Don’t let your chain saw watch this video… he won’t come out of the shed for shame. This is a video of John Deere’s 1270D Wheeled Harvester that I found over at WoodNet.
Apparently the thing has computer functionality too: “The harvester comes fully equipped with a John Deere processing head combined with a powerful John Deere PC/Windows® based measuring and control system.” I guess that’s so they can track more easily how many trees they cut with it?
Here are some of the WoodNetter comments:
“I’ve always fantasized about showing modern tech to someone from 100 or 200 years ago. Imaging showing that to a 18th century logger.”
“All I could think of was the ways this might show up in the sequel to Fargo…”
Here’s the thread: Demise of the Chain Saw
Here’s John Deere’s page about the 1270D Wheeled Harvester
You have no idea how elaborate these things are! They are truly an amazing feat of engineering. Not only do they track how many trees you have cut, they also have a copy of the lumber buyer’s price list and can for example tell you into how long pieces each log should be cut depending on what will pay more. This is in its infancy still in the United States (most harvesting here seems to be done with bulldozers pushing the tree over), but you can find these all over the place in Scandinavia. This machine is for cutting down trees only. There is a separate machine designed slightly differently that brings all those logs out to the nearest road.
I have seen simular pieces of equipment but was never successful at finding out the data I wanted. Like what is the circumference of the largest tree the machine can cut? What is the general cost of maintenance?
I would love to own one and work in the woods. What a dream of a job.