DIY gin pole and Alaskan sawmill from oilfield scrap

[KE5AFU]

Backstory:
I've been working on removing a 100+ year old Oak tree that fell from a friends land about 3 hours from where I live. Access pretty much requires 4WD and good clearance, and you can forget running to the store for anything you might have forgotten. To that end I've been building various tools from scratch to help remove / process the wood. It's been a year, and I finally got it all after multiple truck / trailer loads. Figured I'd share a couple of the things I made along the way.

A couple pics of the tree


Initially I planned on slabbing everything in the field since I couldn't lift the wood onto a trailer or the back of the deuce. So a trip to the scrapyard yielded some tubing and a homemade Alaskan mill was born.

 

[KE5AFU]

After spending nearly all day and only getting a couple slabs cut, the idea of the Alaskan mill went out the window, and we loaded it all up for a local sawmill to finish.



I really wanted the stump, but knew I had zero way to get it pulled onto a trailer due to its enormous weight. So taking a page from some of the other Gin pole builds on here, I grabbed some oilfield scrap and started fabricating something I thought would work. I may have gone a bit overboard as I used 3.5" casing and a 1.25" grade 8 bolt at the apex. The adapters were machined to not allow the poles to fall backwards onto the hood, eliminating the possibility of mishaps in that direction. I reused the 9/16" rope that came off the front winch for the guy lines.


Also yes I know I have the clamps on backwards on the wire at the top, I call brain fart and heat exhaustion.


The entire system worked rather well, and I was able to get everything else loaded into the trailer and used a 18k Warn winch I mounted in the bed to load to last of the Oak into the bed using the tailgate as a ramp.
All in all, it's been a heck of a learning experience, and lots of things I would have done differently in retrospect but I'm rather happy with how it all turned out.

 

[gimpyrobb]

Sweet! I love to see original builds like this that get the job done. Very nice work! Any more pics of the gin pole when set up? I file this stuff away for future capabilities.

 

[KE5AFU]

Thanks! I'll take some more when I go grab a giant Sycamore that's in the river. This was a quick weekend trip with very little help, so wasn't much time for picture taking. I think I do have a few more of the build though.

 

[gimpyrobb]

That would be great, thanks.

 

[SCM35A2]

Not going to lie, that's pretty cool.

 

[Tinwoodsman]

That is a lot of toothpicks!!!

 

[marchplumber]

That is a lot of toothpicks!!!

Not to mention HARDWOOD tooth-picks!

You crack me up! LMBO

 

[clinto]

That is nice, really nice. I love the ... sockets that attach to the truck that the poles then slide over.

 

[Recovry4x4]

I love this. Great job on the ginpole system.

 

[Menaces Nemesis]

Really purdy machine work... gotta project planned for all that oak?

 

[gentrysgarage]

Thanks for posting, going to be building one myself, what thickness and lenght of pipe did you use?

 

[tobyS]

Thanks! I'll take some more when I go grab a giant Sycamore that's in the river. This was a quick weekend trip with very little help, so wasn't much time for picture taking. I think I do have a few more of the build though.

Will look forward to the pictures. Big sycamore in the river is a lot of weight. Do you like sycamore wood? Have you noticed your front springs bottoming out?

Here is my pole attachment point for the rear and I'll be making a front soon.

 

[tobyS]

duplicate ...oops

 

[KE5AFU]

Really purdy machine work... gotta project planned for all that oak?

Thanks! The wood is going to be used for the inside of the RV build I'm doing on the back of the M36. Initially I was going to use a shelter that drops in the bed, but now looking at doing a pivoting sub-frame and custom building the container with expanding sides and roof. Mockups are expanding roof only, still working on placement of the sides.

Thanks for posting, going to be building one myself, what thickness and lenght of pipe did you use?

Initially I was only going to go with 12' long, but wound up going all the way to 18' long pieces. I just used a piece of 3.5" 40' oilfield casing. The walls are about .25" Some rough calculations for the M36 length are below.

Will look forward to the pictures. Big sycamore in the river is a lot of weight. Do you like sycamore wood? Have you noticed your front springs bottoming out?
Here is my pole attachment point for the rear and I'll be making a front soon.

Nice, I've considered making this work for the rear as well. I used 12 ton jacks to support the front bumper / frame if I'm going to be lifting anything super heavy. (In theory anyway, I did compress the springs a time or two with the giant stump, but the other pieces only moved the truck by an inch or so) Yea, the sycamore in the river bed is massive, going to be a few trips to get it all.

 

[Menaces Nemesis]

Thanks! The wood is going to be used for the inside of the RV build I'm doing on the back of the M36. Initially I was going to use a shelter that drops in the bed, but now looking at doing a pivoting sub-frame and custom building the container with expanding sides and roof. Mockups are expanding roof only, still working on placement of the sides.

Hmm... not the phoenelic resin-bonded baltic birch ply for the shelter?

 

[KE5AFU]

Hmm... not the phoenelic resin-bonded baltic birch ply for the shelter?

I looked at plywood or various structurally insulated panels and am leaning away from them due to longevity issues with plywood and cost for the SIP panels. I'm looking at building it all out of aluminum square tube and sheet with a combination of flat and spray insulation and phenolic spacers on each "rib" to eliminate cold soak. Nothing set in stone, but that's the current line of thinking.

After the tree harvesting is complete, next step is a full frame off blast and coat with Chassis Saver and MonstaLiner, then subframe, figure out if I'm putting MRAP axles on it, or just moving the rear one back (395 clearance issues), subframe, and then the actual container build.

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