This month’s focus takes a look at some of the timber trailers and cranes on the market that are ideal for smaller thinnings, forwarding and estate maintenance. All offer excellent handling and are designed to provide maximum accessibility and movement, even on rough terrain.
RIKO UK
WITH a family manufacturing history going back many years, co-founder Anti Puusepp started the company Palmse Mehaanikakoda LLC in 1995 to produce forestry trailers and cranes. Palms is founded on four core values: passion for building the best equipment, innovation to make forestry easier for its customers, uncompromising product quality, and long-lasting customer relationships. Based in Estonia, Palms’ factory is now over 9,000 square metres and its 63 staff generated a 2019 turnover of €28.6 million.
The success of Palms is backed up by its commitment to using European materials, such as Strenx steel from renowned Swedish company SSAB. This steel is specifically manufactured to withstand the stresses and strains exerted on trailers and cranes and is why Palms come with a three-year warranty on the trailer frame and the crane kingpost and booms. A three-stage treatment and painting process ensures the product looks good throughout its whole working life.
The Palms trailer range now covers single-beam, ladder-chassis and forwarder-chassis with a gross capacity from eight to 18 tonnes. Many of the trailers are available with driven wheels with either Black Bruin hydraulic wheel motors, that can provide 2WD or 4WD, or the traditional hydraulic cage-drive 4WD.
Palms is one of the few manufacturers producing 4WD trailers using forwarder-style axles. Here there is a choice of mechanical drive using the tractor’s ground speed PTO drive, or a variable-flow hydraulic motor in the trailer chassis that is powered by the tractor PTO and uses sensors to match the trailer speed to the tractor speed.
Palms cranes come in five categories to suit semi-professional to fully professional customers. Maximum reaches vary from 5.4 to 9.4 metres with a wide range of hydraulic control valves and choices of control levers, pilot-operated mini joysticks and even full radio remote. Valves can be set up for open centre, closed centre or load sensing.
Palms is available in the UK through Riko UK.
email: enquiries@riko-uk.com
Head office tel: 01420 487300
FORS MW
FARMA, one of the leading European brands within forestry equipment, offers a large range of cranes, starting from the compact C 3.8 to the range-leading C 8.5 crane. Add to this an extensive range of trailers, and FARMA is able to offer the customer the perfect combination to suit their needs, right down to the last nut and bolt.
If cranes are your requirement, FARMA produces cranes to fit a wide range of other equipment such as tractors, chippers, firewood machinery, boats and small compact forwarders. In this field the C 4.2 is the market leader with its lifting power of almost 500 kg and its compact nature when folded away. For those in need of a longer reach yet still small scale, FARMA recently introduced the C 5.0 crane to the market.
To complement its list of professional cranes FARMA also offers an extensive range of accessories such as grapples, skidders, tree processors and tree shears.
The producers of FARMA trailers, cranes and accessories are also the name and producers behind the market-leading brand BIGAB hook-lift trailers, available with factory-fitted cranes tailored to suit.
Visit www.forsmw.com, contact UK/International sales rep Tom Belton on 07860 951 485 or email tom.belton@forsmw.com for more information
JAS P WILSON
THE Botex GR-12 DRIVE trailer now offered by Jas P Wilson is proving to be a powerful addition to its already well respected range of UK-manufactured heavy-duty trailer cranes.
The drive trailer was launched in 2018, following frequent requests from its customers wanting the same reliability and performance they’ve come to rely on from their previous Botex trailers, with a powered drive option to provide assistance when they need it most.
The GR-12 DRIVE offers excellent performance on difficult or steep terrain with its hydraulic cage drive. The trailer has two hydraulic motors positioned between the two axles which when activated push the cage drive firmly between the four tyres to deliver added traction, pushing forward to assist the pull from the tractor.
This feature can be engaged and disengaged from the cab, to allow the operator to select it when travelling over difficult terrain, then quickly disengage the motors to allow the trailer to haul wood during transit to the wood yard.
This trailer also benefits from a hydraulically movable headboard, ensuring perfect weight distribution every time. This option was designed for UK/Irish forests, with a size and ability which is suited to our local conditions.
The GR-12 is also available without drive motors to give a standard trailer unit with the added benefits brought by its hydraulic headboard and the latest innovations in Botex trailer design. This model sits alongside some other popular new additions to the range, including two extendable units. The XL-Pro provides a unit capable of extending to hold two bays of 3-metre timber for secondary extraction and road haulage. The second unit in this extending category is the GR-15 Bigfoot, which is also capable of holding the same two bays, with improvements to assist travel over difficult and uneven terrain, with longer bogie travel and larger flotation tyres to help over stumps and logs, or over softer terrain. Both extending units can travel through the forest in a more compact form when the extension is closed in.
