When Logging Gets Dangerous! Winching Huge Logs With a Tractor!

[Applause] go hello and welcome to gear rock farms as you've just seen we got the saw ready and on the tractor along with some fuel and oil we got the winch put on the tractor mounted up ready to go today we're going up to get two logs out of the woods so i hope you guys enjoy [Music] [Applause] snow is gonna be wet this is gonna be the nicest day we've had since i suppose before christmas so we made it up to the woods yeah like my father was saying it's a pretty nice day today it's in the mid 40s sun's out and the snow is getting pretty wet and heavy this will be good so the logs will stay a bit cleaner as they get hauled down to the yard but my father he's going to talk a little bit about his winch i know that some of you have commented about it and are interested in it so uh here you go i bought this mention oh seven they came from denmark they claim franz guard and the dealer near us this is what they recommended this thing really stays on the tractor we used to have log chains and strap them to our draw bar here and you would pull them but you don't have nearly the leverage to do that with especially coming up hill like this now this here you can see how it we're just in the snow maybe even into the dirt a little bit but that helps hold our tractor in place it really saves on on wrecking your equipment trying to get logs out yeah the winch has that blade that stabs itself into the ground and almost acts like a bulldozer blade and plants you it plants you yes exactly we got a hundred i believe 180 feet of cable which i think i'm short a little bit because it's like anything we're using the first 20 to 40 feet the most and it ends up getting bad in one spot and breaking but that's over the years i think it's a 5 8 cable they would call this 180 feet initially i probably got 150 left on there yet but these they call choker sliders so you're able to drag out three pieces at once so you got one here here and here these are called the choker chains and i like these i've seen other winches where they're heavier chains i mean like bigger thicker i think this is a really strong chain for its size and you see the hook too we put that in there i mean we used to have trouble with this regular grapple hook they call it a grapple hook but with this notch in there they don't undo themselves you get a way up to the tractor and then it on hooks by itself while these aren't as likely to do that like i was saying they're lighter because they're smaller and you don't you don't want to carry any more down into the woods than you have to the thing you have to keep in mind is like take all three chains down with me and then set set one or two down and then tie on the log and then you can't find it lost it in the leaves or the snow before you start pulling anything you got to make sure you got all three chains accounted for now these are ten foot i think they came in seven or ten foot we just got the 10. on the end of it there used to be this rod about this long and that would help you fish it in underneath your log or whatever branches if it's laying tight to the dirt so they look kind of long but when you put them together i mean the butt end of the tree which is the bottom sometimes barely enough but we got three of those and then we got 105 horse tractor on here so and now there's this device this pulley and you can see here it's got this where you swivel that i haven't had it open in a while but anyway you can do that and you can put your cable in there like that shut it lock it now what it does is it gives you more strength because you're pulling lower now up here if you're not into this pulley you're pulling up higher which you can it's better for the log you're lifting the log more but then it takes a lot bigger tractor because you only need maybe 40 horsepower not even the tractor's just idling and you could literally pull this tractor right into the woods what's going to happen is either the log is coming out or the tractors going in well my dad's getting at it it's all about the weight you know it's gonna if your tractor is lighter than what you're winching out and you're not dug into the ground enough it's going to start to pull you back it can be very dangerous now i've had it so on this side you got this rope and they've got i've never even undone it from when it was new because it's long enough you don't want to be in the path of the cable or the tractor you want to be off to the side in case something would break it usually would spring back or here you got these and we're going to run this and we'll show you but there's these dogs on here and then this is like a stop so when i'm pulling that doesn't allow it to undo itself it only can go up or pull in and that's just a device to lock it and it's like a clutch inside there so all you're doing is tightening up like a clutch pad that turns your drum which reels in your cable so now you're off to the side here you're pulling the rope you're looking at your logs and i've had it where the whole front of the tractor is coming around and it's got it like two feet off the ground already so you could you could give your tractor a somersault so you really have to watch both spots there's a lot of power here so we gotta respect it so we're gonna go down there and see if we can get this in we're gonna get a little wet today but like we're saying it's nice and warm and maybe we only take one chain down being a pretty big log so what we'll do we got two logs we're gonna get them both up to the winch and a lot of times what i'll do is pull them maybe 20 feet and then we'll unlock our lock drive the tractor head up higher up the hill and then lock it in again and then pull it further so you don't have to pull from such a long ways and