Tanel Tuulmees from Estonia and The Valmet Swamp Monster. Tanel is 25 years old and has been operating forwarders for the last seven years. His first forwarder was a Valmet 840.3 which he operated prior to the arrival of this specially adapted forwarder in 2021.
The Swamp Monster was modified by Finnish Engineer, Jani Karvanen, of Reformet Oy, for wet and boggy conditions. It was built on a 25,000-hour Valmet 860 S2 frame at the end of 2014. Two pairs of wheels and the control technology of their axles were added to the machine in combination with roller tensioning. The machine was tested at a few wet sites in 2015, which resulted in some minor structural changes. In 2017, the number of drive wheels was reduced to four, aiming for a half-lighter drivetrain and even more responsive manoeuvrability, and the results were good.
When entering load-bearing land (e.g., on a rocky transition track), the tension of the rollers is adjusted to a looser one by pressing the button to save the rollers. When going soft, the rollers are tightened to achieve sufficient traction between the wheel and the roller, as well as to achieve a uniform load-bearing capacity of the rollers, making it easy to travel.
The machine turns well, based on the equal traction, as well as the load capacity of the front cab and rear bunk. On load-bearing ground, the machine’s manoeuvrability is more agile than on a standard machine. On soft ground, the turning ability is of the same order as a standard machine. The axles can be adjusted to an equal position regardless of the direction of travel of the machine.
In addition to special equipment, logging on soft soils requires special skills all year round. Careful planning and implementation of the work plays an equally important role as the equipment, to obtain the best possible end result.
The swamp monster has been classed as an experiment, but Jani still claims it to be the best application for logging soft-soils as it was used daily in the “wettest of times” with great success.
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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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As focus has shifted in Estonia to the harvesting of energy wood, there has been less use for the monster. Resources are not enough either to develop the machine into a commercial product, so Reformet Oy are open to various collaborations regarding the monster.
Although the badge clearly says Valmet 840.3, that was put on for a bit of fun to confuse, it is really a Valmet 860. It is a full 12-wheel drive and is 11m long and 3.6m wide. The engine is the standard R6 with an OEM hydraulic system.
The tracks, which are made by Kopa and specifically made for maximum flotation, are 1m wide on the front and 1.2m wide on the rear. The loading bay has been extended to 4.1m wide. The forwarder has undergone a recent overhaul and is looking smart and shiny. Tanel enjoys operating this swamp monster which is able to extract timber from wet and peaty areas where conventional 8WD forwarders would be constantly getting bogged.
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