log forwarder, but hay wagons did-n’t seem strong enough to takesuch a heavy load over varied ter-rain, so we turned our attention tofinding an old forage wagon, whoseheavier construction and largerflotation tires would be ruggedenough to do the job. The nextstop was the local farm equipmentdealers, but we found the pricespretty steep, and there were a lot ofabandoned old wagons sitting onnearby farms. We placed an adver-tisement in the local paper andwere able to find an old GroveEconomy for $500. After a fewhours of Sawzall work, and withassistance from a backhoe, we wereable to remove the forage box, haulthe gear home, and commence con-struction.

The ProcessWe already have a pretty well-equipped repair shop for the busi-ness, and a couple of members ingood standing in the FWRC, alsoknown as the fabricate, wreck, andrepair club, so my son Aubrey Irionand his helper Jesse Horrocks tookover the job of working on the gearand fabricating the uprights. Theydecided to make bunks that wouldshorten the length of the bottomrail, and by angling the corners,keep the bottom row of logsbetween the tires and out of harm’sway. While Jesse was cleaning andpainting the gear, I procured alocust log for the main beams. Ichose locust for its strength and rotresistance, as the forwarder wasprobably going to spend a goodpart of its life outdoors. The nicething about having a sawmill is theability to cut timber the way youwant it, when you want it, so I wascareful to split the log and removethe pith before squaring up thetimbers. Locust is a tough treewhen looking for a straight log inlarger diameters, so I cut the beamsto the size that the log would yield,which was 4 inches+ wide x 8 inch-es tall. I wouldn’t have mindedmore height, but figured that they

would carry the load. We consid-ered bolting steel plate on theinside for more strength, but decid-ed to see how the locust performedon its own.My fabricators selected heavy-

duty 3-inch-square tubing with a1/4-inch wall for the log bunks.Jesse was raised with a welder inhis hand, so he put together thebunks with gussets centered overeach joint to help strengthen them.With the timbers bolted to thenewly painted frame, he locatedthe position for the mountingplates, then predrilled them for themounting bolts and welded theplates to the bunks. He also weld-ed steel gussets on each side con-necting the plates to the uprights,and caps to the top of the uprightsto keep water from entering andrusting the tubing internally. Theplates were fastened to the timberswith four long carriage bolts, twoon either side of the bunk, with thebolt heads on the bottom side ofthe locust beams.I do a lot of my woods work with

4 x 4 tractors in the 70-hp to 90-hprange, with a log winch on the back

and a hydraulic loader with a grap-ple on the front. The idea was tokeep this rig simple and to take aslittle equipment as possible to thewoods. In order to tow the for-warder without dropping thewinch, Jesse also welded a tongueto the back of the winch for theforwarder hookup.

The ResultJudgment day was pretty undra-matic. We hitched up the for-warder, hauled it out to the woods,positioned it where we could loadit, dropped the tongue, and com-menced to set the logs on thebunks. We were careful to make the

uprights at a reasonable height forease in loading, so they were not anissue. I purposely kept the firstload light, but subsequent loadswere piled right to the top of theuprights without any problems. Bythe end of the winter we had prob-ably hauled four or five tri-axleloads of logs to the landing, wherethey were sorted for potential sawand veneer logs, some of which wesold and others we kept for our

TWO “FWRC” PROJECTS by Lou Irion

18 • Sawmill & Woodlot Oct/Nov 2014 • 19

Aubrey and Jesse completing the final assembly of the log forwarder.

The running gear in the rough—note the rugged construction of the frame.

THE FIRST STEP INSOLVING ANY PROB-LEM IS RECOGNIZINGTHAT YOU HAVE ONE.We own a farm in northernPennsylvania that is a mix of fieldsand wooded areas, ranging fromfirst-generation pasture successionto more mature woods that haven’tbeen timbered in 40 to 80 years.For most of the 20 years we haveowned the property, we have pri-marily concerned ourselves withbuilding trails, thinning the hem-lock to use in constructing out-buildings, removing the blightedbeech and cull trees for firewood,and doing some timber standimprovement. Although we have asmall hardwood lumber businessand occasionally use some timber

from the property, our main goalhas been to improve the quality ofour woodlands. This plan, howev-er, never anticipated the arrival ofthe emerald ash borer, and afterholding out as long as we dared,and at the urging of our consultingforester from the PennsylvaniaDepartment of Conservation andNatural Resources (PA DCNR),we reluctantly started cutting ourstands of ash this past winter.

The ProblemThe problem we encountered wasmoving large quantities of logs toan accessible location for sortingand distribution. Parts of our prop-erty are hard to reach due to thetopography, and to easily access ourmost distant woodlands, we have

to cross some hay fields belongingto a neighbor, travel along a town-ship road and then up our drive-way, a distance of over a mile that is not conducive toskidding the logs. Since we wanted to do thework ourselves, we tried to figureout a simple and inexpensive wayto move the logs. We have a fewtrailers we use in the business, butdidn’t want to subject them to theabuse of hauling logs over roughground, and so we briefly consid-ered manufactured log trailersbefore concluding that the bestsolution would be to construct ourown.The SolutionThe obvious choice to us was toconvert an old running gear into a

HOMEMADELOG FORWARDER

Master fabricator Jesse Horrocksfitting the log bunks.

