[mitchmaine]

Maybe we could turn the thought around and see what it looked like? What if two men and a horse let themselves out as a service to skidder crews? On long hitches, supply six or eight stems every 30 or forty minutes so the skidder operator never touched his saw. Just turn and went. Then the jobber could worry about the bottom line, and the two horse loggers could work on a piece rate or something. Worth a thought.

Rick, I’m working here at home, so stumpage is part of the pay. even so, I’m trying to fill the sugarhouse with wood for the spring, so I’m cutting good fir, separating the pulp from the tops, and trying to kill two birds. As far as money, I can work on the woodpile, and maybe make $60 a day bustin my hump for the pulp that piles up, while penny, with a hatchet and a packframe, can browse the tops of the same trees for tips, and make two or three hundred dollars in fir tips for the balsam mill (balsam fragrant pillows?). go figure

[mitchmaine]

I am not an engineer of any kind. When I made my first scoot, my girlfriends grandfather helped me out to his junk pile and all his old scoot irons. He was an eighty yearold wornout horselogger with a solid reputation for breaking everyones problem horses and working them in the woods. He advised me more than once to pass the draft through the nosering of the scoot. But the tone of his voice was more warning than not and I took him seriously. His voice was a kinda low growl that came up from who knows where. I asked around and the return was always the same. If bob wescott said so, do it. So I passed my draw chain through the nosering of the scoot and never thought about it again. That was forty years ago and now thanks to this thread, I’m revisiting all the notions I have about scoot building. In good faith, I’m passing along the advice just as I received it without bobs tone of voice. But also with a big thankyou. I’ve given and lent out most of my scoots, and the one I’m using is a hodgepodge of parts thrown together that don’t quite fit each other, and I know better,so over the weekend I ground down the pins to fit the bunks and reset the stake pockets and today I started making two proper 6 ½ inch nose rings complete with 3/8 chain. A new pole and I’m set. If I’m going to dish it out I better eat it. I’ll still pass that draft chain out through the nosering, but re-iterate what carl said. Anything I say on this site is just an observation of how I deal with the issue and in no way directions of any sort. Thanks, mitch

[mitchmaine]

i still must advocate passing the draw chain thru the nose of the scoot. otherwise the job of turning the nose of the scoot loaded down under a ton and a half of wood on nine feet of it twelve foot runners relys only on the pole. ouch.

go pats

[mitchmaine]

ed, i was taught and reminded by lots of old guys to run the chain thru with the pole. the draft should always be at the nose of the scoot cause in a tight turn with a good load and the draft back of the nose, the force goes only to the outside runner and the scoot logs and you could flip. thats how i heard it and i never tested it. sounded like one of those fundamentals to me. the rub is getting it through a five inch ring with a pole in it. a slightly larger ring would work better. i cheat a little by fastening the draw chain to the ring with shackles and letting the ring have the whole pole, don’t know what those oldtimers would think about that, but its the best i could comeup with. i’m thinking of taking 20 inches of 3/4 rod and making a couple 6″ rings.
george, my computer geek neighbor, william, just turned 16 and has discovered girls so i’m on the darkside of the moon when it comes to posting photos. i can download them into our computer but then all goes to a foreign language. i
ll keep trying. mitch

[mitchmaine]

whoops, missed that second post. nice load of logs. wait til it snows and see how much you can lug. i might keep hooking under the pole. it has a tendancy to hold the pole up and might even lift the nose of the scoot a tad and help over all, but try it and see, cause i’ve never tried it. i took my scoot apart yesterday and ground the pins down where they ought to be. thanks for the encouragement. mitch

[mitchmaine]

hey george, nice looking scoot. my apologies for butting in here, but your nose ring is too long. it should be sloppy like carl says but be suspended between the two runners without touching the ground. and your draw chain should be long enough to pass through the nose or pole ring before hooking to your evener. that way the scoot turns quick and follows your horses with or without a pole in it. if you did and i am missing it in the photos sorry about that. mitch

[mitchmaine]

professor plum in the library with the candlestick!