then get them up on your landing where it's more level and then we can actually lift them off the ground with this plate so you got these notches in this plate and you can see some of them they're they're such a big logs they end up ripping them out which i just need to do some reinforcing here but you always want to hook them closer to the center so my center ones get used all the time but you get the idea so your log once you get your log winched up here you're doing this and then you're lifting it up with the three point getting your butt of the log off the ground so it's not digging in the dirt ruining your your field or whatever you're pulling across we brought the saw up in case they're too big we can make them lighter and then you want to hook it near the end right in there someplace yep right there exactly like that so see and this is kind of what my dad taught me to back in the day um we we didn't have this notch in ours so he never wanted it that way he always wanted it you wanted it like this way so you're pulling like that your hook is back we're going to make this one turn around we hope and we're only going to be able to pull one at a time here since they're so big so the tractor's just idling and all it needs to do so we didn't have the brakes [Applause] so i think what's happening is the log is probably closed down once it breaks loose in the front of the track oh as you cut it or take it home two pieces so that's our option cut it to go down and break it loose with the track and then come back up a lot of these loggers they would just hire somebody younger just to drag that cape ain't too bad but if you gotta do that all day that's a workout [Applause] let's there's a lot of snow up here we're gonna snow in the mud and i would take the sun please once we get up on the road it'll do a lot better so [Applause] do [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you can kind of see how you have to strategically work your way up the hill if you're not able to tug it all the way at one time i remember as a kid when we'd be doing like a large area and a lot of logs within a day you know like one of us kids would be up top by the tractor running the rope and the winch and then like my dad he'd be down in the woods hooking up logs so then you don't have to keep going up and down the hill all the time but that's a bit more dangerous there's a lot of snow here so we should i mean like any time we should have probably bought a shovel with and they'll dig away so how far is that winch you know to make things a little sturdier we could brace it into a stump or something too i've seen guys do stuff like that again you still gotta be careful okay so like the screen all it is in case the cable would break if there's someone riding the tractor or a window to the back of the tractor don't get broke out that's why this screen is in here [Applause] [Music] you think we can pull them both down at the same time take our time once we get going should be like a we're sled feet and we're almost short we should go on this side if we can let's try it there we can always re-hook again we'll take our time we don't end up coming up with some kind of disaster the end of the log would kind of hang on the tractor a little bit to get it off the ground this one's kind of shaped a little different anyway but we can't really do nothing with them now they're so covered with snow we can't really i'm thinking i'm gonna get a saw log or two out of these but i can't really see what's in them but once the snow's gone we can take a better look at it [Applause] [Applause] left on hook too much weight so he's going to go aways with that one get up on top of the hill and then we'll grab this one just so we get out of this packed snow down in here the dogs sure are having fun today i know river's having a blast mariska she went off looking for something i don't know if she uh smelled something off in the distance but she went to go check that out [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] here [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] all right so we got the logs down here and they'll be ready to be sent to the sawmill sometime in the summer yeah we'll have to wait till that snow comes off there's a couple sections i think we can saw some lumber out of the rest will make firewood but they're down here there's a lot of wood there's probably about 80 of the trees just in this part of it then branches don't yield up nearly as much as you could see that taking your time and being safe is a big part of this there's a lot of tension there's a lot of weight between the tractor and the logs so keep that in mind in case you're you know going to do something like this for the first time there's a lot of a lot of weight there and a lot of tension this is considered to be the most dangerous job according to the insurance companies which i could see why it's not just cutting the trees down it's snaking them out and just doing what we were doing too thanks for watching make sure to like and subscribe and if you know anybody that would be interested make sure to share it with them but we'll see you next time [Music] so [Music]

Channel: Gierok Farms

Views: 332,051

Keywords: Logging, Winching logs, Logging with a tractor, winching, Huge timber, huge logs, dangerous logging, Firewood, Hauling Firewood, Hauling wood, Making Firewood, back 40, snow, tractor drive, collecting firewood, Frozen Pipes, Frozen Water Lines, Frozen Water, Frozen Lines, How to fix, Fixing water lines, Plumbing, How fix pipes, Outdoor Wood Boiler, Outdoor Wood Furance, Wood Boiler, Wood Furnace, Wood Heat, Heat your home with wood, Wood Stove, How to heat with wood

Id: wkDbUvhI6x0

Length: 22min 28sec (1348 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 16 2022