Osage harvesters

[Badger]

    This question is primarily for guys who have done a fair amount of harvesting and processing. (I am missing Gary Davis here). If you were to design and build the most perfect mobile unit you could come up with, what would it look like? This would include cutting, hauling, dragging out of the woods, splitting and processing. If you are knowledgeable about machinery and would like to join in please do. 

[Badger]

Some of the questions I have? Once you chop down the tree how do you deal with part of the tree you are not using? Do you cut it up?

[Anonymoustoo]

I cut yew wood, I use any decent pieces of leftovers to make gaff handles and burn the rest in the shop wood stove. Try to use it all.

[Eric Krewson]

Every stick of osage I ever cut I only had a chainsaw, a sledge hammer, wedges and a pick-up truck, I manhandled all the staves and left the top where it was.

Except for the last tree I cut, this time I had the equipment to make the cutting and hauling off the site a breeze.

A dozer pushed this tree over, I go permission to cut it from the city;

[Badger]

  Eric, the question was more about what the ideal mobile unit for harvesting might look like. Not so much how we are currently doing it.

[Eric Krewson]

I misunderstood the question I guess; this is my mobile unit; I don't know how you could make a better one. I have a much bigger tractor now, it wouldn't be near as handy going through tight places as the small one in the picture, it doesn't matter because my osage cutting days are over.

When it comes to processing, I asked Mike of the former Mike's osage if they used any power splitters to process the thousand or so staves they produced a year. He said they built a long log splitter to run their logs through but the splits would be unpredictable with a lot of waste so they went back to processing staves completely by hand. 

[Badger]

I misunderstood the question I guess; this is my mobile unit; I don't know how you could make a better one. I have a much bigger tractor now, it wouldn't be near as handy going through tight places as the small one in the picture, it doesn't matter because my osage cutting days are over.

When it comes to processing, I asked Mike of the former Mike's osage if they used any power splitters to process the thousand or so staves they produced a year. He said they built a long log splitter to run their logs through but the splits would be unpredictable with a lot of waste so they went back to processing staves completely by hand.

            this was one of the main things I was wondering about was the splitting, I know when I split I have to change directions quite often because it doesn't always follow the grain

[osage outlaw]

I wanted to build an ATV log skidder like this for hauling logs out.  I bought the axles and winch, but never got the steel. 



I've been using a simple log sled I made from barrels.  It works surprisingly good.  I've hauled big logs up hills with my old UTV.  I built a log arch trailer that loads the logs with a winch and pivoting arch.  I use that to transport logs to the sawmill.



As far as splitting, this is my set up.  I can't imagine a better way to do it.  My yard is sloped.  The rails are level.  I drag a log in front of the top end and roll it onto the rails.  I roll the logs to the bottom to split them.  They are the perfect height to split without bending over.  I roll them back and forth to walk the split down both sides.  This is a huge back saver.  I've split logs from morning until night without any back pain.  This set up is much better than working on the ground. 

[Anonymoustoo]

We don’t get anywhere near that volume of wood. Mostly we just cut 6-8 inch stuff to 6 foot lengths and rip them in half with a chainsaw and pack them out. Pretty well any yew tree the size of your Osage is spiral twisted so badly they are only good for lams. Mostly bull work all the way.

[ssrhythm]

Good Lawd!  Y'all are cutting some big osage trees!  I have a spot where I'm welcome to cut any Osage I want that has an ancient fencerow with the most enormous osage trees I've ever seen.  I look at it each year with hopes of figuring out how to cut it without killing myself or having to find an adrenaline-junkie tree crew on drugs that might actually agree to do the job for me...and every year I walk away shaking my head.  One of those trees would set me for my lifetime, but I just don't see how to get any of them down safely and without tearing the ^$% out of the adjacent ag field, as all of these trees are intertwined and enormous.  After seeing this thread, I'm thinking I need to go look at those trees again and figure it out. 

I am cutting a few 16' diameter trees and a bunch of 10-14' diameter trees out of the back of a muddy, hilly, rutty cow pasture and dragging the logs out with my electric buggy or the landowners mule one 7' log at a time then loading them end over end onto my 14' trailer.  It's always a near heart-attack experience.  That skidder looks really cool and useful, and I might look at building a slightly smaller version of that for cutting Osage back in the woods.

I've been thinking that the ideal setup for me would be a double axle trailer with seriously stout axles with some tall 10ply all terrain tires. The trailer would be only long enough for my hunting buggy or a 2 seat sxs to fit in it.  It would have two or three out-and-up racks on each side made from stout steel.  The bottom racks would be the widest and would hold two or three 16" x 7'-8' long or longer logs stacked on top of each other.  The next rack up would hold a couple of 10"-12" logs of the same length, and the top rack could be for smaller diameter sections and saplings. I need to figure out a way to lift the bigger logs over the uprights of the rack and lower them into place, but brute force and determination would work absent a lift. 

So the trailer would be ~35" wider than a standard electric buggy or sxs for easy maneuvering on decently maintained logging roads and the relatively open pastures I currently cut in, and it would be short enough to maneuver through the trees and have stout enough axles and suspension to carry that load down the interstate at 85 mph.  I think it would be easy enough to make, but the last thing I want to design for it...I haven't figured out how to do it yet,  I want it to have a short tongue for maneuvering with the buggy to and from the truck to the cut site, but I want to have a tongue that will extend about 5' for when I have it hooked up to the truck for long distance towing and backing it up when needed.

I wish I could post pics, but it's only a vision in my mind at this point.  Maybe one day...

[Hamish]

Now we need some smart chap to design and make a bowstave sized wood splitter. Splitting large diameter logs is a young man's game.

[osage outlaw]

Here is my log arch trailer.   A narrower version could work but you might need outriggers.  I've used this set up to load a tractor tiller box, and huge landscaping boulders.   

[ssrhythm]

Now we need some smart chap to design and make a bowstave sized wood splitter. Splitting large diameter logs is a young man's game.

Brilliant…someone please get on this.  I know some folks on here have the tools, creativity, and ability to get one of these built.  I’d sure pay sone good money for one.

[Selfbowman]

Good set up Clint.

[Badger]

       As far as a splitter goes, I think a rack setup where the log was lying flat, and the hydraulic splitter came down on it from the top could work out well. You could start a split put a wedge in and move the jack to another spot. Splits will often run off and coming down from the top you could recover easily enough. You would need a heavy cherry picker or tractor that could lift a 2,000# log onto the rack.
      As for dragging logs out of the woods, I would think you could use winches. If you had some kind of a roller you could attach to the side of a tree for you winch cable to ride on you would be able to zig zag out minimizing the amount of time it takes moving the set up from tree to tree.