Tree Shear

[Louis]

We run 14" timberwolf with accumulator on a bobcat and had good luck!  We are moving to a excavator with processing head, would like to sell the shear we have now.

[semologger]

To heck with the skid steer attachment, look around for a 4 wheel machine. Like a Franklin shear, or an older Hydro-Ax.
It might be more coin, but you'll be ahead of the game.

I agree that if you look around enough you can find a good 3 wheel cutter like mine for the same price. Or even cheaper than some skid steers. The only other draw back is moving big equipment around. Skidsteers are alot easier to move from job to job. I have a guy cutting for me right now that has a grapple bucket on his right now and am looking to buy a shear for his. And i have have a guy with one that his works real good on pine. He would cut all the trees thaen swith over to forks so he could load his trucks. They do have their good points about them.

[treefarmer87]

i agree with twig farmer but i have seen 3 bunchers for sale for under $12,000. there is a franklin 170 in florida for $11,000, one in tennesee for $7,500 and another in N. carolina. the ones in carolina and florida are in good shape. the fella in tennesee wants to trade for a farm tractor.

[SwampDonkey]

I haven't seen them used here for at least 20 years. Mills complained too much of pull out and ruined butt logs. I saw one hardwood sight where the beech was knee high when sheered and those darn things grow stool shoots as you know and what a mess to thin with a brush saw.  >:(

[waggy5]

Hi Folks! It's been awhile since my last post. We ended up purchasing an Fecon single shear for our skid-steer. It appears to be a very well constructed machine, but, we have had a problem which is as follows: We had our operator tell us that the shear un-hooked from the skid-steer when a tree was not quite sheared and the operator tried to back out of a tree to un-stick the machine. The operator stated that he tilted the machine forward and tried to back away when it happened. The shear actually came un-attached from the skidsteer face plate! The skid-steer locking arms were locked in and there was no damage to either machine.? The tree was a hardmaple and was about 10" in diamater and about 30' in height. It appeared to be a fluke at first glance. The operator pulled the machine away from the tree with a chain and then re-attached the machine and went on cutting. It then happened again a few minutes later. This time while the operator tried to cut a "clump" of 4" hardmaples! At this point the machine was brought back to the shop. We looked everything over and the only thing we could come up with is that the face plate of the skid-steer is about 0.4" shorter in height than the opening on the shear? The skid-steer height along the face-plate is about 15.5" and where the skid-steer hooks into the shear this dimension is about 15.9". We have a 78" dozer blade, 73" heavy duty material bucket, 72" heavy duty graple bucket, and a set of 4ft. forks also. We have never had one of these pull out. The dimension on all of these is pretty close to the 15.5" of our skid-steer. Any thoughts? I will be calling Fecon on Monday to see what they say.

[northwoods1]

When your making the cut is your operator putting some up pressure on the head, when the cut is through the tree should pop up off the stump , before , he tries to drive away

Interesting to read this thread, because everyone made such good points I thought. a skidsteer arrangment like what many talked about would not hold up for use in production logging here in the lake states region. A head like that Fecon would fall apart in no time it is very lightly made. There is a huge amount of torque on the head and the arms of a machine when you are cutting large heavy trees and then trying to move them over rough ground, even at the rated cutting capacty of that head , I would stay way under that if I was you just cut small wood. A small clump of maples like you were talking about might be hard to pinch off make sure your operator knows what he is doing. If there is just a tiny bit of holding wood you will not be able to pull the tree from the stump, put up pressure on the cut in other words pick up the back of the skid steer slighlty then make the cut and have tree pop from stump so you know it is free.
Now for cutting cedar like cedarman was talking about, a tracked machine like he has sounds like the perfect setup to me. You could grab the largest cedar tree you could find and there is no weight to that at all, even if it was soaking wet after a rainstorm :D very low ground compaction too. For operators who are not trying to put out load after load day in and day out cutting difficult ground it might work just not production logging. I've got a 16" hydro axe shear head but never use it , up here in the lakes states shear heads are pretty much obsolete.

[SwampDonkey]

Pulpwood it might not matter about that upward pressure. But, if it's small logs and you do this your going to end up with pull out which most saw mills around here will reject.