[mitchmaine]

Hey George, I have never built or used a hardwood scoot, and can’t say anything about it. A softwood runner is usually 4 “ thick and the hardwood runners are 3”. The sfj printed a bulletin from the university of maine a few years ago, with measurements and specs and plans for all the hardware. It was pretty accurate as far as the overall shape and design. Three things bothered me about it, one was a clamp thru bolted through the bunk as a hold down. It seemed like it would be a nightmare to take apart after a little use. The second thing, which I tried and was very easy to do, was spiking on the shoes. I counter sunk them two inches and they held well but the shoe was only half gone when the spikes which didn’t wear well drove into the ground and it was like pulling a drag harrow through the woods. I went back to wooden pins and like them better. The third thing which bothered me most was on their plans, they mitered the joint between the shoes. After a little wear on the front shoe which happens fast right at that joint, it would expose a face on the rear shoe and the next root or stump would clean it off slick as a whistle. The proper way is overlapping the front shoe and cutting it flush with the bottom of the rear shoe. It protects the rear shoe for its life. Other than that it’s a good working plan. My pins are showing through the bunks and have to be fixed, but I’m trying to get some wood out and I’m getting lazy, so give me some grief about giving advice and not using it so I’ll get off my bum and have a proper scoot to work with. I have a bank we have to climb with all the wood and sap that’s come out of our woodlot over the years to make the field here by the house. I was resting them for the climb, and noticed this swale that made a sweep out through the woods and into the field and ended up on top of that same bank. Only a couple hundred feet longer and much less steep. I’m going to cut that out and try a run up that ramp and see if it makes a difference. Live and learn. Good luck there, mitch

[mitchmaine]

hey john, sounds like a tough choice given your pride in your beautiful clydes. sorry you have to make it. my grandmother would say all things turn out for the best so good luck there. i have this large full bodied short legged mare that doesn’t match any horse in the state, but she reminds me daily not to underestimate her. best of luck with your little horses. mitch

[mitchmaine]

in this neck of the woods, the generally accepted, tried and true log scoot measures 12 feet runners by four feet bunks, flush to the outside of the runners not counting the stake pockets. the runner has a three foot nose cut out and a seven foot center on the bunks. pretty simple rig. all those numbers can be tweaked to suit the needs of the builder, but that is at least the starting point.
once you build a set of irons, you have them for life. bunks are usually hardwood and four inches thick. and the steel bunk pins flush or just proud of the bunk top. drill a small hole a quarter inch shy of the top of the one inch bunk pin, and counter sink the wood bunk to accept a cotter pin and washer to hold down the bunk. out of the way of your wood.

[mitchmaine]

hey gang, i never had one horse balk for a puddle, so i have zero experience in this thread. but i’ve been listening to all and wonder, puddles are shallow and pretty still. could it be their reflection in the water that startles them? puddles around here are a foot deep, and pretty murky and muddy, and they just blast through them. only thing i could come up with.
still, the problem isn’t always why they do it so much as what you do to get them through. good luck, mitch

[mitchmaine]

hey john, true twitch harness usually has a jack saddle but no back straps, britchin or spider. the horse stays inside the traces easily and its no job to correct. after a steady diet of twitching wood, all that light harness gets stove up no matter what, especially if a lazy strap is to tight. nothing should interfere with the traceline from the load to the hames. letting one side of the singletree go while your driving free of a load is one way of solving the heel striking. carrying it is another but thats a pain. adding heel chain might do it, but i always thought the closer the horse is to the butt of that twitch, the easier it is on the horse to pull. good luck out there, and nice horse.
mitch

[mitchmaine]

carl, i use the same ring (left overs from skidder days) on my single tree. turned inside out, the bell makes a good handle, easy to stuff chain thru, and give it a flip and it grabs the chain and don’t let go.
i also have one hooked to the each front bunk iron on my scoot and they grab the ring chain to the evener. instantly adjustable and fairly indestructable.

mitch

[mitchmaine]

hey there,
we are up the coast a bit, but if you didn’t mind a drive, you could swing by and look at our scoot. i have given most of my scoot irons away, but i still kept one scoot, and i could show you the irons, and you could make a set or we could make up a set for you. scoot irons last forever. when a scoot rots, you can rewood one in a very shorttime. scoots come in all shapes and size and if one doesn’t suit you, you can design another, knowing its only going to last a season or two and you can design another or rebuild the one you like. they were meant to be built in the woodlot from four logs pinned together, but they are a bit better built now thanks to sawmills and better tools. sleds are a different animal and we some of them too and the workshop in athol coming up would be another great chance to see scoots and sleds in action. maybe help you make a choice.

[mitchmaine]

sorry tim, know how you feel. mitch

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