Your better off with rope instead of wire when it snaps. I've used plenty of Amsteel on rigging or yarder ropes. Never would I switch back to cable unless it was a long zip line setup.
Where did all the loggers go?
- Thread starter Gologit
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We ran many roads from the same spot, started out with the longest road that pretty much cornered out in somewhat of a bowl. This is coming in the truck road with the cutback on the left. It could've been way easier & we could've had much narrower roads, but we didn't. Anyhow the face off of the landing was right steep down into that bowl. Probably well over 100' of deflection. So we pulled out wide as we could. I don't remember how many roads came up that same spot but we did wear a good skid trail up towards the landing. Same skid trail we used to get in & out, steep enough for hand usage for a hundred or so feet. The next parking spot was on down the road. The mountain leveled out a good bit there. It was also where the uneaten chestnut oak & poplar was which was a prescribed cut. We ended up taking the skiddede down to the bottom & staging what we didn't want to pull the GD skyline out to.
Had there been some talent in charge, we really could've made things look pretty, easy. I mean, the alternative was 3 skid trails across the hill at the least. Like you said, narrow roads can make a big difference. Had we had more than 2 of the 5 drums in operation, & some rigging, things would've been a lot of fun. I was green to cable logging, but surely understood the principles. Only time I've ever felt a heat stroke is from pulling that skyline inches at a time... I was real proud to work hard back then.. Guy that owned it who my boss worked for off & on sold it after that I think.. But IMO, there are plenty of ridges & draws & slopes long enough that someone could get plenty of use out of such a machine out east. I thinknthey're all just scared of no more rainy days off....
You watch the madill promotional video & then see how they were tiptoeing the thing around & it's clear that nobody who was allowed to run it, knew how to. The owner had his old time help running things until my boss took over. Old Bud SWORE that the logs needed to stay on the ground. Jerry got in there & tightened the skyline up & started shotgunning the carriage down at a productive speed & giving it some throttle on the return trip, logs in the air. I was still a little shy of taking control of situations that I could fix, so I just went with the flow of "gotta do it this way" instead of asking WHY?
Had there been some talent in charge, we really could've made things look pretty, easy. I mean, the alternative was 3 skid trails across the hill at the least. Like you said, narrow roads can make a big difference. Had we had more than 2 of the 5 drums in operation, & some rigging, things would've been a lot of fun. I was green to cable logging, but surely understood the principles. Only time I've ever felt a heat stroke is from pulling that skyline inches at a time... I was real proud to work hard back then.. Guy that owned it who my boss worked for off & on sold it after that I think.. But IMO, there are plenty of ridges & draws & slopes long enough that someone could get plenty of use out of such a machine out east. I thinknthey're all just scared of no more rainy days off....
You watch the madill promotional video & then see how they were tiptoeing the thing around & it's clear that nobody who was allowed to run it, knew how to. The owner had his old time help running things until my boss took over. Old Bud SWORE that the logs needed to stay on the ground. Jerry got in there & tightened the skyline up & started shotgunning the carriage down at a productive speed & giving it some throttle on the return trip, logs in the air. I was still a little shy of taking control of situations that I could fix, so I just went with the flow of "gotta do it this way" instead of asking WHY?
Now I don't really know anything about logging, but I'm damn good at acreage.
100' wide cutting path would be an acre every 435.6 feet.
And they also say that skyline logging is hard on the soils. Bah. One end of the log is in the air, maybe three or 4 feet of the corridor soil has the needles and duff scraped off, which is quickly replaced by nature. No wheels or tracks churning up the soil, and was a way to keep logging in the winter at low elevations, if the roads were rocked for log trucks to get in and out.
I've done the shovel jam in to check for compaction and the shovel went in just as easily in the corridors than on the untouched ground.
I have found it is difficult to get folks out on the ground to watch. They don't want to walk out into the slash and it can be scary. That's why I have all these pictures. I could whip out a photo of what we were talking about.
Not to mention tangles on a winch! How about if steel cable goes in the Chipper? Imagine getting that out?
Whatever. It was a rip off by a logger taking advantage of the ignorance in the area. 8 to 12 feet, spaced roughly 75 to 100 feet apart, works well as a rule of thumb. Of course, there are exceptions due to topography and leave tree clumps. The carriage needs to be capable of lateral yarding--pulling the logs into the corridor, and then up the hill or down to the landing.
This carriage runs up and down the skyline. A mainline goes through and chokers are attached to it. The carriage has a motor assist to help pull the line off the yarder drum to be pulled through the carriage and out to the logs where chokers are attached. It's a big improvement over the "Christy" carriage. The carriage in the first picture is rigged up for downhill yarding and has a haulback line attached to pull it back up the hill.
From the good folks of LA Grande
I never knew that. Never really thought about it.
