A swing yarder is a mobile piece of heavy duty

forestry Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests and woodlands for associated resources for human and Natural environment, environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and ...

equipment Equipment most commonly refers to a set of tool A tool is an Physical object, object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many Tool use by ...

used for pulling logs from the woods to a logging road with

cables Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a he ...

. The swing yarder is also known as a grapple yarder. In any

logging Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidder, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or trunk (botany), logs onto logging truck, trucksslewing bearing A slewing bearing, slew ngring, or turntable bearing is a rotational rolling-element bearing that typically supports heavy, slow-turning, or slowly-oscillating loads in combination. Slewing bearings are often used in horizontal platforms, such ...

. This bearing permits the boom and cable system to be 'swung' across a setting without relocating the machine. An experienced operator uses timing and cable tension to swing the grapple to the desired location. In practice, however, the main benefit of a swinging machine is that once the logs are yarded up to the machine, they can be swung to the side and landed. This allows the machine to be positioned in a small area such as on a road, and to land (set down) the logs on the road behind (or in front of) the machine. By contrast a tower has no options on where to set the logs---so the tower has to be positioned back from the break of the hill so as to leave a landing area on the downhill side of the machine, the logs can only be pulled up to near the tower and then lowered to the ground making it necessary for a shovel (log loader) to also be present to remove the logs once landed. Implicitly a swing machine does not need to be as tall as a tower machine particularly in steep ground because the swing machine can be set right up to the 'edge' of the steep ground while the tower must be set back from the 'edge' to allow landing space.

External links

Washington TL-6 Swing yarder
{{Forestry tools Log transport Forestry equipment