Finnish Forestry Busman’s Holiday
After a 7am breakfast buffet it was time for our first day of our Finnish Forestry tour to commence, our bus was waiting for us and our first port of call was a quick detour to see some of Kari Lahivaara’s father’s vintage cars and trucks that had been and were in the process of being restored. It is gratifying that people like Pertti Lahivaara take the time and effort lovingly restore these beautiful vehicles and are happy to display them so that we all get to benefit.
Our second stop was about an hour away and into a forest to see a John Deere 1270G harvester working in a mixed pine and birch thinning.
Although there was a lot of snow on the main road and our bus driver, Marko Nousiainen, certainly wasn’t hanging about. The group was quiet, and I could see a lot of the passengers with white knuckles from hanging onto their seats tightly.
We left the main road and headed into the forest and Marko still wasn’t for slowing down much, it was only when Kari announced that Marko had once been a forest machine operator and a logging truck driver that everyone started breathing a bit more easily 😊.
As we approached, we could see the harvester was not far from the forest road and it was blatantly apparent that this was a thinning that was being done correctly. The remaining trees were evenly spaced with plenty of light coming into the block to encourage girth growth as well as the height. They carry out three thinning’s before final felling, the time between each one can vary on location. The further north you go the slower the growth and the better the quality of the wood.
Pine accounts for 64% of Finnish forestry and it grows straight with light branches, so it is lovely wood to harvest.
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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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The pine must be felled, extracted and removed from site without delay to prevent blue stain, this has little to no effect on the strength of the wood but is unsightly in lumber and requires chemical treatment for using as pulp. A further 25% is Spruce trees with hardwoods making up the final 10%.
It was gratifying to see a young operator at the helm and although not long qualified he was doing an excellent job with well presented timber and low stumps despite the snow on the ground.
There was no sign of the forwarder while we were there and it was when we were back on the bus and leaving the worksite I saw the reason for this, a Ponsse Buffalo was extracting the timber.
The bus then made its way to John Deere Forestry’s factory at Tampere where we were all served a tasty lunch.
After coffee we set off for a tour of the production facility and it was surprising how quiet it all was while walking around. Unfortunately, no one was allowed to take any photos while on the tour, but it was interesting to see how the machines are put together.
I was a bit surprised as apart from welding together the frames, booms and load space this is purely an assembly line where the components are all brought in, I was sort of expecting to see more parts being manufactured “in house”.
It was still remarkably interesting to see a bare chassis at the start of the production line being assembled until a finished harvester or forwarder left the factory under its own steam ready for delivery.
Once our tour was over, we were all directed back to the large meeting room where a company presentation had been laid on for us.
John Deere has a long and interesting history, the company first started back in 1837 by manufacturing farming equipment such as ploughs. Today it has grown to be a world leader in the manufacture and supply of agriculture and forest machines with a global workforce more than 75,000 people
Tampere is the headquarters for John Deere forestry with 250 employees working there. It hosts the research and development staff, product testing, supply management, product support, sales and marketing.
The factory at Joenssu has 470 employees and works on a “just in time” material delivery service so that parts arrive as they are needed which keeps the production line clear and cuts out the need for a lot of storage room.
All the machines are built to order, and the factory’s lead time is nine days. They work on a two shift system and can manufacture eight machines each day using renewable energy.
As the group was made up of mostly forestry professionals the presentation included the advantages of the new H series machines and there were strong hints as to the new eight wheel 1470H harvester arriving soon.
The H series machines have a new industrial design with an inverted engine for less noise, better visibility, more storage area and easier maintenance. The cranes have also been upgraded with 10% more lifting torque, 10% more slewing power, more pulling and pushing force with an increased crane base tilt angle. The main boom cylinder direction has been changed to so there is fewer moving parts and a lower centre of gravity. This offers a better motion range with a more stable parallel motion speed.
The presentation was informative and gave us all an insight into the work that is done behind the scenes at John Deere forestry.
We made our way back onto the bus and it was strange to see daylight disappearing so early in the afternoon, we were averaging around 5 hours of daylight.
Our next visit was to see Mantsinen, a family owned business that manufacture heavy lifting equipment.
The company was started in 1963 by the Mantsinen brothers who initially converted an Ackerman wheeled excavator for loading and unloading purposes and have progressed to manufacturing the world’s largest handling machine, the Mantsinen 300.
We were split into two groups for our tour and our group started on the workshop tour while the others were treated to a company presentation.
Our group were in awe of Mantsinen, none of us had seen loading equipment just quite as big as this before. Mantsinen manufacture nine different sized loaders with different loading attachments for a multitude of uses, the smallest one is the Mantsinen 60 with a 21m reach and capable of loading unloading up to 400 tonnes per hour. Their largest model is the Mantsinen 300 which has a 40m reach and able to load/unload up to 1,300 tonnes per hour. All their loaders are available with fuel efficient diesel engines and/or electric motors
It was back onto the bus for our final two hour journey into the North Karelia national park where our Wilderness Hotel was waiting for us.
This is a beautiful place with a large reception/bar/restaurant and numerous outlying accommodation lodges for guests. Our nearest neighbour was about 50km away and we were closer to the Russian border than other inhabitants. Each lodge as 17 rooms with private bathrooms and a large communal lounge and self-catering kitchen.
After settling in we headed over to the restaurant/bar, which was a beautiful big wooden hunting lodge with open fires and an amazing character, a self-service buffet dinner was laid on for us and we were all having such a great time that by 11pm we noticed the staff were in a bit of a flap as we had managed to drink the bar dry!
Tomorrow we visit the Forestry Training School at Valtimo, S Kuittinen Oy, one of Finlands largest timber harvesting contractors and dine on Elk
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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