Logging forks for a front loader tractor

We've been pushing logs around with the bucket of our Kubota L3400, waiting to find the right implement for lifting and handling logs. Today, with the help of a neighbor, we made some simple but effective forks that mount onto the bucket.

The two forks are 18" long, tapering from the tip to 2" high at the edge of the bucket, and 3/4" thick steel. Each tapered fork widens into a piece 10" long and 5" high that bolts to the sidewall of the bucket with 2 @ 5/8" bolts. Pictures if anyone wants them. The tapered shape shields the sharp cutting plate on each end of the bucket lip, and keeps those from scarring our house logs.

After some practice, I can drive up to a log on the ground, fork under it, roll the bucket back, pick up the log, and set it on top of a log deck.

It's not practical to carry 30' logs around the property this way. Imagine walking with a fishing rod sideways in your mouth. And there are large logs that it won't lift because they weigh more than the 1,000 lb lifting capacity of the bucket. For most of our work, though, this is a good setup.

I have to be squarely facing the log when I start, or it ends up on just one fork and causes problems if I try to drag it around like that. Uneven ground complicates the operation -- one fork goes into the ground before the other gets under the log. And it's tricky to judge the center of balance of a log, and misjudging will result in a spilled log (and sometimes a tippy tractor).

I looked at "logger forks" for sale online (Paynes, $460) and a simple cutting tooth bar for the bucket ($340). Palette-length forks were too long to be practical, and the teeth were too short. The Paynes forks had a nice safety feature, which I have yet to design into our forks: bars that prevent the log from rolling back toward the operator. It is easier than you might think to get the bucket high and tilted back too far. One error could be deadly.

Do-It-Yourself Logging

Another successful 3-day stint of logging. We cut more fir from a fuel break along our down-slope boundary line, on a bank above a log landing. Three are suitable for house logs. This was our most productive morning. The trees conveniently* fell into the landing, so minimal skidding was involved. However, it was like crawling around in a giant game of Pick-Up-Sticks while we limbed and bucked the logs -- and a puzzle figuring out how to work around them with the tractor-loader.

 

 *One small tree set back on my saw and eventually fell the adverse direction. It's been a while since I had one of those, but in the beginning they were routine. I bent two saw bars earlier this year, learning how to avoid stuck saws. Before we got the tractor, we were hooking up a come-along to a nearby tree and working for 20 minutes to bring down hung trees. We hooked the tractor to the butt of this one and pulled it down in a minute while we watched from the safe end of a 30' cable.

 

We spent the better part of a day finishing off a quarter-acre stand on the opposite corner of the property. We had cut everything weeks ago, so we just needed to skid everything out and pile up the slash. Now the stand is neat and nicely spaced. It's in a corner of our driveway and one of the first things we see when driving in, so it's good to have that done. Now the stands on both sides of our gate are finished.

 

Background: We're logging our 20-acre stand because a commercial harvest is uneconomical. The parcel is too small, there's a height-restricted bridge, we're far from a mill, and we're keeping the best logs for building. Ours is a certified sustainable forest, managed to a plan we wrote 3 years ago with help from many experts. Thinning is necessary because of forest fire danger. We're getting modest but meaningful financial help from Washington state government funds targeted to reduce forest fuels and improve timber health.

 

Kubota Tractor for our Logging Operation

We've been using a neighbor's small bulldozer for building skid roads, and a borrowed Ford 2000 tractor for skidding logs. A 2wd tractor isn't really suitable for our steep terrain, and skidding logs with the dozer disturbs soils much more than we would like.

So we went shopping for used 4wd tractors. The ideal for our budget was a 30-40 HP diesel tractor with a front loader and a 3-point hitch, in good condition with less than 3,000 hours on it. Here in Washington those are rare. Tractors we found were either high priced ($15k+) or high hours (6,500+).


After a few weeks of searching, we checked into new tractors and found that they were not that much more expensive. $15k gets you a nice new tractor with a warranty. $17k gets you a hydrostatic transmission, sun shade, tire upgrade, ballast in the rear tires, and delivery. Kubota was offering $0 down and 0% financing for 42 months. It doesn't get much easier.




PHOTO: We bought a Kubota L3400 (35 HP, 4wd) with a front loader. It's a small farm tractor, very popular with orchardists in this area. My brother makes the tractor look even smaller than it is: He's 6'8" tall without his hardhat.

The tractor has enough power for about 90% of our logs, and usually we can buck the big logs that make up the other 10%, or use a block and tackle, to make them skiddable. Its light weight is an issue in the soft dry soils where we're working. The machine routinely loses traction, but in 4wd with the differential lock engaged, it's more likely to stall than to spin out all 4 tires.

We attach 1 to 3 logs to the lift bar using short chains and grab hooks, or sometimes a small grapple. Lifting the bar raises the butts of the logs off the ground, so skidding doesn't disturb the forest floor and tear up roads as much as it otherwise would. (There's still a lot of impact.)

PHOTO: Looking down from the tractor seat while my brother loops a chain around a log. The chain has a slip hook on one end, to connect tightly around the log. The other end goes into a grab hook connected to the tractor's lift bar. We carry two of these setups on the lift bar, plus a little grapple that I can sometimes drop onto a log without dismounting the tractor. The grapple tends to release unexpectedly en route, but at the end of the trip it rarely comes off the log without my help.

Logging becomes a family affair

Do-it-yourself logging is not for the faint of heart. With help from the family, we're starting to make progress. I was glad to already be in decent physical condition!



PHOTO: My brother carrying a choker cable, helping to skid logs out of some challenging locations.

We started several weeks ago, and initially spent much of our time developing the infrastructure necessary to carry out the logging operation. We needed skid roads, landings, deck areas, and a good place to store house logs. Each of these took a long time to build, but then we got down to logging.



Once we got the hang of the process (and got better with a chain saw) it was relatively easy for two of us to spend a morning and fell 10-15 trees, limb them, and skid them out of the woods, and land them on a log deck. That's allowing for the tree that hangs in the crown of another, or whatever.



My brother thought logging sounded like great manly fun, so he flew up from Austin to help for 4 days. He was a tremendous help. If he was dreaming of a new career in logging, he probably has reconsidered!


Together we cut a few trees and mostly pulled logs out of a deep ravine. We used a snatch block and 150' of steel cable to reach the choker and pulled the logs up the steep slope one at a time. Radios were extremely useful, because the tractor operator couldn't see the other person, or the logs, at all.

We took the hot afternoons off from logging to do other chores. We built a spool for the tractor's 3-point connector. It's not a winch -- they're thousands of dollars -- it's just for cable storage. It feeds out and takes up choker line in a very simple, non-powered way, but it does the job to keep long wire ropes from getting tangled. More on that and photos if anyone's interested.

To date we've cut almost 200 of the approximately 1,000 trees we need to harvest.

Oregon Small Woodlands Association

Source of information if you're in Oregon:

 

Oregon Small Woodlands Association

1775 32 Place Suite C

Salem, OR 97303

503 588 1813

http://www.oswa.org

 

Contact:

Mike Gaudern, Director 503 588 1813

 

Counties:

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