily available.

The weight of attachments varies greatly and can make a significant difference in the amount of wood you can move. For this reason, heavy duty is not always the best choice for a compact tractor. Of course, if you primarily use the attachment for grubbing as opposed to loading the selection criteria is different.

How far the attachment extends past the frame can also make the difference between what logs you can lift and those you can't. I have experienced many times when 6" or less made the difference between lifting or not.

IMO, a compact tractor should utilize the lightest (but appropriately strong) attachment available and affordable with due consideration given to the distance of the load from the loader frame.

Ron

 

[abbott295]

Quite the debate on gear drive or hydrostatic here. It seems as though a while ago there was a discussion about skidding/towing/traction work using garden tractors and I think I remember it being universally advised against. My only experience with hydrostatic has been with garden tractors/riding mowers and rather recently, although I am considering a compact tractor with loader and backhoe, a Mahindra (made by Mitsubishi). 2615, 26 hp. I think it’s hydrostatic. 2006 or 2007 manufacture, 690 hours.

 

[Lionsfan]

Quite the debate on gear drive or hydrostatic here. It seems as though a while ago there was a discussion about skidding/towing/traction work using garden tractors and I think I remember it being universally advised against. My only experience with hydrostatic has been with garden tractors/riding mowers and rather recently, although I am considering a compact tractor with loader and backhoe, a Mahindra (made by Mitsubishi). 2615, 26 hp. I think it’s hydrostatic. 2006 or 2007 manufacture, 690 hours.

Mitsubishi industrial engines are every bit as good as Kubota or Yanmar in my experience.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Quite the debate on gear drive or hydrostatic here. It seems as though a while ago there was a discussion about skidding/towing/traction work using garden tractors and I think I remember it being universally advised against. My only experience with hydrostatic has been with garden tractors/riding mowers and rather recently, although I am considering a compact tractor with loader and backhoe, a Mahindra (made by Mitsubishi). 2615, 26 hp. I think it’s hydrostatic. 2006 or 2007 manufacture, 690 hours.

You better fact check me on this, but I think only the engine was made by Mitsubishi...

TYM did or even still does make a lot of the Mahindra tractors, except for the engines.

SR

 

[Lionsfan]

You better fact check me on this, but I think only the engine was made by Mitsubishi...

TYM did or even still does make a lot of the Mahindra tractors, except for the engines.

SR

Mitsubishi made the one he's looking at. TYM does build the current 26 series.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I almost bought a new Mitsubishi powered tractor one time, but when I drove it around at PTO speed, that diesel had too much vibration for me. It definitely vibrated more than my Kubota or any Yanmar I have run.

I could see that using it for rotavating for a few hours would NOT be much fun, so I moved on.

SR

 

[woodfarmer]

My new Fransgard getting to work.