It’s obvious somebody is doing something very different with this Komatsu PC300FX at PJ and DA Stephens Logging Contractors, Taupo and judging by the glowing report that owner and part-time operator, Pete Stephens, has on this machine, different is very good.
As great operators get harder to come by, it’s critical that cabs become better places to work and cooling is a key component to air quality in the cab. It’s a bit of a paradox that the really good operators that you want on the job have, in the past, been the ones who will be fast and get a well-maintained machine running hot for no reason other than that the machine wasn’t designed to go that fast (or maybe that fast for that long). This must have presented a few challenges to manufacturers who have, across the board, upped the horsepower and pump power and then observed that this created issues with boom, slew and track frame integrity and consequent strengthening and redesign of these.
The natural next progression was to get a great power and flow micro-management system in place which Komatsu has done here with the addition of the IQAN system into its FX machines. But more on that later.
Regular operator, Gerry Hepi, started out in silviculture and then joined Pete’s crew sorting and stacking way back when they were still manual processing. He took some time off logging and then picked up the reins on processors in another crew. After Gerry hopped out of the machine I found that I’d met him before when he was working in a woodlot crew near Palmerston North which I was contract falling for about six years ago. The staying away from home base (Taupo) and the stop start nature of woodlots didn’t really suit Gerry, so when Pete was looking for a new operator he got back in the crew.
Observing Gerry processing from the cutover into the landing there’s a smooth flow going on and everything looks good, from the deft repositioning of the base to better access piles, to the reach, the sawing and the paint marking, this looks like a super effective piece of gear in the hands of a great operator.
“Yeah I love it,” Gerry says. “Great machine. No complaints. Good track power and good power all round really.”
Crew owner, Pete, has been contracting for around 20 years. He started out on chainsaws doing production thinning in Lake Taupo Forest and some early roadline salvage: “Back then we had a little Komatsu 31 dozer in one crew for extraction. I also worked for a guy who had a Timberjack double drum skidder. No grapples then. No excavators either. Just used a wheel loader.
“Slab Sinton would go from one crew to the next with his loader and load them out. Stems were more or less cut in half to a six or seven metre log. That was just all pulp trucked to Kinleith. We were probably doing a load or...
