Was looking at highlights from a recent forestry equipment show in Germany and came across a massive tree harvester that I thought was worth showing. Took me a while to find out what it actually is, but wow, it's pretty impressive. I thought it was a log loader at first (first image was an engine shot with the cab facing away / the boom is massive) but then it swung around with a stupidly tall tree and proceeded to process the entire thing. Apparently it's a custom built machine that started out as an excavator and was designed to harvest trees in high-environment-preservation areas, so it's designed around causing the least harm to the area around the tree as possible. General idea is the tree can be harvested, and then moved to / processed within the skidder lane the harvester travels down, or it can do traditional harvesting and drive where ever. The harvester has some cool features like a rising cab that puts the operator about 16ft (5m) into the air for increased visibility, rubber tracks that keep ground pressure extremely low, a boom/ harvest reach of about 50ft, and then the tracks are actually capable of moving in and out of the undercarriage, creating a narrower / wider track width. Machine was rated at 226 horsepower (230 ps), and weighs 60 tons, but leaves less of an impact on the ground then a human foot. Here's a good video of the machine in action: [video=youtube;18RQljGz0c4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18RQljGz0c4[/video] Hope others find it as interesting as I did!
I noticed the tracks are on facing different directions.
Very cool. Thanks for posting. I'm sure it will work perfect in its current environment - with the big wood, lots of space between trees and somewhat flat ground. Never last a day out here with rubber tracks, no grousers and very little ground clearance. But hey, thats why its there and not here
I guess I don't see the advantage of the extra set of clamps on the stick. The shovel front is what is commonly used in a scrap yard. I don't speak the language in the video but I wonder just how big a tree the machine can handle? The processing head looks like a variant of the Koehring Waterhouse 762. That is basically a thinning head used for tree farms. Not sure how long it would last in the big stuff.
cool to see people still trying to innovate and try new new ideas
Yair . . . okay logger folks, some questions. What would be the cost of a rig like that? What would be its availability and hourly running costs. How many men on chainsaws would it replace? Cheers.
John, From the original description the extra clamps strike me as being there so they can accurately control where the tree is going to lay down. It means they can cut the tree then carry it to wherever they want to lay it down and process it.
The machine is capable of lifting a softwood tree up to 4 cubic meter vertically and then process it at the skid trail( thanks to the extra clamp). It uses a Warath H 290 head and has a lifting capacity of 3 tons at full reach (15 meters). Im quite sure the machine was not intended for use on the west coast of Canada and US, way to big wood and tough terrain!
that thing is sweet I play with trees that big all day at work and it moves them very nice