log arch

[disduster]

greetings axepeople, kinda of a offtopic post here but on topic as well as it is a woods tool. I recently purchased a northern tool log arch and have put it to some use. I figured some of you woodcutters and timbermen would like seeing some pics of it in use. The northern tool log arch is more or less a rip off of the logrite logarch, and it works like any ripoff product poorly and not the way it should. I had to do quite a bit of modding and rebuilding to get it to work right. Drilling, bolting, grinding and forging. Really turned into quite the project(i sure i'm not done yet either) and more than doubled the price of purchase. But wow very cool how i could move a 400LB log done a rocky slope with such little effort. Anyways the story is in the pics. Basicly i felled a 50ft oak cut into sections and moved it a 100 yards downhill on rocky and uneven terrain to my woodlot. enjoy :thumbup:

random tool photo for axe content

 

[Square_peg]

I've wondered about those. Looks like you had to do quite a bit of reinforcing. I'm assuming that anything that isn't blue is stuff you added. How are the axles?

 

[disduster]

yup anything that isn't blue i added, i mainly reinforced the main beam to the arch, most of the work revolved around getting the tongs to hang higher. Remove swivel hook from tongs, replace with rigging ring and d shackeles that shortened the tongs about 5 inches. Then i had to build a area for the ring to sit on the end of the handle correctly. First time i did some weber grill blacksmithing enjoyed that greatly. The axles seem fine solid round stock welded on either side of the square stock, i had read several reports of the welds breaking on various places including the axles, time will tell. I've bounced them over some rocks with logs in tow and haven't had any problems. The tires failed on the first day but i already had flatfrees on order as i was expecting the cheap-o tires to go right away.
Right now i'm almost looking forward to what i will have to fix or modd next. This tool really just kicked it up a notch on the way i cut and gather firewood.