Wallenstein Log Trailer

On another thread we were talking about Compact Tractor and Implements, and I brought up a piece of equipment that I have that I use every day on my farm. The reason for that is, it is so versatile. Because of that I thought I would show some of its many uses, both with the stuff that came with it, and the homemade equipment I have fabricated to make it do even more work around the farm.

The basics first: This as a Timber Talon Wallenstein Log Trailer with the additional add on hydraulic powerpack. This option, allows a 6 HP engine to power a hydraulic pump so the machine is 100% self-contained. Because of this it only attaches via a hitch…truck, SUV, tractor, bulldozer, etc.

It also came with log stakes, which can be taken off and a dump body put in place, but it also comes with a backhoe bucket, and since the grapple can go completely around, the grapple taken off and an auger put on for boring post holes. (I do not have a photo of it engaged in that, though I have drilled many, many holes).

This is the ideal set up for logging, and what it excels at. Here you will see I have my Kubota Tractor, a Fransgard winch on the 3 pt hitch, then with a hitch welded to the winch, the trailer hooked to the winch.

In the woods I will set the trailer off at a slight angle, fell and limb my trees, and then with the 150 feet of cable the winch has, bring my logs beside my log trailer. Using the grapple so I do not dull my saw, nor have to bend over, I buck the trees into lengths (16 the longest, but 12 foot ideal) and load it onto my trailer. With the load on wheels, I can get about 500 bd feet, or ½ a cord of wood on per trip.
What is especially nice is that it keeps my logs from getting muddy, which saves saw blade dulling on my sawmill.

The Wallenstein Log Trailer is expensive, but considering the wood it hauled out, backhoe work, and gravel it hauled; it paid for itself in the first year.

In this photo you can see the Log Trailer, set up for hauling wood, behind my Ford Explorer Sport utility Vehicle. The log trailer can only haul (2) round bales, but because it can easily pick them up, and because the truck is so fast, it is really quick to do. Again, it can do this because the log trailer has its own engine and hydraulics.

I have said the Log Trailer can haul soil or anything really, in the dump box that came with it. To dump, you use the grapple or bucket to lift up the dump box. Sadly it can only hole 1 cubic yard of gravel...but....

The first year we had it, we got a grant from the USDA to put a roadway in. The Grant was $9000, but we needed to haul 350 cubic yards of gravel for suracing material to meet the requirements of the grant. We have a gravel pit, but it was a half mile away. There was no way we could move 350 cubic yards of gravel 1 cubic yard at a time.

Or could we?

We did.

You see, we figured if we hauled 10 loads per day, in 35 days we would have all the gravel we needed. In the end we put the log trailer with the dump body on it behind our SUV which Katie drove, while I used the Kubota down in the gravel pit to load the gravel onto the trailer. It took us a few weeks, but we were able to complete the road and obtain our grant, us doing 100% of the work.

We had been quoted by a earth works contractor of $7000 just to haul in teh gravel from our OWN pit!!

This picture only shows the dump body as I do not have a photo of us just hauling soil with it, but does show how the grapple can be used with the dump box to move debris, brush and yes, even build rock walls.

Now I mention the road that we build, but even after hauling the gravel, and using the tractor to spread the gravel out, it was not ideally smooth. Not for heavy haul trucks!

I did have a 3 point hitch grader blade, but those do not work because when you go into a hole, the grader blade...which is cantilevered out the back...goes even deeper into the hole, and when the tractor comes upwards, the grader blade goes even higher. You can run the lever a lot and semi-flatten out the gravel, but that is not ideal.

The ideal is to make the grader be in the middle of a long span. That way, as the tractor goes up or down, and the trailing wheels of the grader goes up and down, the blade only moves half the distance. But this trailer has a walking beam suspension, just like a real road grader, so I dismantled my 3 point hitch grader, found some I beam and fabricated it into a drop down hitch, and now when I want a grader blade, I bolt my grader between my log trailer and its hitch. This makes my grader 18 feet long, and so as I grade my roads, them come out ultra smooth. In fact only two passes are required. If the blade kicks up a rock, and the wheels roll over it, the blade is unaffected because of the suspension system of the trailer. The blade also pivots from left to right, or right to left, or straight across.

I use this A LOT because it can grade roads, smooth fields, or even plow snow.

I have mentioned several times this machine has a backhoe, and it does. I will be the first to admit that a person will never dig a basement with this machine, and it does not go super deep, nor is it fast. But it is hydraulic and this thing...while slow...can fill its bucket every time. In fact I have dug through frost-laden ground several times with this. It has the power to break right through it.

I can dig about 5 feet down by rocking the trailer with its outriggers, and it is nice to have the dump body on so if you need to cart that dirt off, it can easily be done. Sometimes having a trailer in the way can be a pain, and you have to dig 90 degrees towards you because of the trailer, but it does work.

