I was thinking they were D6 sized. Sorry. You really do not need a big dozer pulling wood. Like a John Deere 350 will pull as much wood as a John Deere 450, but when it comes to pushing, a John Deere 450 will push WAY more than a John Deere 350. With a smaller size you can just get around in the woods better, so i can easy see why the tracked skidder is the size it is. I am thinking about selling one of my bulldozers and getting another excavator, but it seems something always needs to be fixed before I can sell it. I found a few decent 245 Cat Excavators for sale, aging machines now but no electronics, 3206 Cat engines so parts are easy to get, but they are a longggggg ways away from Maine. I need something fairly big though, but trucking a 145,000 pound machine is not cheap. If I could find a 90,000 pound machine locally I might get it, but my budget means the tracks are typically worn out. In other words...$$$$$. Here is a picture of my bride Katie trying to save her tree from the 850C. It worked, the tree is still standing!
I always thought that was a good idea. Maybe make chocks fore and aft so that the tire could be rolled between them, then a ratchet strap drawn around the tire to hold it on. It would slide up over obstructions I think. It is amazing what my walking beam suspension log trailer will climb up over and it is a similar approach to a problem. Heck, it is amazing what skids can do. I move a lot of buildings, and in fact am working on moving one today. It is a 22 x 12 building, story and a half all board construction, and even with that much weight my little JD 350 bulldozer can pull it. I ran into trouble when the skids got wedged behind a stub pipe buried in the ground and my little bulldozer snapped the 1 foot diameter skid in half. I had to replace that, and just need to add one more support and should be able to move it today, but again...on skids, a lot can be pulled.
A 245 would be showing A lot of age. Back when we logged A Lot. Had a real timber industry in Southeast. And hydraulic log loaders were prevalent. The 245 was a Big wood shovel. I run an old Kobelco SK400 how at work. It would dig your stumps fairly easily. But it is Heavy to move.
This picture doesn't do justice to what cable skidders can negotiate in the winter with ice & snow. Extremely impressive with the terrain we have. I have watched being winched up slopes steeper than 45 degrees, the skidder would back against a tree to brace itself as the brakes couldn't hold it as the ground would give. You don't get below when they do this because rocks become dislodged and careen downhill like giant cannonballs. This was breaking in the new trailer with a load.
I like Kobelco, that is what I learned to operate an excavator on many years ago. Like Hitachi, they are made by John Deere so parts are easy to get. (I still run John Deere controls and not Cat. I call it running in "french" because to me the controls are backwards of where they should be.) I am wondering though how easy it would be to pull stumps? It is only a 46,000 pound machine if the specs are right online. I am not familiar with that machine and had to look it up. My last excavator was a 34,000 pound machine and it was not big enough. I put my cut-off at 80,000 pounds, but you pay for all that iron too. Unless I sell off a dozer though, I just don't have the money for it. The wife wants me to have one, so that is good...Domestic Supervisor I call her, along with Chief Financial Officer, but you never know, I had a bulldozer fall into my lap once, so I am holding out fora big excavator.
Cold Trigger Finger I know what you speak of with your hands. You might want to give something like this a try. For sure when I got a pair of them, I wondered how I ever got along without them. Makes the work much easier and saves the hands too. There are a couple other companies that make them but I've seen only one other one that are as good and perhaps better. They can grab a bit larger log and are a little longer. But the length can be both good and bad. Picking up it is great as you don't bend at all (just a little bending with ours) but when picking up to put on pile, then you have to lift higher.
Lodged Tree. A 400 size hoe will do a great job. Break off a few roots and out it will come. I run Cat controls as there are lots of Cat iron up here. I would be a slamin,jerky herky with JD controls. There are more and more JD excavators up here in the last 10 years. But most of them are switched to Cat controls. Backwoods Savage . Yes , that is exactly what I'm after. How big a diameter will the smaller version work on . I think one would be perfect for setting the round on my splitter. And , a whole lots of of other jobs !!!!
One the left is the Peavey606 Favorite . on the right , Peavey Manufacturing, Canadian. Pulp hooks. For loading and unloading the truck I much prefer the 606. For rikin in the woods , the Canadian . General all around , the Canadian.
