When is it preferable for a large timber company to use loggers to fell trees versus mechanized equipment? It seems there are machines available for practically any application except maybe the big trees on the west coast.
man or machine
- Thread starter rmihalek
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Pacific
ArboristSite Operative
Here on the West Coast we don't have puny trees so a feller buncher can't handle the bigger trees so they have to be hand felled. Fallers are still used quite abit here because the terrian is too steep for a buncher to work on.
A forestry spec'ed excavator with a dangle head processor can do alot of work thinning out the smaller trees. When it comes to the 36" and bigger as the butt and 100' tall a processor can't touch those trees.
When there is residential landclearing done anything from 1/2 acre to 5 acres the trees are hand felled and limbed and a excavator (track hoe) moves them around.
A feller buncher is 200 plus dollars per hour too expensive todo small jobs.
A forestry spec'ed excavator with a dangle head processor can do alot of work thinning out the smaller trees. When it comes to the 36" and bigger as the butt and 100' tall a processor can't touch those trees.
When there is residential landclearing done anything from 1/2 acre to 5 acres the trees are hand felled and limbed and a excavator (track hoe) moves them around.
A feller buncher is 200 plus dollars per hour too expensive todo small jobs.
Timberjackboy
ArboristSite Operative
I would say in very samll blocks of ground,it would be more economical to just put in a cre wiwth a cable skidder, or where the ground is very rough or rocky, where production would be very slow, it would be more economical to put a cable skidder crew in.
I've had to use every inch of 240 feet of mainline more than once!Timberjackboy
ArboristSite Operative
240 feet
240 feet is a lot of main line? What are you runnen for a machine, is it quite big and hard to get into smaller spots?
240 feet is a lot of main line? What are you runnen for a machine, is it quite big and hard to get into smaller spots?
The use of machines here is rampant. Fallers still cut most of the valuable veneer and are needed when ever the ground is steep or the timber big. Even if a feller/buncher can fall a big one someone has to come and limb it out unless one has a huge stroke delimber. Last week I spent a few days cutting behind a F/B limbing the sticks to big for the stroke delimber to pick up.