It really is nice because I hate shoveling. For big excavations what works best is to use the backhoe to loosen the soil, then use the bucket loader of my Kubota to scoop it up. Since the backhoe is powerful, this works really well. This machine can take a 9", 12" or 18" bucket, but because of the time it takes to backhoe a whole load of soil, I am going to fabricate a 2 foot bucket. I currently have a 12 inch bucket, and so a 24 inch bucket would half the time it would take me to fill my dump body with gravel, soil or rock.

This is me digging a waterline to one of my sheep barns. It is one of those jobs where it is too hard to dig by hand, but too small for someone to come in and do on a contractural basis. having this allowed me to do it with about $5 in gas.

That's really nice Travis. A couple friends and I are talking about going in together to get a grapple trailer rig for logs. I however wanted something which had a bucket to do the work I want to do in my Permaculture plan.
I had proposed a mini-excavator...
I'll need to show my buddies this rig as well. I don't see right away where the bucket and dump trailer are. wallensteinequipment.com/us/en/group/trailers---log-loaders/lt-series---trailer
Thanks for posting.
Brian

Now we start getting into the fun stuff, that makes having this machine practical, but almost whimsey. This post is about my upside down woodsplitter.

This is a two step process, as I would use my tractor, winch and log trailer with grapple to get my firewood out. In the yard I would use the grapple to hold the wood while I block it up so that I do not have to bend over with my chainsaw, nor dull my saw by hitting dirt. But after that process I would have rounds lying about that needed to be split. This is where my upside down woodsplitter comes into play.

Mounted on my boom, I simply swing out over the round of firewood, pinch it, but not split it, then bring it over my dump body. When I am at that point, I finish splitting it, which falls into my dump body. After my dump body is full, I simply drive to the wood shed, dump my body full of wood, then push the wood in with my tractor. I am too lazy to stack it.

To do all this I had to build a "carrier" on my three point hitch. This hold a PTO hydraulic pump, a hydraulic tank reservoir, a fully adjustable seat (yes complete with lumbar support), hitch and even cup holder! The PTO pump is so that I can get more hydraulic speed out of the splitter ram. With the splitting lever on my left arm rest, I can run my log levers, even using the grapple rotation to pick up the rounds, then split my firewood with the four-way wood splitter.

Brian Rodgers wrote:That's really nice Travis. A couple friends and I are talking about going in together to get a grapple trailer rig for logs. I however wanted something which had a bucket to do the work I want to do in my Permaculture plan.
I had proposed a mini-excavator...
I'll need to show my buddies this rig as well. I don't see right away where the bucket and dump trailer are. wallensteinequipment.com/us/en/group/trailers---log-loaders/lt-series---trailer
Thanks for posting.
Brian

Try YouTube. The voice is annoying, but you can see some of what this trailer can do.


But I have not got to posting about my Feller-Buncher for it yet!

Well since I did mention my Feller-Buncher for this machine...

As easy as sitting on my katocuss is in splitting wood and drinking coffee all while running levers, I wanted a fully 100% mechanical firewood method; the Holy Grail of Firewood. I have a pot bellied stove, so I can burn firewood chunks. Since I have plenty of saplings I always need to clear, I fabricated a feller-buncher so That I can drive around and grab saplings, cut them down, and then load my trailer.

I have yet to build the second part of it, which is a firewood chunker, but I do plan too. Mounted on my dump trailer from stump to pot bellied stove, my firewood will be 100% mechanical.

This feller-buncher also works well reaching up and limbing trees around the edge of my fields.

When I needed to reseed a field, I used my log trailer with its dump body to help spread seed. In this case I bolted a drill to the dump body with a U-Bolt, then fabricated a 5 gallon bucket lid as a spinner, and used a generator to spin the electric drill. Using this system I was able to spread seed on a 10 acre field for crop-rotation.

My bulldozer actively working with my log trailer to extract saw logs from the woods.

Travis,

When I first saw that log trailer a couple of years ago I drooled.  I wish I could justify one for my own needs and I am certain that it could have helped me tremendously when I was clearing my woods out from storm damage.  I love seeing the pictures of yours.

Eric

Effortlessly using my log trailer to load logs onto my sawmill...

That is about it for pictures showing various aspects of this machine, but I think it really shows this log trailer is a Swiss Army Knife of Homesteading. In fact it is not so much the tractor that pulls it, but what the best machine is for getting the trailer to where it needs to be.

Once I cut down a really nice Spruce Log and had a luthier (guitar maker) buy it. The log went from stump to the log trailer, was hauled out by the tractor. Then I removed my tractor and put it onto my Ford Explorer and hauled it to the mans house, then loaded it onto his sawmill. The log literally never touched the ground from stump to guitar.


But I am not done building. I mentioned the firewood chunker I want to build for this machine, but I have so many more ideas:


Firewood chunker
Boom mower
Crane
Manlift
Fence Builder

If anyone has any questions, I will be glad to answer their questions...