Woodland Kit M


oving logs around a wood is, as everyone knows or can guess, hard work. Extraction with horses


is increasingly popular for clearing felled trees, but is most efficiently done in one go. In the past we've looked at the various designs of logging arch, which are great behind a quad bike or if you have flat land. But they aren't necessarily that easy to manhandle in a tight space, and don't like hills and rough ground. That's where a winch comes in. Visitors to the APF Show in 2012 may


have seen the Portable Winch out on the demo tour. It was being used to move logs around, with a cone over the end of the stems to reduce friction and damage to the soil. It is sold by a few suppliers in the UK, but we were sent a kit by Proclimber for testing, though David Morgan at Orion Heating tells us that his customers have used it for pulling wild poines out of streams in Northern Ireland, extracting shopping trolleys from canals, dragging reeds out of inaccessible wetlands, removing hundreds of trees from sloping woodland near Inverness, recovering trees from a moat in Essex, pulling down hung-up trees and pulling boats up a slipway. Proclimber have been the UK importer


and distributor for 10 years, and have sold winches to the FC, Environment Agency, Fire Service and many others. We used it to move poplar logs around


a small, sloping wood, where previously we'd used a Log Lift N Shift (www.treetricks. co.uk) arch with some success but a lot of hard work. The PCW5000 Portable Winch removes all the hard work, and with a long rope gives you the flexibility to move logs a fair distance. The winch will cope with the size of logs you'd expect to manoeuvre with a man-powered logging arch, but much more quickly, though it will cause more damage to the ground if you aren't using the protective cone, and even with that there is likely to be some rutting. The PCW5000 Portable Winch is refined


for working in woods. A heavy strap is used to anchor it to a tree, or there is a support plate for greater rigidity when you are doing plenty of winching at one point. The kit can be supplied in a sturdy box for transportation, and the 50cc four-stroke Honda engine drives the rope via a capstan, with 1000kg of pulling power using a single line. All you have to do is wind the rope around the drive a few times, start the engine, and pull on the rope. The harder you pull the greater the friction for larger logs. The only time it had any difficulty was pulling a 12ft, 18in diameter log up a gentle


18 Smallwoods New Year 2014


Tools and equipment for woodland owners and managers


Extraction if you don't have horses or a logging arch Testing the Portable Winch


News


Without the skidding cone (which costs £107+VAT) you will damage the ground more than using a logging arch, but the Portable Winch is much faster, less effort and a more realistic option on slopes. You attach the rope to the log with a chain choke (right). The winch is surprisingly quiet, and very easy to work with. The only problem can be if the engine isn't secure and tips, and the oil alert can kick in and stall the engine. This is avoided by making sure the winch is upright and securely anchored


The Portable Winch can be fixed to tree with the swivelling support plate and tree pole mount (top left) for greater rigidity than simply attaching a strap (right). The winch is really easy to use, with the rope simply wound round the capstan three times (top right), and then pulling the rope (above) engages the drive. You can move larger logs with less damage with the skidding cone, as shown at the APF (below)


slope, with the front of the log digging into the soft ground. At the log you use a chain as a choke,


attached to the rope with a hook. It takes seconds to get going, especially if you have a cant hook to roll the log over the chain choke, laid out on the ground. You soon develop a routine, and will be moving logs around with a relish and no sweat.


Details The PCW5000 Portable Winch costs £1260+VAT with 57mm dia. standard capstan. Proclimber recommend a skidding cone (£107), choker chain (£25) and 50m or 100m of rope. Visit www.proclimber.co.uk or www.portablewinch.com for more details.


www.smallwoods.org.uk www.smallwoods.org.uk New Year 2014 Smallwoods 19


There's been lots of news recently from Warwickshire-based Fuelwood, who have launched a log cleaning device, called the Log Cleana (above), which sifts out unwanted debris from firewood production. The new kit works in conjunction with their X-Frame Bagga system for grading logs. The company has also introduced the SAT4-700 drum saw (below) to their range. Produced by AMR the saw has four housings to hold split timber of cross section of just less than 10in (25cm), and a maximum length of 1.2m. The drum rotates continuously and draws the wood into a 700mm diameter saw blade. Log length can be set to 25-50cm (10-20in), set via a notched lever on the machine. It is available on a PTO from a tractor or three-phase electricity. Fuelwood have also recently announced the retirement of their founder, Richard Slatem and the sale of their 100th Kindlet Pro kindling machine. For more details visit their website at www.fuelwood.co.uk.


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