Specialist Plant South West - Mecalacs in Pasty Land

[6feetdown]

Excuse my ignorance but what does the EC oil part do?

 

[TiltyShaun]

Excuse my ignorance but what does the EC oil part do?

Connects the hydraulic attachment without getting out of the cab!!

 

[6feetdown]

Connects the hydraulic attachment without getting out of the cab!!

Nice

 

[Left hooker]

That Dave's machine Adam?

 

[APhillips]

That Dave's machine Adam?

Yeh, that's it.

 

[Left hooker]

Yeh, that's it.

The phone calls I've had from him talking about tiltys

 

[APhillips]

The phone calls I've had from him talking about tiltys

I bet! He's been keen to have one on his Mecalac for a while, the process has been a bit of a learning curve for me as it was the first thing I have done through SPSW since leaving Mecalac UK, but we are getting there!

In other news, We are going to be at the Royal Cornwall Show, we will have a machine down in the Forestry Arena so if anyone is coming along it would be great to put faces to names!

This year we will be taking our 2022 Mecalac 8MCR with the Timber trailer etc

 

[APhillips]

Graham put our tow hitch onto the new MCR the week before last and has been out extracting in some local woodland. Its such a great machine for this work and works out cheaper than a dedicated forwarder (edited: for our application) and has more versatility!







This is the machine and trailer that we will have at Royal Cornwall in a few weeks. We still need to get the screen guard and roof rail made for this machine but the land owner was keen to get this thinning timber cleared asap.

 

[doobin]

There's no way that works out cheaper than a dedicated forwarder. Especially not per ton!
Cool machine, and everyone knows I'm a big fan of getting maximum bang for buck when it comes to a tool carrier, but that setup just looks painful for anything other than a nice dry, flatish site with minimal stumps.

I could roll that trailer in a heartbeat

 

[APhillips]

There's no way that works out cheaper than a dedicated forwarder. Especially not per ton!
Cool machine, and everyone knows I'm a big fan of getting maximum bang for buck when it comes to a tool carrier, but that setup just looks painful for anything other than a nice dry, flatish site with minimal stumps.

I could roll that trailer in a heartbeat

I would imagine in a large scale forestry operation you would be correct. When we have compared it to suitable sized forwarders we have always been surprised how expensive they are considering thier limited use.

Typically everything we extract is following a gang of hand cutters, our customer looks for low impact where possible and large scale equipment is very rarely used. The benefit this setup brings is that once the timber is out we can go on to maintain and flail access tracks and any other work they need doing.

We work in a large variety of woodland, very rare we get anything that's dry or flat to be honest.

Of course the trailer could be rolled, we have rolled it before, the hitch has a 360degree rotating hook so it never affects the machine. Once you know the limits you work within them.

 

[V8Druid]

I would imagine in a large scale forestry operation you would be correct. When we have compared it to suitable sized forwarders we have always been surprised how expensive they are considering thier limited use.

Typically everything we extract is following a gang of hand cutters, our customer looks for low impact where possible and large scale equipment is very rarely used. The benefit this setup brings is that once the timber is out we can go on to maintain and flail access tracks and any other work they need doing.

We work in a large variety of woodland, very rare we get anything that's dry or flat to be honest.

Of course the trailer could be rolled, we have rolled it before, the hitch has a 360degree rotating hook so it never affects the machine. Once you know the limits you work within them.

View attachment 35816
View attachment 35817

Nice draw bar that

 

[TiltyShaun]

I would imagine in a large scale forestry operation you would be correct. When we have compared it to suitable sized forwarders we have always been surprised how expensive they are considering thier limited use.

Typically everything we extract is following a gang of hand cutters, our customer looks for low impact where possible and large scale equipment is very rarely used. The benefit this setup brings is that once the timber is out we can go on to maintain and flail access tracks and any other work they need doing.

We work in a large variety of woodland, very rare we get anything that's dry or flat to be honest.

Of course the trailer could be rolled, we have rolled it before, the hitch has a 360degree rotating hook so it never affects the machine. Once you know the limits you work within them.

View attachment 35816
View attachment 35817

Fully agree with your thoughts. Sometimes flexibility out weights the best think for the job if the best think is not available!!!

 

[Mogman]

Nice draw bar that

Needs painting

 

[V8Druid]

Needs painting

absolutely ... job's not finished 'til it is

 

[6feetdown]

 

[APhillips]

I had a watch of his videos the other day, they are pretty informative and give a reasonable insight but its always difficult to really show the machines to their best when you don't have a decent operator or demonstrator to show you whats what.

Its been a fairly busy down here, We had the Royal Cornwall show back in June which was really good, I have not been there for over 15 years so it was great to be back and doing the demo's. We didn't have a 'stand' since we get invited by the Duchy of Cornwall to demonstrate in their forestry section but its great that we are one of very few live demonstrations at the show.

This is a shortened video from the 25minute demo, a full length video with the commentary can be found on our YouTube channel:

We also attended the Stithians show which is a smaller agricultural show, I took our 7MWR and a small selection of attachments since I had scheduled some work to coincide with the show to save on too much travel (for me too as the show is 5miles from where I live)

Other than this we have been keeping the 2 machines busy, Graham is still in the woods with the 8MCR and I have been out and about on a few different jobs. I am hoping to pick up a GoPro over the next month or so to start showing the machines a bit better, I might even make some walk arounds.

 

[APhillips]

It's been a bit hectic here lately, especially since hedge cutting season is upon us, both machines have been busy with the flails, saw blade and grabs. There was a hint of digging thrown in, but it's been minimal!

I made a video from a nice job we carried out for a customer last week, they had renovated a farm and had some large Ash trees that were felled as they were starting to show signs of die back, we had to move the logs down in the wood (just over 1 mile) from the farm, there were some big logs there which definitely pushed the limits of the 7MWR.

 

[V8Druid]

It's been a bit hectic here lately, especially since hedge cutting season is upon us, both machines have been busy with the flails, saw blade and grabs. There was a hint of digging thrown in, but it's been minimal!

I made a video from a nice job we carried out for a customer last week, they had renovated a farm and had some large Ash trees that were felled as they were starting to show signs of die back, we had to move the logs down in the wood (just over 1 mile) from the farm, there were some big logs there which definitely pushed the limits of the 7MWR.

what breed is the grab Adam?

 

[APhillips]

what breed is the grab Adam?

Graham has told me the make of the grab before but I can never remember, it's mounted on our own design of beam/heal though which makes it much better than hanging directly at the end of the dipper.

 

[V8Druid]

Graham has told me the make of the grab before but I can never remember, it's mounted on our own design of beam/heal though which makes it much better than hanging directly at the end of the dipper.

looks suspiciously Cranab .. Swedish and bullet proof ...... mine's taken a caning, rock handling ... very nicely engineered