Tree shear

[LGP Eddie]

So many options now where do you start?

Quite simply what do you want from a Shear?

Do you want it to cut and 100% Hold for safety, or are you happy to have a small percentage of material get away from you?

What do you intend to cut and where are you mainly cutting?

Sounds daft but if you’re on clearance work you’ll literally want everything off at the bottom end of, for Farm type work a lot is trimming or topping.

 

How much much manipulation do you want? You can have a fixed Shear that will do an awful lot, especially if you’re just hitting everything at the bottom, but there’s a huge choice of ways to give more angle of tilt of even 360 rotation.

 

Collector? Do you do a lot of small material you wish to gather together for easier handling after, and reduce the need to slew, drop and return from every tiny piece.

 

Weight? Load chart legal or simply does it feel ok and crack on, everyone will have an opinion on how different machine/shear combination will feel when operated.

 

Price/parts? At the basic end you literally shouldn’t have to pay a huge amount to get some serious productivity and literally no parts should be required.

Go to the top end, simply eye watering price and if the rotate shits itself, seriously long faces all round!

 

Dealer? You happy enough for it to land on a Pallet, have someone to pipe it and do the essential pressure test to get it dialled in 100% or do you want the full service of a site install.

 

Training/Guarding, only joking what’s that all about, crack on and post your biggest cut up on Instagram, but extra marks for door/front and top window open!?

 

Here’s my own personal list:

 

Cut and Drop only, you’ll never beat the Exac-One cutting unit, it’ll go way over rated capacity with absolute ease, great manipulation and can process stuff brilliantly in the right hands.

 

TMK, I really rate them, so many options including the automatic collector, and you can get rams to properly suit the pressures you have.

Essential these are setup on the machine with a Pressure tester.

 

Hans Habbig, expensive, top quality, average in terms of cut capacity, but fantastic in terms of safe hold.

 

Intermercato, the T-Cut have really moved these on, you can now cut either side of the blade, they give a large grab area and are absolutely bombproof build even if you may need to carry spare blade bolts.

I sell these and guys love them, but I don’t own one as my work is more specific.

 

Westtech, the ‘C’ series Westtech are hugely expensive for a reason, they’re top quality, will cut anything you can get in them, but you’ll pay if you break it!

 

These are ones I’ve used enough to comment or own/sell, there’s so many more but the dark horse is 100% the Terra Tech.

If you want in at the bottom biggest cut for you cash, I don’t think you’ll beat them. I’d say they combine Exac-One type cut where you’ll pinch a bit more than capacity easily and should hold as well as a Westtech.

 

 

So many out there, if it works for you that’s all that matters. 

 

Demo/Hire to buy your shortlist of prospective Shears.

 

Ask lots of questions about Rotators if fitted and Warranty of them.

 

Do yourself a favour, budget for a bit of guarding, ( Yes I 100% agree that most decent Ag/Forestry fabricators can do a better job than factory Excavator items, don’t get hung up on it being tested, at least sit yourself behind something properly constructed than nothing) and keep the door shut, you’ll only bend one once and it’ll cost a lot!

 

Eddie.