Which Tree shear for a 3.5 ton excavator

[Stephen Blair]

[AHPP]

Cheers. That is a stack height isn't it. Did the usefulness of dangling over stuff outweigh the obvious problems or the other way round?

[Stephen Blair]

Compared to a fixed shear straight onto the hitch, it outweighed it by far.  Compared to a fixed rotator it was a compromise.  I bought the Nisula as I have a good relationship with AC Price and I wanted 1 the next day, it was well built and faultless, I was the 1 using it not for what it was made for, hanging off a timber crane.  

[monkeybusiness]

TMK300 under a Rototilt if you want to find out how ‘planted’ your digger is….

[doobin]

Not hating on you guys with small shears, but I reckon  I’d have gotten out of the cab, pulled the MS241 from the holster and sned and cut the lot to length before you’d positioned that shear for two cuts! Then bundled all the brash and stacked the timber with the fixed rotator grab. 

 

for hedgerow stuff at height, I can see the benefits to a fixed shear on a small machine. 

[monkeybusiness]

34 minutes ago, doobin said:

Not hating on you guys with small shears, but I reckon  I’d have gotten out of the cab, pulled the MS241 from the holster and sned and cut the lot to length before you’d positioned that shear for two cuts! Then bundled all the brash and stacked the timber with the fixed rotator grab. 

 

for hedgerow stuff at height, I can see the benefits to a fixed shear on a small machine. 

Depends what you are cutting for. If recovering firewood then I’d tend to agree, but if just stacking for skidding and/or chipping then you won’t get near a cut and hold shear for productivity (if it’s the right size for the job in hand). 

We don’t use a shear on the little Bobcat - my pic above was tongue in cheek as that TMK is too big for that digger (though it does actually handle it surprisingly well!). The Bobcat tends to work alongside someone with a chainsaw as it’s not usually sent to ‘volume’ jobs. However, the 6 tonner with that TMK300 clears and stacks a lot of material FAST, it’s a very productive combination. 

[John Shutler]

4 minutes ago, monkeybusiness said:

Depends what you are cutting for. If recovering firewood then I’d tend to agree, but if just stacking for skidding and/or chipping then you won’t get near a cut and hold shear for productivity (if it’s the right size for the job in hand). 

We don’t use a shear on the little Bobcat - my pic above was tongue in cheek as that TMK is too big for that digger (though it does actually handle it surprisingly well!). The Bobcat tends to work alongside someone with a chainsaw as it’s not usually sent to ‘volume’ jobs. However, the 6 tonner with that TMK300 clears and stacks a lot of material FAST, it’s a very productive combination. 

agreed, our little machine just goes to smaller cutting and stacking jobs where a chainsaw operator and digger driver can get through a lot of work. The shear beneath an engcon on our 7.5 tonne machine can get through a huge amount of 4-10 inch material in a day

[Malus]

Lopping the top off a hedge with a tree shear should be a criminal offence. If possible it's far better to lay it, if that's not possible then coppice it to get some decent, healthy regrowth. I've seen some horrendous jobs done over the last few years since tree shears got popular. 

 

I was looking at getting a tree shear for my mini at the start of the summer but decided against it for the time being. Mostly for coppicing hedgerows before tidying up the stumps with a saw.

 

Just a heads up to give Evans and Reid a call, down in Neath. They make a small shear up to 150mm from memory and was quoted a bit over 2k plus vat earlier in the year. Was the cheapest by far out of all the ones I had prices for. Would be interested to know what it's like.

[woody paul]

55 minutes ago, Malus said:

Lopping the top off a hedge with a tree shear should be a criminal offence. If possible it's far better to lay it, if that's not possible then coppice it to get some decent, healthy regrowth. I've seen some horrendous jobs done over the last few years since tree shears got popular. 

 

I was looking at getting a tree shear for my mini at the start of the summer but decided against it for the time being. Mostly for coppicing hedgerows before tidying up the stumps with a saw.

 

Just a heads up to give Evans and Reid a call, down in Neath. They make a small shear up to 150mm from memory and was quoted a bit over 2k plus vat earlier in the year. Was the cheapest by far out of all the ones I had prices for. Would be interested to know what it's like.

100% agree with that, local farmer attack a hedge near me and it got loads of complaints on local facebook page at the time but its come back and looks ok until they have another go at it.

They have their uses like reducing and untangling stuff to then fell with saw. 

[Dan Maynard]

I dream about small shears every time I have anything to do with a blackthorn hedge. Wouldn't care much what it looked like tbh, hands thorn free would be worth it.