The latest grapple to be born from the Powerhand range, the eX Series brings together 30 years of grapple manufacturing technology to provide heavy excavator operators with the ultimate tool for gathering and handling brushwood.
WITH demand for biomass on the increase, forestry contractors across the UK are looking for ways to get more out of the forest.
The country’s biomass boilers need fuel, which means an opportunity, at suitable sites, to clear the brash matt for processing.
That can be a laborious and time-consuming job, but contractors with heavy excavators can now call on a new helping hand to quickly and comprehensively gather branches, brash and foliage from the ground without slowing down general operations.
The eX Series biomass grapple is one of the latest innovations from Powerhand.
A manufacturer of bespoke crane and excavator attachments for over 30 years, the company has turned its considerable skills and expertise to the issues operators face when trying to collect brash from their sites.
Its solution is designed to be the ultimate forestry excavator grapple, with power, flexibility and strength of build making it more than capable of handling brash and logs for biomass and much more.
Developed early in 2020 at the company’s base in south-west Scotland, the eX Series can be rigid mounted on excavators in the 14–20-tonne range, with a width and five-tine arrangement that make it ideal for raking between stumps to maximise brash collection.
Featuring Powerhand’s innovative pin locking system, the grapple’s chassis is constructed from high-strength Swedish steel, while its tines are made of solid one-piece 50 mm HARDOX, designed to excel in a demanding environment.
Murray Clark, director of Powerhand, explained: “We’ve recognised an ever-increasing amount of work being done by forestry contractors in the UK, trying to get more out of wood as a source of fuel. They need a versatile way of gathering brash, loading and transporting it and, a lot of the time, excavators are what they’re using.
“Utilising feedback from customers, we’ve developed a grapple that provides the dexterity to dig into piles of brash, rake along the ground and gather as much up as possible, while being powerful and hard-wearing enough to suit a heavy excavator.
“A grapple on an excavator will have a lot of downward force on it, especially if it’s an 18–20-tonne machine, so it has to be really well constructed for that purpose. At the same time, the grapple must be fast acting, powerful and nimble in operation. That’s why we use the highest-quality raw materials available, so we can get as much strength out of the product as possible, while still being nimble and dextrous.”
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Although it has been designed as a biomass grapple, the eX Series has the geometry of a log grapple, meaning it can pick up and bundle logs with ease, allowing operators flexibility to use it for multiple purposes.
The first grapple to leave the factory went to Ben Miller in the Scottish Borders, who has been using it since September.
His firm, BM Excavations, undertakes all manner of forestry contracts ranging from track and road building and maintenance to general contracting and tree mounding for new forestry plantations.
When he added a new excavator to his fleet, he needed a new grapple to complement his existing machines and he was keen to try the latest offering from Powerhand.
Attached via Steelwrist tiltrotator to Ben’s Volvo EC140ELM, the grapple has, in the last few months, been put to work clearing rides, moving boulders, removing stumps, gathering logs, placing rock armour for riverbank works and much more beyond gathering residue for biomass.
Ben said: “We handle everything that a grapple will handle, so we needed something pretty robust. Knowing Powerhand’s products, I was confident that it would fit the bill, but now I’ve tried it I think it’s superb.
“It’s very well made and the geometry is spot on. There seems to be a lot more power than in the previous grapple we had been using. There are some really nice, well-thought-out features on it, but the main thing we like about it is the power. It feels like it has a lot more power throughout its cycle of movement, compared to others.
“Typically, if we’re assisting hand cutters with some oversized trees on embankments, the large pieces of timber can be quite difficult to handle with the grapple on a digger. But with this grapple, whatever fits in its jaws, it will pick up.”
As for biomass, that’s not an arm of Ben’s business, but he does work alongside other contractors that are involved in it, so his team will quite often prepare sites for the forwarder to come and lift the brash.
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He said: “We’ll put it into rows or heaps and quite often we work alongside the chippers, which doesn’t leave much space for stacking. But the grapple has proved to be really versatile. We’ve found that we can rake the ground underneath the Steelwrist itself, which is a benefit.”
While Ben was already familiar with Powerhand and has purchased products in the past from its parent company, Clark Engineering, this has been his first experience with one of its grapples and he said he would recommend it to anyone.
He said: “I think anyone with a tiltrotator who’s in the market for a grapple should seriously consider getting one of these.”
Many more eX Series biomass grapples have been delivered to Powerhand customers in the months since Ben Miller received his. While Ben’s grapple has a 0.28 sq m capacity, the company says it will be developing a 0.36 and a 0.40 to join the range for larger excavators above 20 tonnes very soon.
As with all Powerhand attachments, the eX Series is entirely manufactured in-house at its factory in Dumfries.
eX grapples are available for direct rigid excavator mount, rotator dangle mount, rotator rigid excavator mount or with quick coupler mountings for tiltrotator attachment.
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