Forestry Memories

Cable crane training - Isachsen Winch

Cable crane training - Isachsen Winch

Date Added: 23 March 2007 Contributor: Norman Davidson Year of Photo: 1971 Picture No: 124

Training event in Glengarry with Hugh Thom and Alec Sandilands as instructors about 1971. Note the forester's jacket with red collar. The Ferguson 35 tractor is kitted out with a double drum winch developed in Scandanavia (wire double drums out of sight). The tower folds down for travelling down at a point just above the tool box. The drum on the right hand wheel holds about 350m of 19mm wire rope for the skyline. The drum on this side is loaded with about 700m of 6mm polypropelene rope which is manually taken up a new rackway and around the top pulley and back down to the tractor. Tractor is jacked up on one side, drum is locked on axle, forward gear is engaged and the polyprop rope drum hauls out the wire haul back rope to begin set up.

Groups: Forestry in Action, Timber harvesters, processors, forwarders and cable cranes, Tools, equipment and clothing

2 Comments

Worked a winch just like the one in the picture in Glenfinnart forest in the windblow of 1968, as a pre forestry school student. A few of us lived at Drynain at the head of Glenfinnart from all parts of the UK, so called volunteers!!!. My late friend, Ramsey MacDonnell, was dragged down the wood when working as chocker man at Benmore forest with one of these winches but thank goodness came to no real harm. We always said these winches were better than the Igland winch which superseded them. We used to put old sump oil on the break bands, not sure why now. They would sometimes catch fire and smoked a lot when you overloaded the winch. Great fun!! Comment left on 11 November 2011 at 16:50 by Alan Massey
Looks like an interesting set-up with an artificial off-set spar tree. Where there was not enough space on the road for the winch and the timber, you could use a tree across the road instead of the tower to gain height and space. If there were no trees in the right place, you used a log instead and raised it to near vertical using the winch, then held it in place with tie-backs, as in this picture.
The skyline on these winches was 12mm thick maximum. Comment left on 07 January 2013 at 12:32 by Andy MacNicol
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