Finally, the harvester video.....

[Kiwilogger]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix7kWFwpLvg

Ok. I'll admit, I am a logger, not a flamin' cameraman! When you see the camera looking at the ground at one stage, thats just me thinking "????e, am I sure I am 2 tree lengths away?" lmao!

I'll get some video of our yarder working one day soon.


The vid is a few minutes long, and may take a bit to load up. If anyone wants a copy, pm me an email address to send it to.

 

[Kiwilogger]

I would embed it here, but am not sure if admin wants bandwidth eaten up by embedded vids!

 

[adamhinkley]

WOW !!!!
Good Vid. !!!! :hmm3grin2orange:

 

[Husky137]

cool vid!

operator is a little slow though.

 

[Oregon Engineer]

Thanks for putting on the video!

The tree was big for the Waratah harvester head and required a double cut to fall it.

The double cutting (cutting from one side of the tree and then switching to the other side) to fall the tree is difficult for most operators and takes some practice. I counted 12 times the saw came out of the saw box to free the tree from the stump. The cuts from the two sides must have missed each other and caused the tree base to split when it finally fell.

I'm always abit amazed watching a harvester take a standing tree and turn it into a pile of brush and logs in 15 to 30 seconds.

 

[Kiwilogger]

The guy in the harvester is a learner. He normally drives the forwarder, but the harvester operator was on holiday. He had only been on it for about 5 days at that stage.

Still, he managed to cut up about 350 tonne per day. Not bad!

 

[BC_Logger]

i would love to have one of those

 

[woodfarmer]

it sure does a quick job at limbing, it must take a lot of practice to be proficient at it

 

[GLM]

Nice vid Kiwi, great shots!

 

[.aspx]

Bad-:censored: f:censored:ing video!

I'm guessing that it takes awhile to learn how to operate one of this things.

 

[shokidq]

Bad-:censored: f:censored:ing video!

I'm guessing that it takes awhile to learn how to operate one of this things.

not really, the problem with them is they keep breaking down or at least the ones from the mid late 90's did when we owned them. went through 4 measuring wheel cables in the head in one day and 2 days for new ones to arrive. we owned a valmet 901 4 wheel which averaged downtime of 4 days out of seven but it still made us a profit although timber was still worth something back then.

 

[Kiwilogger]

The waratah's don't break down. This one is 4 years old, and apart from a new computer (2 days lost), the odd calibration problem (operator error) it has been totally trouble free. The brand new one our boss bought 6 mths ago is pretty awesome. Its on a 30 tonne hitachi with a high and wide kit. Great machine.

If you can operate a knuckle boom loader well, then it really doesn't take much to learn. Processing under a yarder is fairly basic, felling with them requires a little more thought.

Big difference though between someone who can do the job, and a damn good operator.

 

[ericjeeper]

why bucking the firewood?

why did he buck several pieces of firewood? was it to reset the measuring device?

 

[shokidq]

The waratah's don't break down. This one is 4 years old, and apart from a new computer (2 days lost), the odd calibration problem (operator error) it has been totally trouble free. The brand new one our boss bought 6 mths ago is pretty awesome. Its on a 30 tonne hitachi with a high and wide kit. Great machine.

If you can operate a knuckle boom loader well, then it really doesn't take much to learn. Processing under a yarder is fairly basic, felling with them requires a little more thought.

Big difference though between someone who can do the job, and a damn good operator.

2nd that about the operators, we had a 1st thinnings larch/scots pine & sitka 2m & 3m lenghs with an extraction of 100yds and we were cutting more than twice as fast as the forwarder could extract it.

 

[Kiwilogger]

why did he buck several pieces of firewood? was it to reset the measuring device?

Yep. You got it.