[Holmes]

Welcome to the Forestrty Forum waggy5.  Sounds like the tilting of the fecon puts up pressure on the fecon and down pressure on the attachment plate, then the plate slips out under the fecons top edges. I think the mounting plate is not fully engaging into the top of the fecon.  It could be pinned in , or maybe Fecon has a solution.  Holmes

[Cedarman]

The Cat skid steers we used in Ok never came unhooked except for one time.  It was a monster tree and the shear was stuck and I was doing all I could to get it free.  That was when we first started.  Since then and many many thousands of trees, some so big that when they were cut they could not be picked up, just let fall over.

But we took the shear to Indiana to run on an older 277 Cat and the shear came unhooked regularly.  Could not figure the difference.  Had to be in the Cat part of the hook up.

Something is definitely not right if your shear comes unhooked.
Our shear is a 20" Tree Terminator with tree holding clamp.  The biggest we could find anywhere.
The cedars at ground level in Ok are getting bigger and bigger.  Growth is up to 1" per year on some of the larger trees.  Getting beyond the capacity of the 20" shear. 
We are looking at a new way of cutting these trees at ground level.

Anyone with ideas?

[waggy5]

Checked the measurements again on the face plate of the skid-steer and the opening height on the shear. It shows about 15.5" height on the face plate and 15.9" to 16" opening on the shear. If a 3/8" thick plate was welded onto the base of the shear it would probably fix the problem. The skid-steer is pinned in and protruding from the shear. The shear weighs 1700 lbs. and is very well made. I feel that the machine would last a lifetime of work. I have no complaints about that. I just don't want anybody getting hurt trying to un-stick the machine. This website is great and the amount of knowledge within is amazing! Thanks to all!

[northwoods1]

Pulpwood it might not matter about that upward pressure. But, if it's small logs and you do this your going to end up with pull out which most saw mills around here will reject.

Swamp donkey , you have to realize that I definitely know what I am talking about when it comes to this, that is because I have cut over 1,000,000 trees with mechanized cutters. Big ones, small ones, short ones, tall ones, flat ground, hilly ground you name it I have cut it.
When you cut the tree off you want to put some upward pressure on the cut so the tree will come up off the stump when the cut is through. This is so that you know the tree is free and so you are not trying to yank the tree free from the stump. You don't put upward pressure on it to break the tree free. The problem waggy was having is a result of the operator trying to drive away when the tree was not fully cut off, a small hard wood like that can be real tough, harder than a large tree to cut off. Even it the head did not come off the quiktach or mounting plate , trying to move the machine when tree is not cut off is bad practice. With any type of sawhead you have to be real careful because it can cost you money if you try to move and tree is not cut off fully.
Waggy, when I say the Fecon head is lightly built I am comparing it to shearheads like the hydro axe and similar ones. The square tubing construction and those bunching arms would not take the kind of abuse for most types of logging, particularly if it was mounted on a larger carrier than a skidsteer. I am sure that you know what you are doing with the skidsteer and shearhead selection you know better than anyone what type of equipment you need to suit your purposes.

[Cedarman]

What is the biggest tree shear made for any machine?  We have a Tree Terminator for skid steers that will cut 20", more if you know what you are doing.  But we could use one even bigger. I could not find any when I searched the internet.

[northwoods1]

What is the biggest tree shear made for any machine?  We have a Tree Terminator for skid steers that will cut 20", more if you know what you are doing.  But we could use one even bigger. I could not find any when I searched the internet.

Cedarman, have you ever thought about a sawhead? I know you probably like what you can do with your shearhead, but there are advantages to a saw, and I bet you might be surprised at how fast they are. I am going to be cutting some cedar very soon and will have my hydro axe buncher w/timbco sawhead out there, I wish I could take a video or know how to take one and post it, but I will for sure take pics so you can see how well that works. I can cut very large trees with that saw, up to 28" or so if you cut from both sides.

[sandhills]

Cedarman, a good freind of mine works for Caterpillar and has a Marshall tree saw he rents out.  I'm going to be getting next week to start clearing pastures I'll let you no how it works.  I beleive he's got the smaller model, not sure.