Makis come from Pierce, Idaho and the only reason I know that is because a Maki person came out a couple times to trouble shoot.
Don't care about cable wrecking anything but me. I've been into towing during another past life for seventeen years doing recovery and accidents part time. The accident stuff is having the stomach for it. It's not pretty. The danger comes from the winch, doing recovery and rigging chains or cables. No joke, you make a mistake, snap rigging chains or cables you can be cut right in half. Been hit with one snapped chain and got plenty of stitches in my head.
I've never set a tail hitch or hung the main skyline or a midpoint rigging block but it's just a matter of acually doing it not know the how of it if you understand the mechanics of it. You mess up a tail hook cause you were lazy or just said **** it and made a high set point you could kill the yarder operator or the landing guy maybe some hook setters idk pic one. Knowing that would definitely give me an edge over the guy or girl who doesn't. Climbing over holes and pockets has to be the worst part of being on that mountain. I'll stay here on flat ground thanks. I prefer urban logging or residential removals. Acually they suck to. Farm and farmette removals are much better especially if they do my cleanups. Doubt I'll ever make it out west to cut but you never know or the east coast logging operations at my age. Might come and help or fill in for someone a day or two. I don't have the stamina anymore to take on the big steep mountain terrain, the good back to survive a week of it or be fast enough imo. I'm not much now for more than running a chainsaw, short days, easy climbing deals or a machine.
It's the little things that kill people like tree limbs it seems. I've dodged a few doing dead removals. Pulled entire tops to let them fly verses making a mistake in or under one on large hardwoods by picking at it. Weight and rigging always becomes the issues not the climber or the ropes. Screwing the canopy balance is a good one while your in it. Bad seen there. Watched a few of those. One guy snapped the line and fell right in the garage. Not my tree. The ropes will hold if your running 3/4" Amsteel winch line and know how to rig anchor points to lift the load. It's the dead trees I don't trust. Snags, moving things around like a Dutchman cut or knocking the guts out is the same everywhere I would think. Wind, rain, bent, snags, lightning hit, wind blown and uprooted messes exist everywhere not just in the woods. I can see how people get comfortable out there just cutting down trees and then you get caught with complacent behaviors or something just barber chairs and we run.
What a gagled blob of
Oh well
The eagle carriage shows a chainsaw being sent up to the crew. The chaser (guy who unhooks logs on the landing and cuts leftover limbs and stobs off logs) usually is in charge of filing the crew and landing saws. One told me, "I send the saw down with a sharp chain and it always comes back with a dull chain."
I lived in LA Grande, & had no idea till shortly before leaving. I had already had experience with the Eaglet in VA by that time.
I was riding my bike around the flatland one day when I noticed a stable of them by a building... the Eaglet was a very impressive little puttputt machine. The falls it took were quite brisk & it never did more than smoke some & not feed line now & then. The mainline issue might have been user error for all I know!
Unrelated: my brand new Samsung s22 bla bla bla phone is already acting like it's trash. I've still got spell check on & it routinely misspells words after 2 space bars.. constant looking back at errors...
The phones learn how you misspell stuff and thinks it's a real work after a while. Then it stops correcting it.
The Maki was pretty tough but not enough when abused by a crew that apparently wanted a short work day so they could go fishing--not kidding. They were ramming it into the tail tree each time it was sent down the hill. There was no need for that and it was a brand new carriage. It could only take so much abuse before failing.
The Maki came all the way out a couple of times and figured out what was going on. After that, there were no more trips out, the operator had to haul the carriage to Idaho for repair.
Wow!! Hopefully there was some reform of the rigging crew succinctly? "Breaking stuff is cool", as is proclaimed by Butthead, but that seems like would disturb most anyone who worked in the woods by choice!
That's bs. Hope they got properly chewed out for stupidity and abuse of equipment.
slabMan
ArboristSite Operative
Your knee must be all healed up and ready to load some more logs with the help of that old 980b, Brother! [up the loop]--lol! I will have to work on some more loads for you then! 6x26 super swaged 5/8, 2 blocks, 3to1 mechanical adv. and a 980 is all needed to pull lg 2nd growth down and out, roots and all! No need for climbing or too much heavy iron--keeping it simple!
its better... but I'm still movin slow, think I went and got old lol
Holler when ya need the Self Loather again.
wup-Wo-Ho-wup
ArboristSite Lurker
"Haywire", in my time, was a substitute word for "straw line" Which was a light line, (1/2", maybe) for lighter use, e.g. pulling the heavier lines into place when changing roads or other rigging. It was light as straw so any choker setter could pull a few hundred yards of it around through the brush with ease, as the hook tender thought.Whutz "haywire"?
See, this is the kind of question a newbie would post. The only place to get an answer, however, would be in this forum. And... I am really curious.
I would guess baling wire to bind up hay with, but that's probably wrong.
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