CLARK’S POWERHAND

In order to guarantee product quality, Powerhand takes full control of the design and manufacturing processes at its factory headquartered in Dumfries, Scotland. The firm’s rich history in engineering and manufacturing, designing, developing and manufacturing products covers almost 100 years, with the establishment of the parent company, Wm Clark and Son, in 1924. All hydraulic components used in Powerhand products are designed and manufactured in-house. The eX series of Grapples – eX28 to the eX36 – have timber grapple geometry for perfect bundling performance and are extremely popular with operators wishing to better utilise its excavator (from 12 to 25 tonnes) into a multipurpose tool.

Powerhand has been the Indexator UK and Ireland distributor for nearly 40 years. For this application, the XR400 HT X2C rotator produces 7,000Nm of high torque and has two extra internal oil channels to allow continuous rotation when a grapple saw is installed. Powerhand also supplies powerful hydraulic saws from Hultdin System AB.

Eye for detail

Powerhand has pulled all this engineering together into a powerful package for the Agriforest team with its new hydraulic rotating Powerhand eX36 grapple and Hultdins

SuperSaw 555S sawbox. Murray Clark, MD of Wm Clark and Son commented, “Agriforest is a really good, forward-thinking customer and it’s been a pleasure working with Douglas and Dom to turn our Powerhand eX36 grapple, rotator and sawbox into a finely-tuned integrated package to meet their needs on demanding projects where safety is paramount. The attachments can yield greater productivity and machine utilisation than just a grapple on its own.”

Dom said, “I’ve been in forestry for over 30 years and I’ve never seen as much devastation caused in a single night as I have with Storm Arwen down the east coast of Scotland and the rest of the country. This means that, in addition to our regular contract work, we’ve also been busy all year on various windblown clear-up jobs. This site is certainly one of the biggest we’ve taken on lately as a result of the storm damage, so the new grapple saw has been absolutely invaluable in clearing up the mess quickly, safely and ef ciently.”

Douglas commented, “We had been working closely together with Murray Clark – owner of Dumfries-based Wm Clark and Son – for a number of years, and we had been talking about developing a saw attachment to t on its robustly engineered eX series of grapples and Indexator hydraulic rotators, to make a very robust rotating grapple saw package to meet our needs on the demanding largescale windblown clean-up projects. And while each of the three components were not new to the market, what was new and exciting was making the three components work well together to produce a very powerful grapple saw attachment that dramatically improves safety, increases machine productivity, and is more cost-effective for our clients.

“Over the last four months, we have seen a signi cant increase in productivity, and we can reduce our headcount on site, as expert hand cutters are dif cult to come by, as the machine operator [Dom] can now safely work on his own,” Douglas continued. “And with the powerful saw now on the grapple, the machine utilisation has also signi cantly improved as it can now process, as well as stack, the wood quickly and ef ciently.”

The Powerhand forestry grapple range is said to be the culmination of over 90 years’ experience working in the forest industry. Powerhand offers a range of timber grapples for log handling and a range of tined biomass grapples to handle brash and biomass, feed chippers, clear up sites, and move oversized logs. See the information panel above for more details.

On this job site, the windblown mature hardwood Beech trees will be sold to sawmills for various purposes such as the tree trunk used to make quality timber products and furniture. And with the increase in numbers of log burners being purchased, branches will be ideal for selling into the rewood market. The customer on this job site is keen to maximise the amount of biodiversity on his land, and therefore the brash will be left on site. This will eventually rot down over time and will be the ideal habitat for various bugs and insects, which will also encourage and sustain the local bird wildlife.

Operator Feedback

Dom has been at the controls of the rm’s 2019 Doosan DX160-5 High Track – supplied by Doosan dealer James Gordon Ltd

(Gordons) – for over three years. Now with 3,000 hours clocked up, the digger still looks new, and due to additional business growth an additional new Dash-7 DX160 High Track was bought for regular site preparation work.

Dom commented, “The Doosan DX160-5 has not missed a beat over the last three years and is one of the most reliable machines in our growing eet. The service support from the dealer is second to none. With the Powerhand grapple and saw attachment tted, this makes the Doosan even more of an asset to the business. On this storm damage clean-up project, I’m at least twice as productive with a saw attachment on a grapple, as I’m no longer fully reliant on the availability and productivity of the hard-working and skilled hand cutters.

“From a safety and comfort aspect, it’s a game-changer, as we can get so much more done, regardless of the freezing weather conditions, with fewer boots on the ground and a safer method of working, sitting in an air conditioned cab and safely behind a new ‘bulletproof’ safety glass screen,” Dom af rmed.

As mentioned above, the new grapple, saw, and rotator was developed by Powerhand as a package, and Dom praised the technical support from Russell McGahan (from Powerhand) and Ali Kaye (from Gordons) who got their heads together to make small technical changes to the Doosan hydraulic system and then supported it during eld trials to ne-tune the hydraulic ow and smooth standard Doosan proportional controls.