More Machine Problems 
So the delimber broke down again... A hydralic hose that is in the head and goes to the saw in the head was leaking this afternoon. We had to pull that out and call to see if they had a part in. They skidded more trees up while I chipped away at the mud that was thawing on my tracks (another long story). Pat and I left early to make sure the part they had was the right one. It's a good thing we did stop in because they had the wrong size fitting on one side so it woudn't have fit. I'm heading in early with Pat tomorrow to start to get rid of the large pile that is now in front of me.

-Miranda

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Day Off Work 
I got the day off today. Pat went up to the site early (like usual) to load the trucks and he called Nancy to have her call everyone because it was crazy windy up there. It's been really gusty in town too. Up there though, it gets pretty bad and since we've opened up the hillside the remaining trees are more prone to blow down. So, it's a bit dangerous in the woods on a day like today. I get a three day weekend! :)

-Miranda

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End of the Week 
So Trevor (the truck driver) brought the two cables today as well as a heater for the yarder. So not only has my machine been having issues but the yarder's heater went out last week and there was beeping and smoking smell and everything in there. Apparently they blew a fuse and there was something more wrong with it. When Brad was up yesterday helping with my machine he checked out the yarder too, so that will be fixed soon too.
We finished working early today and everyone left but Pat and me. We changed two cables on the machine. The front winch cable (the one I pointed out on the picture) and the rear winch cable. You can kinda see it in the second picture. It's right above the hydralic hose. Those cables are really heavy. It went pretty smoothly though. We got a bit greasy.
Yanking those cables around for an hour after work... I'm gonna be a sore one tomorrow. :)

-Miranda

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Fun Work Week.... 
So a lot of stuff went wrong with the delimber this week. I posted the best pictures of the delmiber I could find in order to give some reference to what I'm saying. On Monday afternoon I had hydralic oil leaking out from the under side of my boom. I quick shut it off so I didn't loose too much oil. Pat found the hose that was leaking (it was attached to the very back of the boom (see picture 2). He said that those hoses (there are two back there) haven't been lasting long... We left an hour late because I had to fill my machine back up with over 12 gallons of hydralic oil.
On Wed., before 10am, my top grab arms stopped working (see picture 1). We got the truck driver to try to call Brad, the repair guy and a friend of Pat's. Until we got a hole of him we started taking all the oil valves in the head out to see if there was anything wrong. We found an o-ring the was in 3 pieces but we couldn't find where it came from. When we eventually got Brad, he said it was the cylinder (it controls the arms). So Pat and I pulled the cylinder out, which was indeed busted in two, and had to wait for Brad to get there with the new one. We got that put back together by quiting time. By this time there was a lot of wood backed up...
So, this morning I went in to work with Pat (5am) to help catch up. The machine tells you what the diameter of the log is that you're working on... After we changed the cylinder, the diameter measurement was completely off. Brad came back today to help fix that. There is also a cable on top of the machine that is attached to a cylinder and the cable was all twisted and not in good shape. Brad checked the pressure of the cylinder and it was 2000lb instead of 900, so it had been pulling the heck out of that cable, stretching it out.

Whew. All we need now is a new cable. Hopefully nothing else breaks....

-Miranda


picture 1. It's an old picture, but I left me in it cause I thought people would appreciate it. :)

picture 2

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Moving Day 
Well, we started moving to a new jobsite today. It's further down the highway, but the gate we drive in through is very close to the highway. So, less driving time on dirt road. :)
We finished up the job we were on within a couple hours this morning and then started to get stuff taken care of to move. Pat and Dennis (he runs the clipper which walks around on the hillside clipping trees) went to the new jobsite where the clipper already was while Jesse, Tom and I started to move the yarder and delimber. Unfortunately, during our walk the yarder lost its track in the middle of the road. It came off the front guide wheel. Fortunately the truck driver was up loading logs so we called him on the radio to tell him to use his phone to try calling Pat. We tried to put the dumb thing back on from at least 2:00 to 6:00. They finally got the yarder off the road in a nearby widespot and are going to work on it tomorrow when there's daylight to help.
During all this, Dennis was at the new jobsite and apparently ended up having a problem with his machine. He was stuck there doing nothing from 2:30 until I picked him up at 5:45ish.
Fun, exciting day.....

-Miranda

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