What Are Forestry Machines

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What are Forestry Machines used for

13 Mar 2021

What Are Forestry Machines

Year on year, forestry machines harvest wood from over 430 million acres of the approximately 750 million acres of forested land in the United States. Companies use this timber to make paper, furniture, and other wood products and construct homes.

What do these machines look like, and how do they work? People define forestry equipment as a machine that helps us harvest, excavate, and finish a woodland. The forestry industry uses specialized tools at each stage of the forestry process.

Below, we get specific about the types of machines forestry professionals use. Read on if you’re curious.

Harvesting Forestry Machines

In the logging industry, harvesting explains the process of bringing down a tree with saws.

In small areas, forestry specialists may go in with chainsaws. Extensive woodlands need much bigger tools like feller bunchers to keep workers safe.

These dual-purpose machines both cut and extract the trees using large clamps and boom arms. They’re fitted with tracks rather than rubber tires so that they can navigate the steep inclines and muddy or rocky terrain typical in forested areas.

Another standard tool used by forestry workers is a harvester. This wheeled or tracked machine fells and processes stems to a pre-programmed length with a multipurpose cutting head. Harvesters are most commonly used in aspen or conifer forests because they work best with single-stemmed trees.

Excavating Forestry Machines

Once forestry workers have felled all the trees, the on-site processing and excavating and equipment springs to action.

If not already delimbed by a harvester, workers load freshly cut trunks into the delimber using a grapple skidder, and the machine strips the branches of a tree. Some delimbers are also fitted with a topping saw.

While all yarders move felled logs out of a forest, they come in a variety of configurations. Fixed boom yarders are taller and useful in deep valleys, while swing booms are more flexible on rugged terrain. Some yarders run on cables, while others are self-propelled.

As the yarder moves logs out of a forest, a forwarder steps in to transport them to the lumber yard. There, a forestry worker stacks the timber into neat rows for storage using a log loader.

All these hardworking machines need regular maintenance. Companies must have replacement Komatsu undercarriage and other brand parts on hand when needed.

Finishing Forestry Machines

Depending on the forest location, a logging company may have to clear the land after tree removal. This is usually done to replant a new generation of trees or to build on the ground.

Workers move in with finishing machines like mulchers to process removed limbs. They use stump grinders to remove firmly rooted tree stumps and bulldozers to clear the debris and turn over the soil.

Machinery Makes Business Easy

So now you know where the paper you write on or the chair you sit in comes from! As you can see, getting timber from a wooded area to the factory or construction site requires many different forestry machines all working together. The machinery is a crucial investment for logging companies, which compete for business based on who has the best technology.

If you’re interested in getting behind-the-scenes of vital American industries, be sure to browse the other architecture and construction articles on our blog.

Comments on this What Are Forestry Machines and What Are They Used For article are welcome.

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