Any advice on moving a BIG log?

[mikeathens]

A humongoid red oak fell on a county road near where I live, and apparently, it's up for any takers. It's about 3' diameter, 15' long on one section, another section is about 2' diameter and 15' long. Problem is, it's in a shallow drainage ditch and on a curve. It's about 1 mile from my house. My trailer is only rated for 1 ton, and my dodge truck at 3/4 ton. I would have to park on the road with some type of traffic control. Township/county won't help in any way. Is this worth it, or should I just abandon all hopes of a free couple cords of firewood? I don't have a dump truck or front end loader...anyone attempt to try something like this before? How'd it go??

 

[babalu87]

Cut it into pieces you can drag home with your pickup The wood wont harm the road......... much.

I would say cut up what you can handle and call it a day. Maybe a local logger could help out? A few cases of beer goes a long way. They could put it on their truck and drop it at your property since it is so close.

 

[MrGriz]

Cut what you can into rounds on the spot. With a little help, large rounds are not that bad to roll up a ramp into a trailer (the truck might be a little high for that). If the rounds get too big to handle, you can also cut them into halfs or quarters with the chainsaw to make them more manageable.

Just be careful on the side of the road, especially on a curve. I would cut it up and then come back to load it so you're parked on the side of the road for as short a time as possible.

 

[DiscoInferno]

If the grain is fairly straight then even a 3' red oak round can be halved/quartered/eighthed (?) by hand with a maul. Especially if you don't cut the rounds too long.

 

[Scrounger]

I'd load up my saw, plenty of fuel and oil, throw in the sledge hammer and splitting wedges and have the wife drop me off. That way there aren't any vehicles in the way on the curve. Tell her to come back in a few hours with the trailer to pick me up. Load up what you have ready and drop it off at home. Repeat until it's all done. Being a mile from home I'd be all over it.

Last fall there was a red oak about 15 feet long and about 24 inches diamter about 4 miles up the road in the bottom of a 10 foot ditch. Rolled all the rounds up the ditch and onto the trailer. That was a workout! But it was FREE!!

 

[suematteva]

Scrounger's idea is good..I would bring the truck and grab a traffic cone...

 

[titan]

Pick up some road flares to go with the traffic cone;then you can burn and cut simultaneously.Good times!

 

[keyman512us]

Got any pictures????

I'm trying to picture how "tight" the situation is. Any way you look at it...it involves some cutting. Depending on how steep the terrain is, I would try to "rope roll" it up to the road and then roll it onto the trailer. Do you have a friend with another truck that can "help out"???
Here's how I would "tackle it". Cut it into a 4' length. Park one truck at the road edge as an "anchor point". Using two 1/2" ropes, tie the end of each rope to the stationary truck, one with a "plow frame" would be great, (trailer hitch otherwise). Run the ropes down to the log, then under and back over the top of the log. Pass the rope around a "friction free point" (pulleys would be nice) and then tie off to the second truck, then pull that truck forward...should roll right up the hill. Make a ramp onto the trailer ("pike logs"...four inch diameter oak "x" number of feet long work great for a ramp) and lever the log on, use a couple of splits as chocks...and enjoy the workout. That's how I would do it. Just keep in mind, "green-fresh cut" oak, if my memory serves me correctly (at 4:30AM), 36" diameter weighs in at roughly around 500 lbs/ft of log length. Ultimately though, I would lean towards getting a log truck to do the work.

Sounds like a lot of prep work, and the first few times are intimidating, but take it from someone that has moved some good sized logs with minimal "specialized equipment"...lol

 

[keyman512us]

Aggh...In case anyone else is wondering...gotta love the Web!

Here's a good calculator to figure the weight of a log:

http://www.woodweb.com/cgi-bin/calculators/calc.pl?calculator=log_weight

Enjoy....

 

[suematteva]

Pick up some road flares to go with the traffic cone;then you can burn and cut simultaneously.Good times!

Good one Titan!! don't forget to throw in a few road pizzas !