What we won't do for Walnut

[John TenEyck]

A guy I milled some black locust for recently asked if I'd be interested in milling some black walnut for him. I said sure. Then he shows me where the tree.



That's about 60 ft down a 3 - 4 ft incline from my car to the tree. So I told him I wanted 1/3 of the wood in exchange for getting the logs out and milling them. I have no Bobcat, etc, nor does he, so I parbuckled the first log up the slope using a winch on the back of my car. I forgot to take a photo during the actually process but if you look up parbuckling you'll see how it works. It's the same process I use to roll logs up onto my mill.

The tree is 32" at the butt. The butt log is to the left of the log you see at the left side of the photo. It tapers to 24" over the first 10 ft and then stays a nearly constant 24" up to the crotch at the right, 36 ft from the butt. The log I rolled up yesterday is 8 ft long so it will have about 200 bf of lumber in it.



The winch is a 5000 lb unit. It fits into the receiver on the back of my car and also onto my trailer for lifting logs onto it. I used to run it off the car battery using cables, but recently bought the jump starter you see in the background and it works just as well and is easier and safer to hook up.

Here's the log after I lifted it onto the trailer and shows a little better the steepest part of the grade we had to come up.



No way I would do this for most anything but walnut. Well, maybe white oak.

John

[Frederick Skelly]

Looks like another great "adventure in sawyering" John!

[John K Jordan]

... I told him I wanted 1/3 of the wood in exchange for getting the logs out and milling them. ...

I've parbuckled many a big log, not yet up a hill but usually up ramps onto a trailer. It's always amazing how much weight can be moved with how little force. I've rolled logs onto a trailer with a 4-wheeler but usually used the truck. I LOVE the winch idea - that eliminates the possible problem of traction on hill - very smart! And the winch receiver on the trailer would be so handy. I've got a spare 8000lb and spare 9000lb winch and see a welding project in my near future. Would be a great way to load a vehicle on a trailer too.

You are more than generous in your "shares" arrangement! My usual offer for milling on shares is 50/50 if they bring the log and they stay to help offload/stack, 60/40 if they don't stay to help, and maybe 100/0 if I have to do it all! But Exceptional wood might make me willing to negotiate.

BTW, the easiest log moving I did was when I had an old flatbed truck. I'd haul my tractor on a trailer and use it to load the logs on the truck! Without the flatbed truck I've hauled the equipment on a trailer, loaded the logs, drove them home and unloaded, then returned for the equipment. What a pain, especially when it was a 20 mile drive!

JKJ

[John TenEyck]

My normal shares arrangement is 50/50, but I'm willing to accept less for walnut or white oak. Walnut is a plentiful as grass where I live but still the most difficult logs but most valuable for me to come by.

I, too, have hauled equipment to move logs. I sometimes have had to use my log dolly and ATV to move logs out of backyards, etc., in order to get them into an open area where I can pick them up with the log arch on my trailer. There was no chance of the ATV being able to pull these logs up that slope w/o spinning, I have been able to pick up the log with the dolly and then pull that up the hill with the winch. Still, parbuckling is likely the safer approach because you can keep a block of wood or two on the downslope side to prevent it from rolling if something were to happen with the winch.

The winch on the back of my car has come in quite handy several times for moving equipment and parbuckling logs. It's bolted to a stock 2 to 1-1/4" receiver transition piece. It slips into the 1-1/4" receiver on my car and trailer mount. Here's how it looks on my trailer.



Most people mount the winch down low on the front of the trailer or on the tongue. I think it's better to have it mounted higher so I welded up the bracket it's mounted to. The bracket is bolted to the trailer so I can remove it for carrying long items.

John

[John K Jordan]

Nice, thanks. My biggest trailers are gooseneck so it would be easy to mount a receiver high.

I have one winch "permanently" mounted on the front of a jeep. I've thought many times about making a receiver carrier so I could use in on the rear of the vehicle instead of the front. I've only pulled the jeep forward once (when stuck in deep sand) but several times I wished I could have used it to back out of some situation I got myself into! A receiver both front and rear would be the best.

I did wonder about powering it in the rear from the vehicle battery. Most winches I've seen mounted to trailers had a dedicated 12v battery.

JKJ

[John TenEyck]

I think once you get into the 12,000 lb winches you are going to need a dedicated battery, or your vehicle will have to be wired to supply the required amps directly from the battery, assuming it can. The jump starter works fine for my 5000 lb winch, and I think it has enough amps to handle one up to 9000 lbs. They make larger capacity jump starters, too.

[Tom Hogard]

Two considerations for your trailer. I have found that a marine deep cycle battery will work better than a regular starting battery for winching. Consider welding a trailer jack on each rear corner of your trailer. Bigger logs can place tremendous strain on the trailer frame, and will use the axle as a fulcrum to lift the rear of your tow vehicle. That trailer is likely rated as a 3500 lb. GVWR and that is for an evenly distributed load. Early in the log loading arch process the weight of the log (and the arch) is focused on a point of the frame behind the axle.

[John TenEyck]

Tom, that photo was taken before I added a jack in the rear corner on both sides, just as you recommended. They actually are visible in the last photo of the first post above, if you look closely. You also are correct that the trailer is rated at 3500 lb GVWR. One log in the 26" diameter range x 8' ft long is all it will carry. I generally stick to no more than 20 miles from home with my log foraging so it hasn't been too much of a burden. My car is only rated to pull 3000 lbs so there's no sense in getting a bigger trailer, because then I'd want a truck, and then I'd want a Bobcat, and, well, you know.

I'm sure you are right about the deep cycle battery, but the jump starter has worked fine so I'll stick with that for now. Thanks.

John