The American Dream
A windblown site at the north end of the Isle of Skye, a contractor from Aberdeenshire, timber being shipped to southern Ireland and the harvester hailing from Wisconsin…
Forestry Journal recently caught up with Charlie Essen and his unique TimberPro machine, the only one in the UK, on a difficult windblow clearance harvesting operation at Skaebost near Portree. This contract was being completed for main contractor Bill Munro on behalf of Scottish Woodlands Ltd. The 3000-tonne Forestry Commission sale had largely been blown since the storm of early 2005 and consisted of .25 cubic metre average Sitka spruce, and a percentage of the inevitable coastal variety of Lodgepole pine.

This does not grow any better on Skye than anywhere else in north Scotland! The parcel had been put out as a woodfuel tender because the site was impenetrable due to storm damage and there were difficulties with the assessment of age and quality – the Forestry Commission could not guarantee mensuration data. Deep peat soils and a long extraction distance complete the description of a fairly demanding sale.

Spruce logs down to 15cm top diameter were being recovered in both 4.9 and 3.7 metre lengths. Because a high percentage of the blown crop was ‘root lifted’ as opposed to snapped, the bulk of the timber was found to still be in good condition. The logs were destined for export to sawmillers Glennon Bros in Fermoy, County Cork. These were to be shipped out of the increasingly busy harbour in Kyle of Lochalsh. This is about 35 miles away and can entail working within only a three-day window to move around 1400 tonnes onto the
pier for loading and shipping. This road haul was undertaken by local timber haulier John Mackinnon of Skye Transport using a combination of crane and flat trailers.

The small roundwood being recovered from the operation was destined for both OSB manufacturer Norbord in Inverness and emerging woodfuel markets on the island. As ever, efficient and steady production levels were key to the profitability of the operation for all
parties involved and the TimberPro machine was playing a major role in achieving this. Whilst being a fairly unconventional-looking machine with its naked back end and high level fully rotating and tilting cab, it was affording Charlie Essen a very good vantage point from which to view the harvester driver’s nightmare of blown and tangled stems. The business end of the machine may look familiar to some readers: it is basically a Timbco.

This is a company which has a long history of levelling machine production. Timbco owner Pat Crawford manufactured the major components for the breakthrough ‘2500’ in the early 1980s (a forerunner of the more common 2628 model of climber base) which back in the day were then assembled under licence and marketed by Timberjack. Timbco then went on to pioneer the now popular ‘engine up alongside’ type design of tracked forestry base and at one stage was building over 250 machines a year. When Pat Crawford sold the business to Partek/Valmet in 2000 (Valmet relaunched the base as the EX climber range), he retained the rights to buy back the ‘wheeled division’. He did this successfully in 2002, renamed the company TimberPro and continues to fabricate specialised wheeled bases.

Think of a Timbco style base taken off its tracks and hybridised with a Valmet 890 chassis and you start to get the picture. In the USA these are designed and built in various guises
and are put to use as feller bunchers, feller clambunks, forwarders or even ‘harwarders’.
Charlie Essen came across TimberPro whilst looking to replace his trusted Valmet 921 about 18 months ago. Time-served engineer Charlie was impressed with both the pedigree and build quality of the 830 base and contemplated one as a cut-to-length harvester base. A trip to the USA confirmed his interest and a purchasing decision was made. Once back home in Scotland, Charlie married his TimberPro base to a safe and reliable pair of hands – a latest generation Keto 500 HD head sourced from Wilsons of Dalbeattie.

The 300hp Cummins powered machine hasn’t disappointed. With a large, comfortable and tilting cab, 10.5m reach crane, and the length and stability of the NAF bogie boxes, Charlie can manage a wide range of terrain and crop conditions – recently including some second and third thinning stands! The 830TH was making short work of the blown spruce at Skaebost, and whist American build quality often means overbuilt and therefore overweight, once equipped with bandtracks front and back, the machined seemed extremely stable and its footprint certainly belied its 25 tonnes.

The bandtracks and long reach crane were also helping Charlie lay down a decent brash mat, essential when you combine fragile peat soils and a large forwarder following behind on extraction duties. Charlie was facing the same panindustry problems encountered by most contractors whilst on Skye – with high fuel rates biting hardest, and machine reliability being
an absolute essential. To this end many these days would see it as having been a gamble to purchase a machine with no dealer support network in the UK*, and whilst Charlie’s engineering background certainly is a huge bonus when it comes to servicing and maintenance, it is testament to the TimberPro that there had been no major reliability
problems encountered to date. What with the unusual markets the timber was being cut for, and the dramatically out of the ordinary scenery of Skye, it seemed quite fitting that the rather ‘alternative’ TimberPro was on this site!

* Forest Machine Services have just been appointed as agents for TimberPro. They can be contacted on 01434 230852.