2 1/2; 5 1/2; 7.0; 10.5 &18 Horsepowers

Woodgas Farming
#121

Now here is a very, very interesting video to me just wanting to move fuel wood section and rounds. He is using the smallest minimum only three track support rollers per side Chinese barrow/dumper. The ones I’ve been skeptical about for rear gearbox clearance. And he is using it on swampy/march ground to remove fuel wood log sections.
Very, very neat fold out log carrier. Along in the video he shows DIY modeling with drop in uprights for narrow between trees working. CC enable and translate. He is smiling entertaining:

Log section hauler use clips throughout.
(11.25 → 12:21 he shows the log section cutting speed of a Stihl 2.7hp MS231 versus a comparable Husqvarna . . . WHY I’ll stick with gasoline saws, thank you. Speed of working.)
Regards
Steve Unruh

6 Likes
#122

my urge to build things is growing. Im seeing a repurposed troy built rototiller, conveyer belt track conversion, tow behind log bunk trailer or front mount single swivel tire dumper bucket…sorry sometimes my mind just blurts out random ideas

9 Likes
#123

:grinning:When it is calm again you will build a real nice piece of equipment.

5 Likes
#124

Do you think the drive axle on the tiller would be strong enough to move that kind of load the clay guy had? I have an old troy bilt, but it’s just the pony model.

2 Likes
#125

Not sure about the pony but I bet the horse would. They made a dozer blade for them to push dirt and it’s all cast iron it’s gotta be pretty tough

3 Likes
#126

Here ya go @SteveUnruh

9 Likes
#127

Errr. Thanks DonM., I think?
You are joking with me, yes?
I’ve tried to link back up to my post #120 showing the Austrian guy Do It Yourself’s fuel wood harvesting in his swampy-muck area. Just like I have down by the year round creek on my bottom one acre.
On his channel he shows he previously tried wood harvesting down on his soft-much areas with his medium sized diesel tractor and his four wheeled, high axles, haul wagon. The weights of those wheeled equipments first sinking and rutting badly. Then both stuck in the always wet, soft ground muck. 4x4 stuck is really, really stuck.
Now skip back up to my post video on #95 and see a fellow with his tracked toter hauling out fuel wood on an uphill slope. Successfully. On just 6.5 hp. All of my mid-ground property is 2X of that slope. Where my trees are. Gets you huffing and puffing trail walking it from my poverties lower edge down at the creek up to the house, yards and shop upper corner.

All of my rider mowers on rough ground have been great for turning themselves into one wheel Not-Drive. In a front to rear uneven ground twist. Then one rear wheel with not enough weight and ground contact then having most all 17.5 to 19 hp being differential diverting to that spinning wheel. Me having to shut it down and get off. Then lifting muscling the front or the rear sideways to get its panties out of their bunching up.

I’m not after a see-what-I-can-make project. I’m after a working tool I can buy and put to working. Modifying only the hauling deck/rack to my specific purposes and needs.

By the way. Contrast these two video systems. The #95 shows that system is a front transmission, front of track driver. The #120 shown his system (like most others) to be a rear transmission, rear driving track system.
Reading comments of users for rough ground heavy loads you really want the rear track pullers types. The ground contact track pulling more directly rearwards is tightened and is much, much less like on soft ground when turning to be thrown off.

A system with capabilities even half like this one that I cannot buy here in the USofA:

Regards
Steve Unruh

10 Likes
#128

I’m glad you recognize a joke whenyou see one! :grinning:

10 Likes
#129

Good morning All.
My new plan to get us finally moved. (My Wife seems to be in slow motion sorting discarding all through all of her 100,000 little things like extra linens, clothing, shoes, walls of shelves of dust-catchers knick-nacs, figurines and glassware!)
So I steal-move her many chests of drawers storage units and tables from her, today, now while she is gone until 8:00 PM:

Photo on 9-14-23 at 12.03 PM
Photo on 9-14-23 at 12.03 PM1440×960 236 KB

Seven pieces loaded. Another seven to load I after I stuff boxes of now scooped and grabbed stuff under the picnic table. Be a job later box -by-box sorting that all winter. no-ha-ha. I am tiring of all of this.

A surprise for me to today too. A loaned out, long-lost book got returned:

Photo on 9-14-23 at 11.44 AM
Photo on 9-14-23 at 11.44 AM1440×960 202 KB

Photo on 9-14-23 at 11.46 AM
Photo on 9-14-23 at 11.46 AM1440×960 123 KB

Yes, really published 1981. Not, doom. Not gloom. But a strong decision back then to use the best of the then current, and previous, to truly get home-energy self-sufficient. An “old” book like this by its table of contents will still show the needs that must be satisfied. And this book if you squint, you will see even did cover then purchasable off the shelves FUEL CELLS and SOLAR CELLS:
Photo on 9-14-23 at 11.51 AM
Photo on 9-14-23 at 11.51 AM1440×960 123 KB

Photo on 9-14-23 at 11.53 AM
Photo on 9-14-23 at 11.53 AM1440×960 121 KB

So yeah. A 42 year old book as proof some have been doing PRACTICAL, REAL, USEABLE WORKS for a long, long time. MY own efforts pre-date this book by 4-5 years.
MENS works were even earlier. Along with Stewart Brands “Whole Earth Catalog”.

Of course some purchable systems have gotten much better. 1/3 the Dino-pump fuels needed now to small IC engines to electrical generate.
Lighting at 1/10 the wattage for more lumens.
PV solar cells array are much, much less expensive. Thier controller-converters much more versatile.
True low energy food refrigerators and freezers now common.

