NORTHERN Ireland-based M. Large Tree Services has supplied a brand-new mammoth machine into the market – the first of its kind in the UK.

The Hakki Pilke Pro 55 semi-automatic firewood factory has been designed for effective professional firewood processing in close cooperation with firewood professionals around the world.

Gary Dalzell, sales engineer at M. Large, told Forestry Journal: “It’s a complete factory for producing high-volume firewood.”

Gary explained that a key requirement of the firewood industry was ease of changing blades. Hakki Pilke has addressed with the new HakkiMultiBlade, which allows you to split up to 24 pieces and then easily change to 8 pieces in a matter of seconds.

The automatic hydraulic height adjustment of the splitting blade is said to ensure consistent high-quality firewood, even when the diameter of the logs varies.

The Pro 55 also features a modern data-monitoring system, which collects information from the machine’s productivity and processes, and provides real-time information about processed volumetric measurements, hours of operation, splitting method and safety covers. “This is a new innovation for the firewood industry,” Gary added.

Gary said that when M. Large was assembling and testing the Pro 55, he was overwhelmed by the sheer size of it. “It’s an absolutely massive machine, and very well built. There has been a lot of thought put into it.”

With a weight of 3,240 kg, the Pro 55 has a max log diameter of 550 mm and a max log width of 660 mm, and a highest splitting power of 40 tonnes.

Gary noted that there is a huge demand for firewood recently: “We produce quite an amount of firewood and we ran out of hardwood in November which was unprecedented for us.” This demand has led to customers opting for larger machines like the Pro 55 to meet the volume they need to produce.

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