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| Hopto 300 |
Here with go with the very first VanNatta log loader that was a hydraulic swinger. This was a modified excavator on a truck mount. Historically, Hopto has been well known for their squirt boom Gradalls, but they made excavators as well. The carrier and upper unit were not much different from the more familiar squirt boom Gradalls.
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| Hopto 300 w/heel boom |
The truck was a special crane carrier type unit with a very heavy frame, and the running gear was very light. Power was a modest 6 banger gas engine followed by a 5 speed and a 2 speed transfer case. Low range was the order of the day as it would bearly pull itself around on flat ground in high range. As an excavator it had apparently had only rear stablizers but when the machine was converted to a loader center mount outriggers were added as well so you could level up the machine.
The upper unit turned on hook rolls for stability and a brass thrust washer to support the weight. the upper engine was an Detroit 353. As a loader it was fairly nimble, but it really had to struggle with larger logs, and the Log trailer was about as much as a bargain. When you use loaders that aren't big enough you learn finesse in lifting things and you learned a lot with this machine. The point here is that a heel boom will lift a lot more if you keep the load close to you. With this machine you choked everything as much as you could. We put the trailer lift hook on the back of the heel rack so the trailer could be kept several feet closer to the machine than would be the case if the trailer were lifted with the grapple.
We found this machine down on the Oregon Coast, bought it, used it for a number of years and then someone came by who wanted the old girl worse than we did, and we have never seen her since. The blue and white colors were colors often used by Skagit and so we surmised the machine was built up by the local Skagit dealer in Portland, but we never knew for sure, and have never seen a similarly configured machine before or after.