But personal wind generators still get blown down and ice-stormed damaged every 3-5 years.
Personal mini-hydro WILL now here PNW, get Officials found, and forced removed.
And Teledyne is no longer around to sell you their off the shelf hydrogen and oxygen making Fuel Cell.
And the then back then, the very good advice was to a get 20+ year old H.D. 1950’s Dodge, GMC or IHC pickup trucks and keep it fixed up running for another 20 years. Now pickups have “improved”, to too complex, and electronics dependent to keep running after 10-15 years on the average. Seems the 1990’s pickups are the last of the reasonable to keep up repaired, and running, working.

Ha! Ha! At least I did not bore you all with pictures of my still remaining stock of 1980’s brushless, 40,000 hours rated life, 72% conversion efficient iron Electrodyne alternators.
S.U.

8 Likes
#130

And now for The Elephant In The Room . . . The unloading.

Photo on 9-15-23 at 1.10 PM
Photo on 9-15-23 at 1.10 PM1440×960 315 KB

Not so hard . . . it is the decisions on which three-four areas to take each meat-chunk to.

I am in theme of my powers topic.
Way up above I related my experiences with a 25cc Honda brand mini-tiller. Could stand up zip trough in between the garden rows. Until they grew in. Still . . . that engine power and I would OPPSie do damages.
Back around 2006/7 we were gifted a robotic Rumba vacuum. What a slow, small capacity that had. Terrorized one dog and cat pair. Another pair just wanted to attack it.
When you need to whole floor vacuumed; use real power, directed by a real human, and just get the job done. Move onto the next job-needs.
So these; and other experiences proved well to me for jobs-need-done below 2 1/2 horsepower, better to human hands sweat it out.
Better for your physical health. Your mental health. Your overall well-being.
Regards
Steve Unruh

11 Likes
#131

Still watching and thinking about this type of system for my next-years hillside firewood harvesting:

The first two again; an all-hydraulic unit.
The third video a mechanical transmission unit.
Now on the third riding hydrostatic lawnmower used worn-out; getting worn out I am comfortable with hydraulic drive; versus a transaxle gear assembly. All three hydrostatic units still work. Albeit with less power transfer. Mechanical gearboxes wear too, and can internally snap-break. And you can never get the parts for them.

7 Likes
#132

Lots of in the muck traveling in this video.
I like the bed sides and end fold out latches and hinges.
I like the bar-loop pullup and lock power engagement.
At one point he shows that the high range speeds are too fast.
At 9:30 he goes over the caution, and fail points of this particular machine. Huh. An honest review.
S.U.

7 Likes
#133

I enjoyed listening to him talk. Sounded like Yakov Smirnoff.

#134

And here is one moving chain sawn firewood up a slope similar to mine.
A minimalist manual trasmission and bed machine.
Chinese? Italian? Italian design-spec. Made-in-China?
Translates well in CC using the YouTube Gear tool translator.

Ha! No. I do not know why they machined position so far away then manually carrying the cut wood sections. Lift and load directly conserving energy.
I do think he was using a one-handed climber’s chainsaw because that was all he had. Expensive saw. He would have been safer with a less expensive small two handed version like an MS170, 180. Ideal would have been the MS261.
S.U.

5 Likes
#135

I think the yellow machine is a better option as you say with the high sides it makes it a useful tool around the garden and bush area , I would how ever never carry a load as he showed when driving along the river bank at that angle is asking for a tip over straight up and down no problem though .

The Italian video i could not get it to CC in English it must be a me ,anyway i found it too hard to watch as you said why on earth they had to carry the wood all the way to the barrow stupid people making hard work for them self’s ,let the machine do the damn work

3 Likes
#136

And this one just as another proof-of-use, moving fuel wood:

Ha! How I’d fuel wood move over-stacking accross-property with my low bed F150 h.d. pickup truck. Get the weight high forwards to make the front axle work too.
In the case of this toter; moving the weight back, better centered.
Posted video on #120 the fellow moved the weights out to the sides.
Watch. Imagineer. Enjoy the possibilities to keep an 'ol fart out DOing-working with a little help from an IC engine. The whole purpose of this topic. Effective applied small IC engine powers.
No big rubber churning; and engines roaring smoking needed.
Putt-putt gets 'er done out in the real working world.
I really, really miss Jeff Davis. His Ideas. His small engine powered creations.
Steve Unruh

8 Likes
#137

Before jumping in too far, I would look at the price of the replacement rubber tracks. Some of them are really expensive.

2 Likes
#138

You are right.
#1 and #2 are spares/replacements for the steel corded rubber tracks and that unique manual driving transmission. All else is just fabricated steels and such.

Why I am now favoring buying the one that has the widest sales into the U.S.
Not what I know I could force in-country as a one-off privately imported, “perfect” all hydraulic machine. An actual new Honda brand. One of the better purpose Chinese, Korean, or Italian all hydraulic machines.

A Yardman or Extremepower branded; and a few hundred or more will have been sold into the U.S. and be out on the used market. Deaths. Divorces. Down-on-luck circumstances. Parts source machines. How I’ve kept rider lawn mowers and vehicles going for years decades past manufacturers forced, retirements dates.
S.U.

6 Likes
#139

The other option of course is to diy, in which to save money, you will need a source of natural rubber which is made from latex because I looked up the cost for vulcanized rubber and it was expensive plus it hits your SHTF backup solutions, and my understanding is that natural rubber can be remolded.

Latex is produced in special cells that form canals or tubes in various plant organs. Plant families that produce abundant latex include:

Milkweed family
Mulberry family
Euphorb family
Dogbane family
Chicory tribe of the sunflower family
#140

Silicone might be a workable alternative. It’s not SHTF friendly but if the hardware store is open you can source it.

Rubber is only critical if you are driving over pavement you don’t want exposed steel treads marking it up.

1 Like