For the second time in succession, our winner is from North Wales. Bedwyr Jones graces this issues front cover with a cracking photo of his County Skidder.
Many of us who worked in forestry in the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s have fond memories of the time when County’s ruled the forest. My first introduction was with the Forestry Commission (FC), I was a young chainsaw operator and we had two FC Falstone County skidders in our squad. These were based on a 754 County and had extra guarding, logging blade and either Igland 4000 or 5000 double drum winches. The FC had a workshop based at Chapelhall which carried out their conversions by their own engineers.
Many other tractors used by contractors at the time as skidders,were Fordson Majors and Ford tractors with the Roadless 4WD conversions. Although some of the others did the work efficiently, County’s were considered the dog’s bollocks of skidders, they were simple, reliable and stable workhorses.
Each morning you filled them up with diesel and off they went, it was a rare occurrence to see one broken down. Any problems that did occur, were usually either caused by abuse or neglect.
County’s were first manufactured in 1948 and were tracked machines. These were used in forestry for ploughing as there was a big establishment drive to replenish timber reserves, which had been depleted after the war.
The first equal 4WD county was manufactured in 1961 and was based on a Fordson Supermajor. It was named the Super Four and was a simple 4WD conversion with the front wheels driven by twin shafts from the rear hubs, which allowed a standard differential to work on all four wheels. 1962 brought the introduction of the 95hp Super Six County which was a popular model until production ceased in 1965.
The second generation of County’s commenced in November 1964, the four cylinder 654 which was succeeded by the 754 in 1968.
In May 1965, the six cylinder 954, was introduced until it was also replaced by the 100hp 1004 Super Six, the tractor Bedwyr owns today. Many other models sizes were manufactured over the years including the flagship models, the 1124 and 1174.
County ran into financial trouble in 1980 and were sold to the Benson Group in Knighton, Powys for £3.2 million. They continued to manufacture County’s up until 1990. The group made around 150 tractors. Manufacturing the County’s went well but the Benson Group struggled to obtain suitable safety cabins which would conform to UK and EU regulations. This proved to be a step too far with 56 County tractors incomplete. The company were reduced to selling spare parts and converting Ford Transits into four-wheel drive vehicles before selling the County name to South Essex Motors (SEM).
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That’s a remarkable amount of work hours for a single machine, the Norcar 600 owned by Erkki Rinne is taken well care of, it even has the original Diesel engine.
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Kieran Anders is a forestry contractor working in the lake district. His work involves hand cutting and extracting timber using a skidder and tractor-trailer forwarder.
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It is not possible to eliminate chain shot, but there are simple steps that can be taken to reduce the risk.
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Arwel takes great pride in the fact that the mill has no waste whatsoever, “the peelings are used for children’s playgrounds, gardens and for farm animals in barns in the winter and the sawdust has multiple uses in gardens and farms as well.
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Timber hauliers need to encourage young blood in, and also look after the hauliers we have, we need make the sector a safe and positive place to work.
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SEM and its engineering director Eric May changed the County twin driveshaft four-wheel drive system for use on Ford New Holland series 40 tractors. The idea was to move the dual prop shafts closer to or even beneath the centreline of the tractor which would increase the steering angles. Eight skid units were bought from Ford New Holland to complete an order for eight equal wheel drive tractors due for delivery the following February. With Ford New Holland used as the tractor base, SEM could use the UK/EU approved Q Cab. Before completion, the receivers were called in at SEM, plunging the job into jeopardy. Luckily, it was saved by the Benson Group, who stepped in and completed the order in May 1995. By then the order had increased to ten tractors, seven 754-40’s without cabs which were destined for Canada, two 1184-40’s with cabs to the Falkland Islands and finally one 1164-40 without a cab to St Helena.
The 1164-40 was the last ever County tractor built. It was commissioned at the request of the British Overseas Territory Island of St Helena for its Environment and Natural Resources Directorate (ENRD) which needed the tractor for forestry use.
It’s touching to see younger people taking this iconic brand to their hearts and helping to preserve these magnificent tractors so that they will be around for many years to come.
Bedwyr Jones fits right into this category, he is just 26 years old and lives with his girlfriend Katie and young daughter Cali on the outskirts of Bala in North Wales.
Forestry is very much a family tradition in the Jones family, Bedwyr’s father, his uncles and his grandfather have all worked in forestry, so he caught the spruce bug at a very young age.
As a young lad, he couldn’t wait for weekends and school holidays when he would head out to the forest with his dad. He started out chokering the trees ready for skidding and progressed to operating the skidder, then he was shown how to use the chainsaw. Bedwyr was a natural and it wasn’t long before he was able to fell edge trees and work safely in windblown timber.
On leaving school, Bedwyr worked as an apprentice mobile mechanic, which involved repairing and servicing machinery out on site. He enjoyed learning how the equipment worked, but the pull of the forest was too strong and aged 18 he secured a job in establishment. His work involved the re-spacing and spot spraying of young seedlings, but it wasn’t long before he was felling trees and back on a chainsaw.
After a couple of years of felling, an opportunity arose to operate a forwarder which he grabbed with both hands. Bedwyr thoroughly enjoyed the experience of operating forestry equipment, and he was offered a position operating an excavator on ground preparation for planting. He worked on ground prep for five years, two years on the excavator and a further three years operating a Menzi Muck on very steep preparation sites.
He decided to return to the harvesting side of forestry but wanted to be a bit more hands on with manual forestry like he had done previously with his dad. He found a County 1004 Super Six which was for sale in Machynlleth complete with an Igland 4000 double drum winch, a James Jones logging blade and front guard which he is now the proud owner of.
Bedwyr grew up listening to his dad fondly reminiscing of his time operating County’s and all the areas in which he had worked in, and he hopes one day he will have created his own County stories to pass on.
The County is a work in progress and has a few minor issues which are being carried out while it is still working. The winch has been replaced with a stronger Igland 5,000, this one has the remote control which saves a lot of walking. Once all the minor leaks and squeaks have been sorted, it will have a full respray so that it is as neat and tidy as the day it left the workshop. Bedwyr’s main work at the moment is in Clocaenog Forest, where he is working for Andrew Holmes creating habitat areas for the RWE windfarm. Bedwyr finds it very interesting as it involves working with chainsaws, excavators, flails, fencing and many other bits and pieces in between lol.
“The winch work that I do with the County isn’t full time, the winning photo was taken on a job I was carrying out for Gethin Jones in North Wales,” said Bedwyr. “It was on a local estate, and we were clearing windblown timber and winching in the edge trees, the remote-controlled winches come into their own on these types of jobs.
I love County tractors and I hope to be able add more to my working collection. Hopefully, my daughter Cali will take an interest in forestry, its looking promising as she is in love with the County and loves nothing better than going to work with her dad.”
Forest Machine Magazine is written and edited by a forest professional with over 40 years hands on experience. We are dedicated to keeping you informed with all the latest news, views and reviews from our industry.
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