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Timber harvesting for wood and land clearing has been going on for a very long time, beginning with the most rudimentary of tools and continuing with the technologically advanced ones that can now be found. Logging can be a profitable industry if it is done efficiently; however, achieving such a goal is often rather difficult in this particular line of work. Current history has shown that there are three main methods used in forestry, each one of them with individual benefits and risks; the best news is that the ongoing improvement and development of specialized equipment has definitely improved the job for loggers all over the world. Non-Mechanical Hand Felling This is the most basic of the logging system types, essentially using nothing more than hand tools or ones that could be operated by two or three workers; this system has been in existence since trees were harvested by early humanity for wood. In today's logging industry, this system is slow and somewhat more dangerous; however, in areas where it is either too difficult to get machines on location or where smaller companies simply do not have the funds for - or need - hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, it is still that basic tried-and-true lumber harvesting operation. Workers, together with mules and horses, some trucks or tractors, log skidders and gas powered tools, find that it is still possible to fell a forest and harvest the wood in this fashion and remain profitable. Those felling smaller trees can cut more in a day, while those felling larger ones are unable to get as many done. In each case, enough lumber is produced to cover a small forestry business low expenses and overhead. Mechanical Logging When requests for lumber began to grow to the point where the hand fellers could not keep up with such increased demand, mechanized equipment was developed to do the jobs faster. The feller-buncher was created, capable of cutting bunches of smaller trees in one cut and grapple trucks were also introduced into the logging equipment picture as well. With grapples, smaller trees that had been cut by the feller-buncher could be picked up in bunches and transported either to trailers or to delimbing machines, then moved to trailers or flatbeds. Grapples also worked well with larger cut trees, even though it was still hand felling. Cut to Length Harvesting Cut-to-length (CTL) harvesting is the most recently developed method of cutting large amounts of bigger trees with the least amount of risk and effort. By combining the general ideas of more than one machine, the development of a crane and grapple system that handles a tree from the first cut all the way to loading onto a trailer has been a revolutionary idea for the logging industry. These machines grasp at the base of a tree, cut it there, and then roll the tree through its claws, delimbing it at the same time. Programmed to cut at certain lengths, it creates the perfect, trailer-length logs that can be immediately loaded, avoiding the extra time that it used to take with mechanical logging done by three or four kinds of equipment. These three logging methods are all very different, especially the first and the last; however, there are still many who believe that harvesting by hand or with regular mechanical equipment is still the best ways to get the job done. While that decision is surely dependent on things like location, type of wood, season of the year, and the availability of available workers and money, the truth is that such methods do still work. It all comes down to a matter of whether larger, older companies are willing to make such a capital investment to replace older machinery with newer, CTL grapple trucks. All that ultimately matters is that companies manage to fell trees, get the cut timber loaded, and then shipped - as efficiently and safely as possible! Christopher M. Hunter is an expert in commercial specialty trucks. To find out more about Used Grapple Trucks For Sale, go to the main website at: http://www.firstfleettrucksales.com/home.
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