Wrong tool for the job!

Mmm..needed proper forestry guards.

Plenty of excavators used for clearing and forestry ops here in Aus nowadays. In fact with recent past massive fires here in Tasmania there were major issues in getting dozers to provide fire breaks. Some machines from the 1960s had to be pressed into service despite not complying with govt standards.

Excavators were also used in the process generally going ahead of the dozers to sweep brush and dead trees out of the way allowing the dozers to better disturb the soil etc and speed up the process.

Those little piss ass guards cannot with stand the weight of a large tree! But if your a "risk taker" then "Shake Hands With Danger", good luck. Besides, why sit there for an hour prying and prying and prying, stressing the boom, straining the hydraulics and end up with a big hole and dirt ball that you cant burn or have to haul away. Yep, some think they can do anything with an excavator.

My dad did clearing with his excavator many times while I was growing up. I have said many times that anyone.can run a machine, but it takes.someone special to operate it and get the maximum work out of the least amount.of fuel and time.

Hi, Folks.
I have used excavators, bulldozers, track and 4wd front end loaders, graders and even a scraper for clearing. Mind you, the scraper was only used for knocking a tree down using the push block so that a wheeled tractor could drag it away with a chain.

Each type of machine has its own particular pluses and minuses for whatever job they are asked to do and some will do a certain job better than others. A GOOD operator can and will work within the capabilities and limitations of whatever machine he has to get the job done SAFELY. When it comes to clearing, excavators are pretty handy for knocking it down but not so handy for stacking the cleared brush and trees.

I am pretty partial to tracked front end loaders for clearing smaller areas, especially if they have a 4-in-1 bucket with teeth and a rear ripper. One VERY handy tool in knowing hands.

That said, I also did a fair bit of clearing of heavy timber with dozers way back when and quite a bit of chaining with 2 dozers and goodly length of ship's anchor chain - up to using 2 X D8Hs and 600 feet of 2 1/4" chain to take down up to 1,200 acres per 13 hour day.

Just my 0.02.

Every job is different. I've cleared and grubbed bridge right of ways too steep for a dozer to have been used without some major shifting of the earth. Each tool has it's place in the operators arsenal if you ask me. It looks pretty flat and like there were only 2 trees there, if you can't stay outta the way of the tree you are knocking over, it really isn't the machines fault either.

I so little experience taking trees out,just say none that matters. But with the trees here you want the root ball removed. Most will keep trying to grow out of the root ball if left. But I understand the work of filling whole and smoothing out. So I see the lots less work if you don't have to.



Just today looking at a north facing slope that I surface cleaned in the mid 80's. In the dry hot summer the north sides grow the most brush and trees.This hill had burned in wildfire the summer before. The owner did not like looking a the burned snags. So he was out breaking them off at the top of the ground with his D6. But being a machinist and self educated engineer after the easy stuff,he was ready to let someone else do the steep stuff. Yes part of it a 9u would not back up on.

But after explaining it would be as before the fire in 10 years if the root balls were not removed. He choose to just take the dead stuff of. Looking today you cannot tell it ever had a tractor over any of it.

Hi deas How are you? By gum you must have had them old hs in no 3 "(if power shift ) or no 6 (if stick shift) i use to driver for a nice old guy round moura called dick fisher (lance will know of or heard of him) he had two old 22a s when i was younger we had 400 foot of chain between them and i dunno if we would have done 120 acres in 12 hours in the briglow blackbutt round moura baralabah blackwater area and drove for a gent with old gs out of taroom named ted abbout use to pull in no 2 could no where get up round your figures. before i was with ted he had 3 hd 21s use to pull with three tractors imagine being on the centre one being jerked about by the other two. old dick use to pull in no 2 on the hs roll the scrub over lovely slow and wide ted was n0 2 on the gs fast and norrow i seen that chain cut 2 foot black buts off at drawbar height did a terriable job (i thought ) grazier had stumps left every where, the only thing that left more stumps was letournos tree pushes that were used on the place down the road from my grand fathers had a fixed tree pusher about 12 to 15 feet in the air (no blade) had plenty of purchase lol

Hi, Keloz.
We were running 600 feet of chain between the 2 8Hs in 2nd slot with powershifts cutting around 400 feet wide on that particular job - 5 adjoining 1,200 acre blocks in 5 days. Occasionally we could get up into 3rd but usually only when the scrub was so light and thin that we could see each other.

It was all light scrub but around 12 - 15 feet tall and a lot of the time we were running on guesswork about where the other tractor was. Even with long sticks tied to the front canopy legs, we still seldom had any sight of each other. Mostly we only got the see each other at the end of each run when we both broke clear. Which ever tractor broke clear first would wait for the other one to break clear before making the turn along the next side. I was running the outside and I don't think I ever had to wait more than about 30 seconds

We really had to watch the 'hang' of the chain behind the tractor and keep it pretty much the same all the time. Too much slack meant we were getting ahead of the other tractor and too little meant we were running behind the other tractor.

Takes teamwork.

Other times, with 2 X high-horse D7Es and 400 feet of chain we were often down to 30 feet apart in heavy timber.

The only way I have ever seen 3 tractors all pulling was with 2 loops of chain with all 3 tractors running pretty abreast of each other. The middle tractor had his own length of chain about 100 - 120 feet long that went back to the center of the main loop.

I have never worked with a chaser dozer to take down any 'biggies' that stop the chain but it never sound like a very appealing job to me - expected be at the 'offending' tree within seconds while bouncing and weaving your way through all the fallen timber behind the chain. I have even seen one photo which I think was taken in the South-west of W.A. with TWO chaser dozers.

Just my 0.02.