What in the world are two Allied W400 skidder winches doing on top of a Caterpillar 315 excavator? Believe it or not, they are pulling logs out of the forest. It's a new twist on an old concept.
Henderson Logging in Lewiston, Idaho needed a better way to do cable yarding. They mounted a lattice boom on the standard excavator boom to create more height. The bucket serves as a footing for the extended boom. The yarder main line feeds from one of the W400 winches over the lattice boom and out to a fixed point. The second W400 winch is used to reel in the yarding device. A choker setter attaches the log at the far end of the yarder main line. After reeling in, the operator releases the log by radio control, and the yarding device returns to the far end by gravity.
The two W400 winches are powered by hydraulic motors. In a pull test, the winch developed enough line pull to break a 3/4-inch steel cable.
Our thanks to Kevin Cothren at Steve Henderson Logging for
sharing this story with us.
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