Okay, a little back story. I have a buddy at work who has property with large trees of mixed pedigree and a new tractor he loves to play with. He wants to clear some more land but has no use for the wood. He offered it to me if I was interested and said he would even load it with the tractor. I guess he had a grapple coming for it in the spring. Sounds great in theory, but the how the hell do i get the logs out at my place? I don't have equipment. I thought about a gantry and chain fall maybe. But that seems like a lot of screwing around. Could buck it at his place and load with the bucket but I'd rather get in and get out as efficiently as possible. What about a log trailer that I could load up like this northern tool saw buck? http://reviews.northerntool.com/039...pacity-powder-coat-finish-reviews/reviews.htm I am envisioning a small tandem with say a 10' cargo area for 120" logs and a relatively short tongue. The main ladder frame would be 12" C channel I have laying around, with 4" channel on top for cross pieces. The ends of the cross channels would have stake pockets. The log area would be about 60" wide. I am shooting for hitting the 8,000 lbs towing capacity of my truck. I envision having him grapple logs into the trailer, I would chain them down and drive home. I would back the load in where I want to split the rounds. I would then use my 395 with a long bar to buck the logs right on the trailer. Once I pop the chains all the remaining pieces should fall down between the cross pieces. I would probably have to move the rounds before I could drive off with the trailer. Whadya think?
Doesn't sound likes bad idea. If you have to store a trailer, then look at dump trailers. The one you want to design is job specific. A dump trailer has many uses.
I think you are really not gonna like trying to retrieve the rounds from under that trailer. You'd be better off rolling them off the side of the trailer with a cant hook and then bucking them up on the ground. What size diameter logs are we playing with?
That's basically how I do it, except perhaps on a smaller scale. Cut the trees into the largest pieces I can handle, trailer em up, drive em home, then unload onto the sawbuck and chop em into rounds. Not sure you'd want to mess with the deck of the trailer - as Rottiman said, could be a real PITA to snatch out big rounds that fall between the slats. You could use the same process, and leave the decking in place - just saw most of the way through from one side, then roll the log with a cant hook and finish off the other side.
I've gone back and looked at this guy's ideas many times. Clever and careful lift arm positioning has resulted in a simple and effective trailer. I'd love to have a small version of it on snow skis...
Sometimes I think we get too carried away trying to make things easier. I get log cut offs from a logging operation. The boys load my trailer with the forwarder. (I realize this is a big load for this trailer, it was .5 miles away) I cut the logs into rounds on the trailer which contained the sawdust and rolled the rounds off to where they would be split. The spot was within several feet of the stacks. I then brought the splitter in, split and placed on the stacks directly off the splitter. When I drive away, the sawdust goes bye bye and doesn't kill the grass.
How much wood we talkin bout here? if it was alright with yer buddy you could go in and get the logs on the ground, have him stage them in an easy spot to get to with his tractor and then rent a dump trailer for a weekend and have him load you up and get them home. Unless of coarse you is just lookin for a reason to by a new toy?
if you are getting long lengths, then just take 3-4 4x4's and lay them across the trailer, then stack the longs on them longways. There should be enough support to cut them to length without having to move them to cut them. That what I do when I get logs that can be loaded on my car trailer.
Id just cut them 20-25' and hire a log truck to get them to your house. They can stack 25' high at your place if need be. $200 can get a lot of wood to your house real fast. How much gas $ would you smoke getting the equivalent amount of wood home ?
Why not just load the logs into a normal trailer and buck them on the trailer? Like freakinstang said, maybe lay some 4x lumber across the deck
