Anyone here ever operate a skidder?

[bull]

Until you get stuck or wreck, it looks like about the most fun you can have on land... with your pants on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl19UrkqgUE&feature=relmfu

[Cooter]

It is.

[bull]

You've done it?

[Ghoste]

Looks like one of those northwest mountain logger things.  Not likely I'll ever get a chance but it does look fun doesn't it?

[Cooter]

You've done it?

Once upon a time..Gotta lotta loggers up in around these parts.

[Indygenerallee]

It would be fun to just tear up stuff with that big claw on the back!!    "OH SOORRRY, I DID NOT SEE YOUR PRIUS THERE!" 

[bull]

 

[cdr]

isent that what you do in your underwear 

[Dans 68]

I operate them a few times a year (when my crew is too busy on some other task). Came close to rolling one down a big hill (I jumped out in the nick of time). A great time saver.

Dan

Edit - I just took a look at what you were talking about. A skidder to me is the same as a skid-loader. Not that monster.   

[RECHRGD]

That's what put Paul Bunyon out of business.....

[b5blue]

I operated a New Holland with split chassis steering like that!  Plenty of skid steer Bobcats and Lulls with 4 wheel steering also. 

[bull]

I operated a New Holland with split chassis steering like that!  Plenty of skid steer Bobcats and Lulls with 4 wheel steering also. 

I've always known them as "articulated" steering and I operated a front-end loader with that when I worked on a cattle ranch loading silage to take to the feedlot. The cab was on the back half instead of the front half like the skidders. Often you'd be looking out your side window to see what you're doing which took some getting used to for sure.

Speaking of New Holland, another weird thing I drove a lot was a New Holland bale wagon but the cab was on the right and it had a manual transmission that you shifted with your left hand. Of course I still had to drive on the right side of the road and it always fealt like I was going in the ditch. I can drive anything but sometimes it takes some work to figure it out.

[bull]

I operate them a few times a year (when my crew is too busy on some other task). Came close to rolling one down a big hill (I jumped out in the nick of time). A great time saver.

Dan

Edit - I just took a look at what you were talking about. A skidder to me is the same as a skid-loader. Not that monster.   

Oh, nuts! Until I read your edit I was this close to asking you for a job.

[Brock Lee]

Yeah, I went to a high school where logging was one of the vo-tech options. Half of Freshman year we would spend a few weeks in each course to decide what we wanted. Most of the kids that took that course were on their way to being 4th-5th+ generation loggers. Yeah, kids in high school driving skidders, operating chain saws, cutting down trees, swinging axes..not sure if that is still going or not.

[FC7 V code]

My Brother in Law and I used to move heavy equipment around for the local loggers, so I spent quite a bit of time getting skidders and dozers on and off lowboys. We had a spare tractor-trailer sitting free from our normal business and used to do the equipment moves on nights and weekends. It was an adventure in the winter when we would be out in freezing rain trying to get one of those beasts on or off a trailer in one piece. Nothing quite like a slippery deck and I always found the dozers the most challenging. You couldn't really use the brakes at all rolling them off. We finally gave it up as a lost cause as we seemed to spend more time and money on fixing our truck than we ever made. Oddly enough most of the guys we hauled for never seemed to want to move the equipment even a quarter mile closer to a real road to save us time/wear and tear on our truck and them money. Our truck got real good at heading thru every swamp/rat hole in Northern Michigan...It was 15 years ago or more now, it was fun, and we did find that no matter where we ended up stuck with the tractor trailer on those equipment moves a skidder was always available to haul our sorry asses back to terra firma . They literally will wade through almost anything, but tipping over is a constant consideration.

[bull]

It looks like they can go just about anywhere just by the way they are built. It's a good combination of low profile, ground clearance and weight distribution, but that doesn't mean they aren't still frequently stretched beyond their limits.