Charly Portoroff's Trolley in Action

[frans]

Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

Here is a picture of Charly's CMI trolley.
The ropes on the far left and right are for moving the trolley back and forth on the 'high lead' which is the orange rope (endura braid 7/16"). The 6" cmi pulley is loaded with a 9/16"double braid. On the load end of the dbl. braid is a swabish (technora) tied to hold the load up. The blue streak rope threaded through the dinky ring was an attempt to 'lift' the swabish up and release the load when we needed.
Well the whole setup worked o.k. I guess but we bailed on the swabish real soon after realizing it was not working too good. The swabish made it real hard to take up on the 9/16" and releasing the load line did'nt really work either. Also sometimes the prussik would'nt lock on so we would have to lower the whole thing and work the knot. We were going to set up another rope to pull down on the prussik but bailed on the whole prussik idea and junked it. We went to no prussik at all and just held the loads up with the GRCS.
I tell you the amount of slack/slop generated by the tops of the trees (used to anchor the Endura
braid) was enormous. We tightened up the Endura braid using a Rope Ratchet. The 9/16 line was attached to the GRCS. The trees really whipped around with 500lb+ shock loads.
All in all Charly's trolley is real slick for creating a floating tie in point or for running along a speed line. I think it is a great tool.
At TCIA in Detroit Denny Morehouse let us use a mechanical 'fiddle block' that could take up and release loads. I think this tool would be better than the cmi pulley and a prussik.
Frans

 

[Mahk_Adams]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

We used a similar setup to move some fallen/damaged trees across a golf course.

If the photos are too big let me know and I will resize them.

--looking down the fairway. Fallen trees on the bank on the right side of the photo had to be moved across the tees in the middle, across the stream on the left and up to the cart path on the far left. We decided to use a controlled speed line so that the material wouldn't touch any part of the turf.

 

[Mahk_Adams]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

--looking across the stream towards the hillside. The oak in the middle of the bank served as the anchor for the speedline. A steel cable was attached to a sling about forty feet high in the oak, suspended across the turf to a tree beyond the truck on the left side...

 

[Mahk_Adams]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

...and then tensioned with a winch that is mounted on the front of the pickup

 

[Mahk_Adams]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

...a closeup of the rigging system used to lift and hold the logs and brush.
This is similar to Frans' system.

 

[Mahk_Adams]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

...closeup of a log hanging on the system at the anchor tree and ready to be moved across the turf and stream toi the cart path.

 

[Mahk_Adams]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

...a log suspended on the speed line over one of the tees.

 

[Mahk_Adams]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

...catching the log with a mini skid steer. After the log had crossed the turf it was 'caught' on the tongs of a small, walk behind Bobcat. The line was then untied, reset and pulled back to the anchor tree. The log was moved to the far side of the cart path and staged for pickup with a small grapple truck.

 

[Mahk_Adams]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

...brush suspended on the speedline. Branches were gathered and moved across to the cart path using the same method.


Mahk

 

[RescueMan]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

[ QUOTE ]
Here is a picture of Charly's CMI trolley. The ropes on the far left and right are for moving the trolley back and forth on the 'high lead' which is the orange rope (endura braid 7/16"). The 6" cmi pulley is loaded with a 9/16"double braid.

[/ QUOTE ]

It seems odd that the smallest rope is used for the "high lead" or trackline, which is the rope that would take the most load, increasing exponentially as the included angle (at the pulley) got larger (closer to straight).

- Robert

 

[Mangoes]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

Let the thread hijacking begin......

Mahk, how do you like that little skid steer?

 

[Mahk_Adams]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

Frans;

Sorry--didn't mean to steer the thread away from Charly's trolley. Charly showed that to me at TCI and I thought it looked like a good piece of gear. It was stout and much better balnced than the rigging plates that are now available.

Mangoes;

The Bobcat works really well. It has just about replaced a ball dolly for moving wood out of restricted areas (unles there are just a very few pieces)and, with some well-placed plywood, has virtually no impact on turf.

Mahk

 

[Mangoes]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

Mahk, at least your question/comment was rigging related, mine on the other hand....

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

If you haven't seen this page, you'll get some ideas for how the big boys do speedlining. They have some ingenious devices:

http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/logging/manual/yarding/cableyardingsystem.html

 

[Colin]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

Balloon logging? WoW!

 

[wct4life]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

Frans/Mahk, I'm truly amazed by the stuff you guys come up with! /forum/images/graemlins/bowdown.gif Keep it comin'.

Mangoes, Our company has one of those Bobcats(MT 52 I believe) It is definately worth it's weight in gold.

Tom, You must have one heck of a folder for links. Seemingly, If it's about rope or rigging you know about.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

Google is such an incredible resource. The problem with having the links is that I can't find things sometimes. I've gotten better about editing the name that the resource is filed under. Lately I've been going through some of the folders and housecleaning. Renaming with more intuitive names. If I remember that a source had value and I find a dead link I still keep it. This paid off because a good sawmilling website was gone for a year but now it's back up.

 

[Burnham_Chamberlain]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

[ QUOTE ]
Balloon logging? WoW!

[/ QUOTE ]

That technology has pretty much gone away...wind, and not all that much of it, was a killer, literally.

 

[TreeJunkie]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Here is a picture of Charly's CMI trolley. The ropes on the far left and right are for moving the trolley back and forth on the 'high lead' which is the orange rope (endura braid 7/16"). The 6" cmi pulley is loaded with a 9/16"double braid.

[/ QUOTE ]

It seems odd that the smallest rope is used for the "high lead" or trackline, which is the rope that would take the most load, increasing exponentially as the included angle (at the pulley) got larger (closer to straight).

- Robert

[/ QUOTE ]

I think snarf may have said it wrong. Charly demo'd the system a couple weeks back, and the high line is actually the endura braid, which is approx 20k lb tensile.. The orange line appears to be safetyblue high[vee. The idea in using the endura braid up top was for it's strength/diameter and also very low stretch.

The system he had set up when i saw it was just slightly different than that pictured above. I personally think the swabish just makes things far too complicated.

The system will def. have it's place, however, when the price tag will be a touch over 300, i'm not sure it will be a hot seller., That price doesn't include the 200-300 feet of endurabraid either, which will also cost you a small fortune.

 

[TreeJunkie]

Re: Charly Portoroff\'s Trolley in Action

\Tom those were some really ingenious diagrams you posted. Thanks!

Mark, Do you know appox weight of the skidder you were using there. I've looked into using the toro dingo version in the past. I'm also wonder how much weight can be lifted by one of these machines.

Thanks guyS!