In loving memory of Kenis D. Keathley 6/4/81 - 3/27/22 Loving father, husband, brother, friend and firewood hoarder Rest in peace, Dexterday

New Logging Road: Tractor Trailer Turn Radius?

Discussion in 'The Wood Market' started by LodgedTree, May 18, 2017.

  1. LodgedTree

    LodgedTree

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    Does anyone know what the radius is for a logging road intersection?

    I currently have a logging road that extends 1/4 of a mile off the main road, but now I am getting a government grant to put an extension on it another 1/4 mile up over the hill. It's not a true extension in that it extends the length of the road to a half mile, but rather tees off the road at a true 90 degree corner. My trucks are all tri-axles, BUT sometimes for far off paper mills we will haul on a tractor trailer truck (tri-axle trailer). I want to make sure the truck has enough swing to make the corner. Going straight means putting the truck off a 6 foot embankment down and into a swale. I want to lay out the road right!!
     
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  2. stuckinthemuck

    stuckinthemuck

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  3. stuckinthemuck

    stuckinthemuck

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  4. LodgedTree

    LodgedTree

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    Hey thanks, if I read that stuff right it looks to be about 45 feet to the centerline. It is not as bad as I thought it would be, but in a really bad spot. Its right down at the base of a hill, so the intersection is not only going to need lots of gravel to make the curve, its going to have to be deep so trucks won't bottom out as they make the transition. Sadly there is no extra money for that, it is based on x-amount of dollars per linear feet of road. The road itself (going up over the hill) has to have at least a foot of gravel and be 20 feet wide.

    We tried to fin a different approach to this issue other than building an expensive road, but there just was no other work-arounds. To the East there is an existing trail, but it slopes hard to the left side going up the hill and a truck would flop over making the curve and trying to stay upright. I would cut down (shelve) the right side into the lower left side with my bulldozer, but its really a steep hill and washes out, which is the whole reason for the grant...erosion issues, but I can't cut it down because we have ledge on top of the ground here; so no digging down. And I cannot take soil from the far left side and add it to the lower slope as fill as it is the rock wall between two towns; so I cannot destroy that! So in the end, we'll make a road go straight up over the hill in a different spot. It will divide my now 10 acre field into an 8 acre, and 2 acre field, but I'll have to live with it. The good thing is, I will be able to see who is going up into my fields. As the local Game Warden says, "Landowners would be shocked if they knew what happened behind their houses when they were asleep."
     
  5. stuckinthemuck

    stuckinthemuck

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    Happy to help. Would be better if I could get some likes from Stinny but I guess I'll be okay without. Don't rule out going through the ledge. May be costly in the near term but be a value play over the decades.
     
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  6. Stinny

    Stinny

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    There I go again, not payin attention... :whistle:...... :D
     
    Last edited: May 18, 2017
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  7. LodgedTree

    LodgedTree

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    I went up today and got some pictures of where this new logging road is going. Be forewarned, its been raining straight for weeks and it is a bit "squishy" in the woods. Kind of funny because we have had more mud after mud season than during it!

    Anyway, here is a view from the intersection of looking up the hill. It is about an 8% grade. The sad thing is, I can't grade off the ruts and start using the road because it would void my road building grant, so I got to haul an extra half mile!

    DSCN4905.JPG

    This is looking down at the intersection. It is going to be to the right of the brush pile, and to the left of that pile of rocks. You can sort of see where the road continues past the brush pile and out towards the far left of the photo. You can also see how the road dips right at the intersection. It will take a lot of gravel there.
    DSCN4907.JPG

    This is looking down over the hill...
    DSCN4910.JPG
    And this is where eventually the road will continue. I will situate it on the rock wall that is the forest/field edge here. All the wood to the right in the forest has all but been removed. Only Hemlock logs and Hemlock Pulp remain. In total it will be 30 acres of new field. The pile of wood in the far distant is a thousand feet of cedar logs I cut this winter.
    DSCN4913.JPG
    And finally, lest you think I over-exaggerate and say it is not that "squishy", here is my skid trail across the field. The mud is some 4 feet deep here as witnessed by how the belly of the skidder drags through the mud.

    DSCN4911.JPG
     
  8. LodgedTree

    LodgedTree

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    Jeesh, I never realized I did not update this...

    We ended up looking at various options, but in the end Katie and I did all the work. We have our own gravel pit, but when a contractor wanted us to pay $7,000 to move the gravel 1/2 mile from our pit to this road, we decided we could move it ourselves. We only have the Wallenstein Log Trailer that comes with a 1 cubic yard dump body, but we figured if we could haul 10 loads per day, in just over a month we could haul the 350 cubic yards required. That is what we did, loading the gravel in the pit via our Kubota L2500 farm tractor, and towing the Wallenstein Trailer via our grocery-getting Ford Explorer.

    Before:
    DSCN4910.JPG
    Same spot after...

    DSCN5167.JPG
     
  9. LodgedTree

    LodgedTree

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    This is another picture from before...

    DSCN4736.JPG

    Then what it looks like now...
    DSCN5181.JPG
     
  10. Stinny

    Stinny

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  11. LodgedTree

    LodgedTree

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    The other thing I forgot to tell people about this road was, I ended up fabricating my own grader to smooth it out. I could get the gravel shoved around with the loader, but to get a nice smooth grade on it, I ended up taking my grader blade off the back of my tractor and mounting it to my Wallenstein Log Trailer. I did this by having a bolt on gooseneck hitch so the blade could swivel around. But it did two things putting it on the trailer.

    1. It allowed the walking beam suspension to be used so if it kicks up a rock, the grader blade is not affected by it.
    2. It makes the length super long so that dips and rises are leveled out much better making for a smoother road length wise.

    This does not have tilt on the blade, but I can get that roughed in with my bulldozer. Angling the grader blade and just giving it 1 or 2 passes over it with my tractor, makes for a nice crowned, but smooth road.

    DSCN5126.JPG
    DSCN5127.JPG
     
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  12. LodgedTree

    LodgedTree

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    Yeah and my dozer broke early into the project and was down all summer. It kind of shows that a lot can be done with a farm tractor and a trailer.

    The T intersection is big enough for tractor trailers, but being at the bottom of the hill, took some 4 feet of gravel and fill. Our best day loading and hauling all went into that one section. It made for some boring days just driving back and forth.

    I am not sure what we spent on the project, probably $2200 or so with fertilizer, seed, lime, diesel fuel and gas. A lot less than $7000 with the gravel coming out of your own pit.
     
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  13. LodgedTree

    LodgedTree

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    I don't have any before pictures of this area, but this was part of the conservation grant as well. In this case a couple of rock check dams, a dry pond to capture any silt, and a rocked ford for where sheep and tractors cross.

    DSCN5188.JPG
     
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  14. Steve

    Steve

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    You're a regular R. G. LeTourneau Nice work!