As a UK-manufactured machine distributor, the team at Jas P Wilson are more than happy to arrange visits to their factory site. At the site machines can be demonstrated and tested to compare differing models and specification. Guests can also see Jas P Wilson’s substantial parts warehouses and service departments to showcase how they deliver their advanced service commitment to ensure each customer gets the most from the heavy-duty machines they purchase.
For full details please call 01556 612233, or email botex@jaspwilson.co.uk. The range and downloadable product leaflets can be found at www.jaspwilson.co.uk
M LARGE TREE SERVICES
COUNTY Antrim-based forest machinery supplier M Large Tree Services is the sole authorised UK and Ireland distributor for the BMF range of timber trailers and cranes.
BMF began operating in 2001 and from 2006 the Estonian company has specialised in the manufacture of forest trailers and cranes. Estonia is a country where half of the territory is covered with forest, and long-term traditions in local forestry have created a good environment for designing and producing innovative and highly valued forest trailers and cranes.
Loading capacity for the BMF trailers ranges from 6 to 17 tonnes, while crane maximum reach starts at 4.3 m and ends at 9.5 m.
For further information and prices, please contact 028 9034 2838 or visit www.mlarge.com
FUELWOOD
WITH the Avesta Vagnen and the three FTG brands (Mowi, Moheda and Forest) on offer, Fuelwood really has a trailer to suit every requirement.
Synonymous with excellent steel quality and engineering capability, the Swedish pedigree of these brands, and the reputation of both Avesta Vagnen and FTG as being the most suited trailers to the tough Nordic conditions, mean these trailers are serious bits of kit.
The Swedish-made Avesta Vagnen range of trailers is suitable for quad bikes and side-by-side ATVs. With carrying capacities from one to three tonnes, and options including cranes, winches, 4WD, steering drawbars, hydraulic tipping bodies and grapple clamshells, the versatility of these trailers is enormous and they prove invaluable tools used on many jobs as well as just forwarding. All Avesta Vagnen trailers are fitted with wide flotation tyres to eliminate surface damage for a low impact on forest floors and even on ornamental lawns around estates.
Fuelwood also offers the Swedish-made FTG range of trailers as a solution for tractor-powered forwarding.
FTG Forest trailers offer a very affordable solution for forwarding and timber yards in smaller, more confined areas, with either 5- or 6-tonne capacity trailers.
FTG Mowi offer a range of trailers with 7, 9, 10, 12, 14 and 15-tonne driven variants. FTG Mowi cranes have unique patented features not found on any other forest crane, with the parallel-driven crane beam being invented by Mowi’s creator, Wiking Gunnarsson. The Mowi trailer design is strongly influenced by the features of the Mowi crane. With this crane and their well-built forest trailers you have a rig that is versatile and easy to operate, making your work in the forest quick, efficient and fun – for many years to come. The special bogie design with high ground clearance and smooth underside will assist you over logs and stones. The low centre of gravity and the long distance between the axles makes the trailer stable when loading and unloading, even without the support legs down.
The Moheda Company was founded as a blacksmith’s, in 1835, with production of forestry trailers starting in the 1960s. Today the parent company is FTG but the secret of how to build Sweden’s best forestry trailer has not been lost. Industry-leading expertise has been built up over many years on how to build a safe and sustainable quality trailer that is suited to the tough Nordic conditions. Moheda’s powered trailers have the highest reputation in the Scandinavian market and are produced in 10, 12 and 15-tonne variants.
The usual menu of options for timber trailers is available across the three FTG ranges, including FTG cranes of various lengths up to nine metres, 4WD, hydraulic support legs, steering drawbars, extra bolsters and stakes, toolboxes, chainsaw holders, road lights, brakes, and wheel and tyre combinations to suit conditions of use.
Fuelwood is the proud partner of Avesta Vagnen and FTG in the UK.
For full details contact Fuelwood on 01926 484673 or visit www.fuelwood.co.uk
Forestry Journal remains dedicated to bringing you all the latest news and views from across our industry, plus up-to-date information on the impacts of COVID-19.
Please support us by subscribing to our print edition, delivered direct to your door, from as little at £69 for 1 year - or consider a digital subscription from just £1 for 3 months.
To arrange, follow this link: https://www.forestryjournal.co.uk/subscribe/
Thanks – and stay safe.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here