Harvesters are used in the lumber industry to cut and remove trees. They come in different types and can be dangerous to operate. They are also used for thinning forests and clearing yards.
The name may sound a little strange, but in the lumber industry, harvesters are serious business. Feller harvesters are used to cut stands of standing trees and then stack the felled logs onto special sleds called skidders for removal. Some harvesters use powerful hydraulic shears to cut smaller diameter trees, while others use oversized chainsaw blades or large rotary saws to cut larger ones.
Most harvesters use one of two frame types, depending on site conditions. Light to medium harvester harvesters use a wheeled tractor frame, similar to backhoe loaders. Heavy harvesters or those working in muddy or uneven fields can use the track models also found on bulldozers. Many well-known agricultural equipment manufacturers, including Case, John Deere and International Harvester, also produce harvesters for the logging industry.
In the field, loggers perform most of the same tasks as human loggers. Trained operators drive their harvesters into one end of a group of trees and turn on the cutters or saw blades. Each tree is held in place by a hydraulically operated grapple as the blades cut the tree close to ground level. The tree is then maneuvered onto a skidder, essentially a giant sled that can be hitched to a tractor and pulled to another area for processing.
Whenever a forestry agency orders a thinning of an existing thicket, harvesters are typically used to minimize damage. Trees can be cut on the spot and moved without collapsing on other forest dwellers. Feller harvesters are also useful for the bulk removal of trees from yards. They can literally plow up an entire clump of trees in hours. The blades can also be adjusted to cut trees to any selected height.
Much of the heavy equipment used in the logging or lumber industries can be dangerous, but harvesters have acquired a reputation for being particularly dangerous to operate. It is impossible to accurately predict how a large tree will react after being cut down, and harvester operators are often positioned at zero point. The weight of the tree can lift the entire car off the ground or errant branches can suddenly enter the cabin. Saw blades can snag in a tree, requiring dangerous pulling. In operation, the binders cannot be made completely safe. For this reason many logging operations try to limit the number of workers in the vicinity of an operating harvester.
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