[Gary_C]

What is the biggest tree shear made for any machine?  We have a Tree Terminator for skid steers that will cut 20", more if you know what you are doing.  But we could use one even bigger. I could not find any when I searched the internet.

Here is just what you need. Comes with both a shear head and a saw head. I have cut 24 inch diameter red oak trees with the saw head and it would just play with cedar trees.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,41026.0.html

[SwampDonkey]

I guess my point was, we've not used them here on heads for some time for the reason I mentioned (pull out). Most loggers on crown lands here have gone to more productive saw heads. If you are traveling crown lands you can here the saw of a processor cutting wood miles away.

[barbender]

That Gary C is a persistent salesman if that link is what I think it is ;D Seriously, a hot saw is very quick from what I have observed, I've only watched rubber tired  bunchers work but the tree is off of the stump in a split second, the machine just drives through and whump! and the tree is cut. Looks like the cut speed is more limited by how fast you can drive through it. I don't think a shear could even compare in speed.

[logloper]

From the cedar cutting experiences i have had, I wouldnt want a saw head. Way to dirty of wood, and usually really rocky ground.  I have a Dymax shear and have cut lots of trees, thousands and more. It is on a Cat skidsteer, and has never popped off. I have a friend running a Fecon shear on a Fecon carrier, and it does pop off. He has learned to cut the tree, tilt back, then pull away from the tree. If you watch the top of the kwik-atatch plate you can see any movement. On a grapple atatchment we had to weld longer tabs on the top plate wher the kwik-atatch plate goes in. This has fixed the problem for the last 4 years.

[SwampDonkey]

You ain't seen wood cut in rocky ground until you've been in Deersdale and Napadogan. Rocks  : , more like parked cars in the woods in some places. :D Lots of wheel barrel and kitchen table sized ones laying about to. Hard granite from them darn glaciers. And they are using saw heads to cut it.

[Cedarman]

We use a tree saw on trees up to about 10".  It is fast, fast , fast.  It is the trees bigger than about 10" that we use the shear on.
A lot of the big trees have limbs stickout 10' in all direstions from ground level .  I would love to see how the hydroax performs on these cedars.  Might be the thing.
Sandhills, Marshall saws will do the job, but are slow.  I don't think they make them anymore.  but they effective and you can move the trees with them.

[barbender]

To clarify, the hot saw I was talking about are the large disc saws that run continually, I don't know how big they make them but I'd say at least 20" capacity for a single pass cut. Others would know better than me. I just wanted to differentiate what I was talking about from a bar saw type felling head.

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah, I don't think many are using bar saw heads much here neither.

Just run a higher end brush saw and see how quick it goes through 4 inch hardwood compared to a chainsaw. Less than a full second if you approach from the right hand side of the blade. It will draw itself into the wood.

[Gary_C]

Yeah, I don't think many are using bar saw heads much here neither.

Actually most all processors or harvesters use a bar saw head so you can't say not many are using them anymore. There are bar saw heads on fixed heads like a Hydroaxe and bar saw heads on a boom mounted head and bar saw heads on a dangle head like a processor. I would say the bar saw is the most popular cutting method on all heads today. Hot saws are good for smaller stuff and when you are mowing down trees in rows but most of them are good for only 16-18 inches and even that takes a four foot spinning disc. Shear heads are mostly boat anchors now but could be used in the future for biomass cutting brush especially when they have accumulators.

[SwampDonkey]

Don't see them here, which is NB. I didn't say in general. You see processors and slashers all with circular saw. I have seen bar saws in feller bunchers, but mostly I see processors with circular. I've mark trails for a few fella's and that's what I see. What we call a hydroaxe here is a head on a track hoe used on power lines and ditches to whack down brush. The stems are not pinched off. There may be bar saws used in thinnings with bunchers in small wood.

[Gary_C]

I don't think we are talking about the same thing. I've not seen a circular saw on any mobile head machine wether it's a feller buncher or a processor. Circular saws are relatively thin discs with teeth and would not standup to cutting trees. Hot saws are very heavy spinning discs with cutter teeth but they are not well adapted and as far as I know never used on a processor as they cannot effectively be used as a cutoff to move in and out. And hot saws are used exclusively on felling heads only, never processors.