As a former welder, there is no question I (or just about anyone) could fab this up, but I am wondering if it would really be worth it? Yes limbing tree sucks, especially softwoods (I am not even sure this would work on hardwoods), but it seems the amount of time to get on and off would be almost as bad as firing up the old chainsaw and having a go at the limbs. Normally I am not the negative type of guy, but as simple as it is, I am not sure it would have much value.
It's neat, but I'm with you LodgedTree.......prolly wouldn't do much other than jam on hardwoods.... Would be great if it debarked, tho.....
I was not impressed with the quality of the delimbed tree, however I do admit going back to delimb that stem would be much easier than doing a spruce in full limbs.
I am with you Lodgetree. That device works real well on smaller trees that are straight and made for fence posts but some of the limbs I had to cut on the last two lodge pole pines I cut down probably would have broke that thing.
It'd probably have its place in a small-scale logging company that dealt with stands of spruce and fir or such. Cool concept but a very narrow/limited market.
My father and his buddy have a tree lot , they cut fenceposts for selling or trading with farmers . They have a kinda/ similar setup , got it made at a local machine/welding shop . It's setup on a frame that is anchored to a stump , it uses 2 spring loaded curved knives and they use a logging winch to pull the tree through it . I've not seen it in action but they claim it works very well . I sure could have used that rig today .
I was at the 1994 Northeast Log Show and this one inventor had a rig that was pretty cool. Instead of a bulldozer blade, it had a frame with sharpened flat bar welded X-fashion across a shaft. There was six of them or so, and what would happen was, the skidder driver would pull to a stop, the bulldozer would drive over the twitch to the butt of the trees, drop the delimber and back up. As he did, the weight of the dozer on the logs kept the wood from moving and his sharpened X-fashioned blade would sever the limbs off. It really was fast and slick, but they were working on fir too, a super easy tree to delimb. I am doing no justice I know on describing what I saw, and it was 20 plus years ago, but it might work. The problem is the softwood market is gone in Maine so now its all hardwood and I am not sure how it would work on hardwood, not to mention there are very few limbs on a hardwood compared to softwood.
After reading all the replies and seeing the video, "and" as a Welder for nearly 40 years I'm asking myself "why"? By the time it takes to put it on and rig it up, I could have had it limbed in that time with my trusty MS170. . Just don't see it... Maybe it's like one of those things made from "RONCO" and you just have to have one, like the turtle skinning machine...
