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By trade

Forestry and silviculture

Mulching, felling, extracting, stump grinding, restoring.
In the forest, the machine works in the middle of what it throws up:
the tool is chosen, and so is the protection.

This trade also covers: silviculture, forestry operations, timber extraction, edge maintenance, opening up a corridor, scrub clearance, land clearing.

The essentials
Common classes
10 to 20 t
Coupler
Hydraulic, often
Constraint no. 1
Thrown debris
Tools per job
Two to four

The typical machine class →

01 The trade

What this trade demands of the tooling

A forestry job has neither the regularity of earthworks nor the limits of road work.
You open a corridor, you fell, you take the timber out, you take up the stumps, and the ground that is left must be able to be replanted.
Each stage calls for a different tool, and the machine goes from a spinning rotor to a grapple in a few minutes.

Two families cross here:
the one that cuts or mulches, fed continuously by the carrier's hydraulics, and the one that grips and carries, which calls for two circuits and a rotation.
Few machines are equipped for both without having been prepared for it, and it is that question that has to be settled before talking about a tool.

The constraint is not the power:
it is what the tool throws back, and what the machine takes. A mulching rotor throws what it finds — a stone, a fence wire, a buried piece of waste — and a machine working under cover takes branches on the cab and knocks on the ram rods.
The cab grille and the ram protection are not convenience options here: they are part of the tooling, in the same way as the cutting tool.

Forestry felling: a tracked excavator fitted with a grapple picks up a log, in front of stacked timber and a stand of conifers. Gang in orange vests at a distance.
It is the attachment that makes the trade:
the same excavator does earthworks elsewhere, here it grips and sorts timber.
Synthetic image.
The grapple picks up the log and sets it down on the pile.
In the forest, the machine works in the middle of what it throws up.
Synthetic video.
02 The tools

The tools that matter, in the order of the job

  • 01 — Opening up and mulching The forestry mulching head reduces the cover on the spot:
    there is no windrow, no lorry, no tip.
    The disc brush cutter does a different job — it cuts instead of shattering, and the difference shows in the regrowth.
  • 02 — Felling and holding The felling shears cut and hold the stem:
    the tree does not fall, it is set down.
    At height, the pruning saw and the pruning bar take the cut up to the branch instead of taking a person up to it.
  • 03 — Getting the timber out The forestry grapple takes the armful;
    the log grab grips the piece.
    The question is not the name of the tool:
    it is knowing whether you are loading volume or stacking with precision.
  • 04 — Removing the stumps Two opposite tools, and the waste is not the same.
    The stump grinder eats the stump on the spot and leaves ground that closes over again;
    the stump-pulling claw pulls it out whole and leaves a hole and a stump to be carted away.
  • 05 — Clearing and taking up the ground The forestry rake carries the wood away and keeps the soil, by the spacing of its tines alone.
    The forestry bucket picks up what is left, in ground that mixes hard wood, stone and roots still holding.
  • 06 — Getting value on the spot The log splitter opens the log where it has fallen.
    The gain is measured in handling avoided, not in splitting force.

These tools do not call for a peak of power:
they call for a sustained flow, hour after hour. A rotor that slows on contact rubs instead of cutting, the oil overheats, and the day ends on the temperature rather than on the work.
When the carrier does not supply what the tool expects, two answers exist:
to fit the auxiliary line, or to fit an on-board hydraulic power pack, which brings the hydraulics with it and asks the machine only to carry it.

03 Check

What is checked before fitting out

  • The flow really available, continuously Not the catalogue figure:
    the one left at the end of the dipper arm once the coupler is fed, and which holds for a whole day. See the 7 criteria.
  • The cooling of the circuit A tool with a continuous function makes the oil work without interruption.
    It is often the temperature, and not the power, that limits what is done in the day.
  • How exposed your machine is Look at your ram rods and around the cab before choosing the tool:
    they already say what your site puts the carrier through.
  • What the manager of the plot imposes Working period, what becomes of the brash, condition of the ground after the pass.
    Those conditions are given to you by the owner or the client, not by an attachment supplier.

Have your fleet checked.

Describe the plot:
the real cover, the slope, the stoniness, and what must be left on the ground after you have passed.
Give us the machine and what it delivers at the end of the dipper arm:
it is that point that decides, more than the name of the tool.

Written study within 3 working days, complete file.

Tell us about your worksite Written study within 3 working days, complete file · no obligation

Other trades
By machine
Protecting the machine
By trade

The same tool is not chosen in the same way depending on who fits it, and on what is around it.

The 12 trades

Tell us what you want to do.

Your machine, your worksite, your coupler if you know it.
We tell you what fits on it — and what does not.

Describe my worksite or 01 84 16 55 49
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