2017 International Forest Industries Magazines IFI Aug Sept 2017 v2 | Page 16

IFI REPORTS FROM ELMIA WOOD 2017
Innovation turns excavators into all-terrain vehicles
The biggest improvement to
excavator chassis in many years.
Kalle Mattsson, sales manager
and co-owner of the Finnish
machinery manufacturer Nisula
did’nt hesitate in his presentation
of the company’s world first
at Elmia Wood. The chassis is
mounted on an excavator from
Volvo and turns it into an all-terrain
vehicle.
The development work took ten
years and was approved by Volvo.
In many markets excavators are
used as forest harvesters but they
have one huge disadvantage: their
rigid chassis limits where they can
go in the forest.
What Nisula has done is
to design a track frame that is
moveable lengthways and has 60
cm ground clearance instead of the
standard 40. When the machine is
stationary the track frames lock to
increase stability.
Nisula has also developed
an extension to the excavator’s
crane, the XB-14, which adapts the
crane so a harvester head can be
attached. With the extension the
crane has a reach of 10.2 metres.
The result is an excavator
that can handle tasks in the
forest far better than its standard
cousins. Thanks to the tracks it
causes less ground damage than
wheeled machines. But Nisula
says the machine is not intended
to compete with normal wheeled
harvesters.
“We’re targeting smaller-scale
contractors who want to switch
jobs so they can work year round,”
Mattsson explains. “Because
the basic machine has the most
functions, it costs far less than
buying a dedicated harvester.”
It takes just one hour to turn
the excavator into a harvester and
vice versa.
At Elmia Wood Nisula also
presented a new harvester head
that is designed to be paired
with the excavator and used for
thinning. It can handle stems with a
diameter of up to 55 cm.
Another piece of news at the
fair was that Nisula is the first
manufacturer of attachments to
collaborate with the Swedish-
Finnish steel company SSAB by
using high-tensile steel, which
gives a lighter and stronger
construction.
Thumbs up from customers who ordered
the new Rottne harvester unseen
Tobias Johansson CEO with
Rolf Andersson
Rottne had sold some ten
harvesters of the new model H8D
without anyone being allowed to
see it. Everyone had to wait for
the world premiere at Elmia Wood.
The reaction? Even better than
expected!
There was great interest at
Elmia Wood in Rottne’s entire
machine fleet. But two machines
attracted particular attention.
One was of course the H8D, which
had never been exhibited before.
One advantage of this new model,
which surprised both its new
purchasers and everyone else, is
that it is only marginally heavier
despite several improvements that
would normally have added weight.
“In practice the total weight
is about the same,” says Rottne’s
CEO Tobias Johansson.
On paper it is 700 kg heavier
but in practice things are different.
One innovation is the presence
of a hydraulic motor in each of
the four wheel hubs. Each motor
weights 100 kg. But contractors no
longer have to fill the wheels with
water to increase the machine’s
accessibility.
14 International Forest Industries | AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2017
Customers who ordered the new Rottne H8D unseen were positively
surprised when they got to see it up close at Elmia Wood. Photo: Elmia AB
The second public magnet
was the F11D forwarder, which
was presented at the beginning
of this year. It is a development
of Rottne’s smallest and biggest-
selling forwarder, the F10. Despite
its name, this new and reinforced
model loads 12 tonnes. This is a
market segment where Rottne
has had only a limited presence
recently.
“We’ve already sold it
to countries like Germany,
Switzerland, the Czech Republic
and the US,” Johansson says.
To judge from the response at
Elmia Wood, the H8D and F11D will
be a team much in demand.