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I’ll put up some close up pitures hope it helps. The reason I first started using these sleds was as a kid fence stakes and poles were all my father would let me cut. The vids are all taken on a large wood lot that is level with little or no rocks. However most of NS is a hilly rock pile. Our wood lot growing up was no exception and it was near imposible to yard poles with out them hooking behind the rocks on the flat going. Then trying to get down the hills coker chains were always slipping off. Go devil solved both problems. They will bounce, rattle and skreech through any rock pile a horse or team can crawl over. Later I skidded with a pair and used go devils with a pair quite a bit. For almost a decade,didn’t use the at all. Had log loaders and I sold the sleds to an other horse logger. It’s only been in the last two years that we have gone back to using them to haul to the forwarder again. For two reasons 1) Short wood that is too small to skidd. Go devil is faster.
2) If the haul distance is too long be productive a horse can haul about twice as much on a go devil as aposed to ground skidding.Tim I’v never had a go devil sink into the ground enough to cause rutting but I’m sure it could happen.However the horses will be up to thier pasterns in mud before the sled is a problem. I find the sled tracks behind the horse better than a stone boat on side hills. The Main reason we use these sled over a boat is they a very light. Any one fit enough to work in the woods can pick them up, in the snow a kid can drag it to the pile. This is a large avantage because we use them in pairs. One is with the man cutting, he piles the wood on the sled or fells the largest tree on the sled, wile the horse is hauling the previous load to the landing. If the cutter needs help loading bigger 8 footers on the sled on returing the teamster helps load. Logs the horse loads by pulling them up a skid. Some times we will roll logs on but not very often. The vid was taken after some wood was stump or trail piled at the end of friday after the horses when’t home for the weekend. We try to stay away from piling then repiling on the sleds beacause it just seems to be a extra step which could be advoided with some planning. Hope some of this helps and makes some sense.
Cheers Tristan
Citation: Reprinted with permission from Gregg Caudell’s Horselogger’s Manual, p.47
Gregg got back to me and was more than willing to share. He refers to it as a bob but it looks like a classic go-devil to me. Just a difference in terminology. What it does lack, as compared to Tristan’s, are bunk stakes. Tristan mentioned he used it alot when he was younger for getting poles and fence stakes out in enough volume per turn to keep things efficient & cost effective. Post & poles are the main product I log when I’m going for product, and not service work, because its about the only profitable and marketable material around here currently, given all the bug-kill. Not to mention, harvesting & twitching lodgepole pine for post & pole material, using a single, is by far my most enjoyable & relaxing time in the woods with a horse. Currently, I normally skid 16’s & 24’s (sometimes tree-length) to the main trail/roadside and process them into 8′ & 16′ there. Having the ability to forward directly from the stump, in rough terrain, a greater volume already processed, especially of the smaller diameters, would definitely be a plus.
Gregg’s application is the more traditional (that I’m aware of) use of a go-devil, just getting the butt end of a single large log of the ground. One of the most interesting things about it is how he binds it to the side of the log, cross hitches, and pulls it upright. I saw that maneuver on his video, pretty cool.
I was at the sugar house today, and was staring blankly out the door at my old scrap iron (gold mine) pile, when I remembered this old car frame I secured years ago for the purpose of making a Go-devil…. but never did. After Tristan‘s recent videos I’ve gotten thinking again. I’ll have to weld on a few pieces for bunk and for hitching yoke, but I think it will work as a base to start from.
Carl
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