I'm new to the forum and the reason I stumbled upon it is this: My grandpa worked for International Paper Co. in the 50's/60's and some in the 70's as an engineer and he designed and helped build what they called the Bush Combine. A man named Bush ( first name escapes me) was head of the project. It was a harvester that felled, delimbed, and bunched and I've been told it was the first of its kind. It wasn't used for very long because it harvested shortwood which wasn't in high demand. As far as I know they are extinct. My grandpa died in '89 and we found a manual book on this machine that shows the design of it and how to operate and maintain it. If there's anyone reading this that could give me or point me to any additional information or pictures or whatever on this harvester, it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
Sorry, I misspelled it. It's 'BuschCombine'. Tom Busch was the project manager.
All I was able to find was this... Designed by Tom Busch in 1959, the Busch Combine was a harvester built to work in drier southern pine forests. This machine was built on an articulated, rubber-tired tractor. It drove directly up to tree and cut it with shears before placing the tree in a carriage to be delimbed and bucked. The cut logs descended into a cradle and tied into one-cord bundles that were then ejected from the machine and picked up by a forwarder. He even designed a forwarder called a Busch Loader to complement his harvester. Busch’s machine had many amicable features and qualities. It was affordable to maintain, could travel on public roads, was highly mobile, and cost less to manufacture than tracked machines. It also possessed the most efficient set of shears on the market at that time. The harvester generated a great deal of interest amongst loggers and spurred the development of number of other harvesters.
My brother-in-law used to run one for International Paper out of Georgetown SC. I guess this would have been sometime in the 1960s, though it could have been late '50s or very early '70s. I don't know much about it, though I know they did just drive it on the highway from tract to tract. I would love to know more about it.
I have since found a little more info on it on the web. The manual I have on it tells everything there is to know about it. From every step to harvesting wood to every tool to keep on hand for maintenance to the blueprint for the design. It has so much detail, a man could probably build one just going by the book but I'd still love to know more about it or see it in action. Here's a link with a couple of pics of it working. From the 60's I believe. http://www.forestryimages.org/search/action.cfm?q=Busch
looks like a smaller version of koering's shortwood harvesters... although this one looks a lot easier to maintain.
Found this pic on a facebook page, looks similar to the others. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=617324348283153&set=o.260317914087549&type=1&relevant_count=1&ref=nf