Tigercat 630B Buncher Grapple Skidder
Photographs are courtesy of owner Steven Mair of SJM Forestry, Elgin and Derek Dean, Huntly.
Tigercat production history items from their websites:-
“Tigercat began in 1992 when a small group of professionals with extensive experience in all facets of the logging equipment industry teamed up with the Cambridge, Ontario, Canada based fabrication company, MacDonald Steel.
At the time, MacDonald Steel was engaged in the fabrication of components for many well-known mobile equipment manufacturers. However, owner and CEO Ken MacDonald envisioned the creation of a new company that would build upon MacDonald Steel’s fabricating expertise, a company that would design and manufacture purpose-built forestry equipment. It was a gamble because at the time there were many large and established companies competing in a crowded forestry equipment market.
The original team members performed exhaustive field research in the south eastern US, one of the world’s great wood producing regions. This on-the-ground experience with logging contractors determined that even with four manufacturers competing for market share, drive-to-tree feller bunchers were falling well below the expectations of the customer base, foremost in terms of mechanical reliability and longevity.
Focusing on the input and reactions of south eastern US loggers, Tigercat set out to design a technically superior alternative. The result was the 726 feller buncher, quickly recognized as a more durable, reliable machine capable of achieving greater production. The 726 also proved to deliver a longer useful life with significantly higher uptime than competing machines.
Tigercat engineer, John Kurelek was never happy with the conventional feller buncher boom system. It is fundamentally inefficient, mixing two arcing motion functions to get the desired reach action. Tigercat’s patented ER boom allows the machine operator to extend and retract the boom on a horizontal plane smoothly and quickly using a single joystick. ‘Tigercat 630 - first serial production hydrostatic skidder’ and 630B first built in 1999.”
Steven believes this 2002 produced machine first arrived in UK in 2007 and he acquired it in 2011. This is a hydrostatic drive machine weighing in at around 20 tonnes with heavy duty 20 tonne pull winch and larger blade. This serious piece of kit is able to handle heavy loads as demonstrated when it was used extensively to clear very heavy windblown confers and broadleaves following the devastating Storm Arwen gale and others of December 2021 and January 2022.
The PDF link below shows several views of the machine. Follow on images are of the machine working in the serious windblow damage from the gales of December 2021 and later.
Download Large Version (1.1MB)
Groups: Timber harvesters, processors, forwarders and cable cranes