Today the Iron Test team is visiting the Stewart Logging Mosgiel site with AB Equipment’s Nicolas Ekron who is the Dunedin branch Service Manager. Nicolas can’t speak highly enough of the crew at Stewart Logging. “The owner is Grant Stewart of course and Matt is his son who is our go-to these days. Matt owns the Sumitomo 4040 we are testing today. “Matt’s brother Dan is running that machine, and Grant’s daughter Alyse up until very recently ran their processor – a Tigercat 890 running a Woodsman Pro 850 – until she was eight months pregnant actually. Quite a bunch of legends. All very highly skilled and hard workers. And after hours, well they are into hunting and it is common for them to drop in fresh venison for us at the office which is very much appreciated.”
Nicolas is originally from South Africa and grew up on a farm. With his dad being a quarry manager and mechanic by trade, he got to working with machinery maintenance from an early age. He went on to work for JCB in South Africa and then arrived in Mosgiel about six years ago to work on the floor at AB Equipment, servicing construction and forestry equipment. He then moved into sales before taking on the Service Manager role for both construction and forestry equipment.
Two-staging in steep ground
It’s a big ridge we climb just South of Mosgiel and the RT is almost as busy as rush hour in Kaingaroa Forest. We soon see there are three crews up this road and a heck of a lot of line raking has been going on post-harvest here on some pretty steep ground.
It seems very common now that crews are two-staging and this one is no different. We drop over the side of the ridge onto a North face and the Stewart’s processing area, load out and container are on a plateau. Further West, about 250 metres away, is a Madill 172E tower with an ACME carriage and Fortronics chokers. Quite a while since we have seen those in use but they are making it work with a steady couple of thick stems coming up from about 400 metres down the steep hill on the regular.
The Sumitomo 4040 is behind the Madill shovelling stems around the hauler and bunching them for the Tigercat 6 wheel skidder which is dragging some good six- to eight-stem drags up to the processor on a fairly nice grade but through a tight gully. Dan says they have great ground conditions here with plenty of rock, so the skidder can get up there even when it is pouring rain.
Directly below the haul track to the processor is a Falcon winch machine tethering another Tigercat which is down the hill felling, with a shovel machine bunching for the hauler. And not too far from them is a Hitachi 30 tonner tail hold sitting between two surge piles which are being hauled up to the Madill.
When we get down to the hauler landing, Dan...
