KWF Tagung: LKT and its hopes of returning to the UK market

AS anyone who has been on Forestry Journal’s YouTube channel can attest to, LKT makes its machines to last. But while Joe White and his decades-old 120 skidder are an impressive testament to its past British forestry exploits, it is potential future business that is exciting the Slovakian manufacturer. 

While it currently has no UK dealer (a slot understood to have once been filled by AT Osborne and Holmes Forestry), it remains hopeful of changing that, believing its range of forestry skidders would be just as at home in Kielder as they would in the Tay Forest. 

 “We have a strong customer base in the Czech Republic, Germany and so on,” said sales representative L’udo Kamenik. “We’d love to get into the British market, and expand into the UK. 

“We have been developing machines as the time goes. We use stronger and stronger materials. We get feedback from the customers and there is always something to improve.”

Located in the woods near many of the ‘big boys’ – including Logset and Eco Log – LKT’s static stand featured its 60 and 130 models, which drew plenty of interest during the course of KWF. And L’udo believes their low-impact credentials set them apart from other machines. 

“Some people are using these big harvesters, but they are too heavy,” he continued. “A skidder like this was built to not be heavy on the ground. A bare skidder without the crane is 7.5 tonnes. If you put a harvester in some places, it can do a lot of damage. 

Joe's LKT 120 ... a little different to the ones on the brand's KWF stand (Image: FJ/Jack Haugh)

“But if you have to manoeuvre between trees, you can use this kind of machine. It won’t do the same kind of damage, and that’s so important.” 

Head to our YouTube channel to watch a full version of this interview, which will be published in the coming weeks.