Mechanised delimber

[Big J]

 

 

I definitely need to get one of these. The benefit to young plantations (in terms of improvement of sawlog quality) is enormous and being able to fairly easily do 500 + trees per, it would be very productive.

 

We're working in Larch and Douglas at the moment that would have hugely benefitted from a machine like this 20 years ago. It's a little depressing when you've a long, straight stem, 70ft up to the live branches and there are dead pegs most of the way up.

[Guinness]

Amazing, would it also work removing epicormics on thinned oak?

Looks heavy work

[woody paul]

Well what ever next. 

[Big J]

3 minutes ago, Guinness said:

Amazing, would it also work removing epicormics on thinned oak?

Looks heavy work

Looking at some of the comments and responses from the manufacturer, it seems to cope with branches to 4cm. Should handle oak OK, but the stems would need to be poker straight. I'd be happier using it on conifer personally. 

 

It would be a good service for us to offer with our low impact first and second thinnings. Thin out the stand, and then high prune everything once we're done.

[s o c]

Cool! I don’t know how it works cope with our  Sitka spruce though..

There was a delimbing machine being trialed over here in the 70s called a Tree Monkey , the old forestry guys had loads  of horror stories about it.

 

[Big J]

13 minutes ago, s o c said:

Cool! I don’t know how it works cope with our  Sitka spruce though..

There was a delimbing machine being trialed over here in the 70s called a Tree Monkey , the old forestry guys had loads  of horror stories about it.

 

From reading the comments on the Youtube vid, the manufacturer seems to reckon it likes spruce the best. 

[spuddog0507]

from my understanding of high pruneing its always done leaving a 1-2" clean cut stub on the main trunk as to eliminate rot and decease setting in, that machine is only ripping the branches off, thus allowing pockets of water to settle in the cavaties and allow water in causing rot and then resulting in the timber be of low quality when harvested, we worked on a site with some Douglas several years ago that had been high pruned  all trees had 2" pegs that had been painted on the cut end and all had to be cut off with a saw flush to main trunk, trees all took down with harvester then dragged to landing and sorted by hand then harvester sorted the tops out, but the stems where cut at 30ft and went for telegrath poles, 

[openspaceman]

2 hours ago, s o c said:

There was a delimbing machine being trialed over here in the 70s called a Tree Monkey ,

Was that the dolmar engined one that wound round in a helix with a vertical chainsaw bar and dangled a release string behind? We had one in 1974 at EFG but I never saw it. A similar one came out about 20 years ago that replaced the chainsaw with a router type milling cutter.

 

The problem with them is you need to choose and prune your final crop trees in several lifts so the knotty core is a fairly consistent diameter and clear outside that, you also need to keep 40% in crown (more in larch if there's any left) and no wounds over 25mm.

 

With modern harvester drivers all your pruned trees would come out at the next thinning.

 

I rode past the only remaining B&M poplar plantation that I did the first lift to 8ft on in 1974 last week. All the others were felled many years ago, the stems are clear to 8ft and knotty, useless timber thereafter.

[drinksloe]

Not sure I see the benefit either, looks to work well in the clip but never seen many trees with as little branches on them iñ my area

Liked the ideal trees to demo on as so straight and very light branches.

Also nice flat even dry ground,be a different story handling it on a wet restock on a hill side where ur only ever 1 foot step away from going baw deep into a hidden wet hole.

 

Is it likely to chance of bark damage is SS with the smoother bark or interesting to see how it handles pappy Norway.

 

How heavy is the machine? And how heavy is the power pack ( i only watched a bit of clip and never seen power pack)

The head bit looks heavy enough with the 2 folk lifting it, I wouldnae fancy dragging it throu some forest sites esp any 2nd gen stuff.

By time u add 2 wages plus ur money u need for machine probably not be a cheap operation

 

Think I would be trying to mount power pack on a tracked barrow, iron horse or something, think ud get sick of lugging it around very quick.

[timbernut]

I be watched a few vids of this machine at work and was under the impression it runs off tractor hydraulics or pump on pto. Also they are developing one specifically for Douglas fir