Inverinate Forest — Harricana Delimber on JC
Photograph courtesy of Raymond McKenzie, Muir of Ord, who was a timber lorry driver for Munro sawmills for fifteen years.
J G D Munro and Partners of Dingwall Sawmills was managed at this time by Duncan Munro, his son Peter and son in law Peter Blake. Some of them must have been on a shopping trip to USA or Canada as this large Harricana Delimber arrived in packing cases around 1986 and was fitted to a JCB tracked base.
This was a large powerful delimber with a cross cut saw mounted on the end. It was operated mainly by Dado Williams from Invergordon and the timber lengths were judged by marks painted or chalked onto the delimber frame beams. Raymond recalls the delimber cutting large logs up to 33 foot long and it simply ripped through any large branches on the tree trunk.
Here the machine is working below the very steep slopes of the Forestry Commission Inverinate Forest where in all likelihood the whole trees were felled and winched down the slope to be attended to by the delimber at the bottom. The other photographs on the PDF will show more details of the machine assembly.
Raymond tells the story of this machine travelling to a forest site in Rhidorroch Estate near Ullapool. Some will know that the forests are quite a way up the glen and the owners were keen that the tracked machine should not travel on the estate road and damage the surface and so Dado had to run alongside it for quite a way until he came to Loch Achall and then run on the shore with one track in the water.
All went well until there was a little bay to travel around but as the water seemed only a couple of feet deep to save time Dado cut across only to discover the machine suddenly started to drop and tip over alarmingly into a 22 foot deep water trench. Very fortunately his cab door was open and on the landward side and so he used his Royal Navy survival skills to jump out and wade ashore as the machine disappeared completely from sight.
In time the Munros hired divers, a garage with heavy hauling gear and with the aid of flotation bags recovered the machine. It was cleaned, the engine and pumps dewatered and set going again to continue working for many years.
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Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry in Action, Other Vehicles and Machines, Timber harvesters, processors, forwarders and cable cranes