20 • Sawmill & Woodlot Oct/Nov 2014 • 21

own use. What I really appreciated was

the volume of dirt-free logs thatcould be brought in on each load,saving many long trips to thewoodlot. I quickly found otheruses for the forwarder, such asmoving my hemlock logs to ourmill and bringing in some pole-wood without having to drag itthrough the dirt. The big test will come this win-

ter when we have to get to ourtimber in the far corner, but I’mconfident that the forwarder won’tbe the weak link.

The CostsWe did not keep a close account ofour costs. We worked on the for-warder sporadically when we couldfind the time. We had $500 in therunning gear, the time to get theforage box off and bring the gearhome, roughly $350 in the steeland around $800 in labor for theconstruction and repainting therunning gear. So a forwarder can be

constructed for as little as the costof the running gear and the steel ifyou don’t have to pay someone todo the work. Ours came in under

$2,000 and has a greater capacitythan anything else we considered.It has turned out to be a cost-effi-cient way to move our logs. n

GRAPPLE

Maiden voyage with the new forwarder.

FORWARDER

LOGGING WITH A

GRAPPLEFOR THE PAST SIX OR SEVENYEARS I HAVE BEEN doingmost of my woods work with afour-wheel-drive tractor equippedwith a log winch on the rear and ahydraulic loader with a grappleattachment on the front. Prior tothat, my woods rig consisted of pal-let forks attached to the loader, andthey worked well enough, butthere was little margin for error infinding the balance point of a log,and sometimes it took a few frus-trating tries to get it right. Thetask became more difficult whenmore than one log was picked up,and trying to move tops and brushwas an exercise in futility. Nosooner would I lift the load, thanbrush would start to fall off the left

and right sides until everythingended up on the ground again.The forks also projected so far outthat it was easy to hook or barksome very nice trees if I wasn’tpaying close attention. We purchased a brush grapple for

our skid steer, but it didn't take longto see that it belonged on the trac-tor. Skid steers without tracks maywork well on the edge of dry fields,but the bigger ones are quick to digthemselves in when it’s wet, andtheir low ground clearance limitstheir wood use. It took somefinagling to make the grapple workon the tractor—our older tractor hadto be converted to a quick-attachsystem to accept the grapple, andthe hydraulics had to be rigged fromthe rear auxiliary ports, but my sonloves to tinker and he set it up forme in no time. It wasn’t as dramaticas when a shovel man gets his firstbackhoe, but it did not take long tosee that the grapple was a bigimprovement over the forks andcould perform a multitude of tasks.

A Root GrappleWe looked at a number of differentgrapples before settling on a rootgrapple that had vertical tines ofplate steel that were incrediblyrugged, which is a real plus whentrying to clean up a landing or work

area. It is a very effective heavy-brush-clearing tool, as the tines canpenetrate the root systems, and thegrapple and the hydraulic action ofthe loader provide a lot of leverageand pulling power. With the grap-ple and our new log forwarder, Ican skid the logs to the clearing,buck and load the sawlogs, pile thefirewood logs, clear the tops andthe woods roads, and clean up themesses I made. A lot of my work isin tight quarters since we aren’tlogging big areas, especially whenwe are only cutting out the ash, sothe grapple comes in handy whenhaving to reposition logs for skid-ding. I am sometimes able to usethe grapple to direct the felling oftrees in the direction we wantthem to go—against their will.With the grapple fully open, itextends the reach of the loader andtherefore my leverage on the tree.The tines can be set into the treefor more control, and leaners canbe pushed out of harm’s way. With this rig I can get every-

thing I need to the woods in oneshot, without having to walk backfor another machine. I can drop theforwarder and work in the woods,load my logs on the forwarder andbring them in with me at the endof the day, assuming I haven’tblown a tire or a hose in the mean-time. When I get to the landing, Ican unload the logs, drop the for-warder, and head home for supper.I also like the grapple for cuttingfirewood. I can pick up three orfour poles at a grasp, set the loaderat waist height, and saw away. Itsaves on your back and your sawchain, and you can concentrate thefirewood by bringing the logs tothe same spot for cutting. At theend of the day, if the firewood istoo scattered, you can open up thegrapple, set the teeth close to theground and push all the errant fire-wood logs onto the pile.

RecommendationsI don’t know a lot about the differ-ent grapples on the market, but I

can offer some advice on what Iwould look for in a grapple. Numberone is the lower tines—you wantthe strongest possible tines, sincethere are tremendous forcesinvolved when pushing the grapplealong the forest floor with big roots,hidden stumps, rocks, and otherobstacles that can quickly distortyour grapple when attached to thefront of a powerful 4 x 4 machine. Ihave seen grapples with steel rodsfor the bottom tines, and I can guar-antee you that they won’t hold up inthe woods. I would also consider agrapple that has two independenttop jaws—my grapple has a continu-ous top jaw which won’t close anysmaller than the largest-diameterobject in the load, so it doesn’t gripuneven loads very well. Having twojaws that can clamp independentlyand compensate for uneven loadswould be a great improvement. Onthe other hand, I can extend my topjaw, tilt it down, and rake backwardswithout digging in, so there’s anoth-er tradeoff. Other than that, I wouldmake sure the grapple matches upwell with your machine. If yourgrapple is too big, it can end up likethe tail wagging the dog, and if it istoo small or not built ruggedenough, it won’t be long before youwill be looking for a better one.Above all, take time to learn thecapacity and limitations of all ofyour equipment, and then actaccordingly. n

Lou Irion and his family run The IrionLumber Company, a small specialtyhardwood lumber business located in theheart of the timber country of north-cen-tral Pennsylvania. His furniture-makingtalents and lumber examples can be seenat www.irionlumber.com.

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