Harvester head with chainsaw and shear (cutting knife) felling technology!

The ProAX technology on KESLA’s new 16, 20 and 25 RH/RHS harvester heads allow both chainsaw and cutting shear felling of trees.

ProAX enables the head to be used for cutting normal logs and biomass trees. The chainsaw allows larger diameter trees or logs to be cut, but are known to cause downtime in smaller trees. This could be due to the problems with the bar (e.g. bent bar), or the chain (cutting hard surfaces). Also, using a chainsaw in dense, varying tree size, unmanaged stands that are destined for biomass, can cause increased wearing and damage on the saw chain and guide bar, as well as increase the consumption of lubrication oil.

The shear (referred to as a felling knife on the KESLA website) is much more durable than the chainsaw. The chainsaw is therefore used when cutting larger timber and the more durable shear when cutting the smaller trees, bushes and tree tops that cause the above mentioned problems. The shear only adds 25 kg (55 lb) of weight to the head. The chainsaw abilities remain the same as before. The shear has a maximum cutting diameter of 8 cm (3.1 in). ProAX software also enables multi-stemming to take place when using the cutting knife. The information can be found as downloadable PDF on the KESLA website. Source: http://www.kesla.com/harvesterheads.htm