A Guide to the Hellish Machines that Are Tearing Down the Forests

Rainforests have more biodiversity (by far) than any other life zone on Earth, and yet they are being cut down globally at anywhere from 560 to 9,000 acres an hour. In the U.S., where the modern logging industry has invested more in replanting trees to help guarantee timber supplies for the future (as opposed to the slash and burn degradation of forest land common in the tropics), forests today still only cover about 70 percent of their former range according to the most optimistic estimates, while only six percent of U.S. forest land is more than 175 years old. In other words, 94 percent of our current timber reserves have been axed at one point or another in our nation’s history.

But at the same time, we still need lumber to build our houses and paper to wipe our asses. Harping on the big business of logging and cattle raising – the reason the rainforest is being burned is so McDonald’s can have beef – isn’t going to stop anyone from obliterating the world’s fresh air supply and erasing 27,000 species off the planet (forever) every year. So rather than complain about the death of stately American trees and the conversion of the Amazon into low-quality grazing land for cut-rate heifers, let’s take a look at some of the bad-ass equipment loggers get to use and rank them on how scary they are on a scale of “Kinda Cute” to “Indescribably Nightmarish.”

Well have a look at this little three-wheeled guy. You can almost imagine trees wanting to be felled by the 3600, especially if it was in cartoon form. Franklin was started in the mid-fifties by Robert Drake of Virginia, who’s lived out the American dream by growing from producing one machine (the Franklin Logger) to an entire fleet of Treefarmer-branded wood demolishers. The 3600 is a feller-buncher, which as you might have guessed, grabs trees, turns them into logs, and stacks ’em up. The whole three-wheel part is to help the 3600 move around in tight tree stands, which also allows tree farms to pack their trees in tighter. Efficiency. Even better, the 3600 comes with thick floor mats, “Deluxe Adjustable Cloth Suspension Seat,” and a vandal package.

Holy smokes, this machine is one massive, muscular, testosterone-dripping arm on wheels. How can you not look at the Highlander and not immediately think of that Schwarzenegger/Weathers biceps close-up from Predator? This video is just one long propaganda film from the Central American steroid lobby. Plus, even cooler, the damn thing stretches its chassis so it can climb up steeper hills in its unrelenting quest to arm-wrestle timber into submission. Let’s just look at the specs Konrad advertises:

• Enormous terrain flexibility due to synchronised step and drive movement
• Optimum maneuverability due to four controlled and driven wheels
• Endless turnable crane-cabine-unit
• Fast driving on secured roads
• Safe and well arranged cabin

The Highlander is a harvester, which is your heavy machine at the front lines of the lumber war. It has one job: topple trees. And as a babe-winning, single-arm-flexing, four-wheel drive highstepping technical powerhouse, the Highlander does its job better than most.

Hot damn, look at the grill on this thing. The big, honking, eight-wheel 890.3 looks like the dad of the kid who’s already driving and getting chicks pregnant in the fifth grade. You know, the dad that’s never shaved, still fistfights regularly, and has a square-shaped holster for whiskey on his Harley. I’m pretty sure Komatsu told their design team “Hey, we want these timber men to feel some serious awe in the presence of the 890. You know, make them stand up straighter and such. So model it after the elder Cavanaugh from Porky’s.” Aside from tough, the 890.3 is a forwarder, a type of logging equipment popularized in Nordic countries. Its job is to get cut logs out of the woods and onto regular semi trucks. The forwarder differs from the skidder, which does a similar task, in that it is able to prep logs to specific lengths before hitting the mill, which is easier but isn’t done with logs used for lumber because it increases waste. However, for pulpwood that’s turned into paper and the like, forwarders are the way to go. Plus they look like they’ll kick your ass and steal your girlfriend.

Just look at the claw on this one. Thank someone that this yellow monster sticks out in a crowd, because it has one purpose in life: pinching. It’s the one piece of equipment loggers won’t take out boozing because it gets too handsy. Really, it’s kind of sad. The poor LeTourneau Stacker was designed from the get-go to be the most powerful pincher in the land, just to grow up and be slapped with harassment lawsuits left and right. Thankfully, the logs don’t mind because the logs are dead. Stackers do just that: pick up huge piles of logs (like those left behind by forwarders and skidders, although usually you’d find a stacker in a lumber yard, not the field) and place them in even bigger piles. The LeTourneau seems to be out of production, but they’re pretty hot on the used market.

OK, now this is starting to get frightening. Whereas the Konrad Highlander made chopping wood look good, and the Franklin 3600 made it look adorable, this monstrosity just grips and rips with absolutely no remorse. Why does the front gripper have to be so horrifyingly massive? I keep waiting for alien babies to explode out of the logs and run around trying to splinter-rape people. I thought John Deere was supposed to be about All-American good times and taking back what’s rightfully yours: the land. This 843J is some straight xenophobia-inducing technology. Like the 3600, it’s a feller-buncher, but in this case I can’t help but think about this thing turning the world’s lumber supply into an alien brain parasite delivery system.

It doesn’t take much watching of the video to see that the T.26a not only knows it’s pure evil, but enjoys it. It just lumbers about destroying everything in its path, and could probably do so with a smoke or two in its mouth. The only way it could possibly be beaten would be to run out of fuel, which isn’t happening any time soon with all of these fuel-efficient cars running about. Look at the end of the video where it just flexes its terror discs like it doesn’t give a crap. It’s so smug, and for good reason. A few more Exxon-Valdez incidents are humanity’s only hope the Bracke Forest menace. Disc trenchers are used to clear heavy brush, cut fire breaks, and help smash paths in the rubble-filled wasteland that the T.26a will most assuredly turn the Earth into.

This is a giant fucking saw that walks. What else do you need to know? The night after I heard about this monstrosity I had a dream I was snowshoeing through Alaska getting chased by it. It moves like a bug. It can chop massive trees down in seconds. How many of these would it take to dominate the planet? Three? How has it not been used in a zombie movie yet, being piloted by zombies? Even more frighteningly, Timberjack just happens to be a sub-brand of John Deere. So let’s break this down: lovable John Deere, with all their toy tractors for kids, has a face-sucker and an insectoid vehicle in their arsenal, and both can be equipped with any number of giant automatic saws. With machines like that, we don’t even have to worry about the forests all disappearing and the entire planet turning into a polluted, extinct desert. We’ll all already be dead.

h/t

OroVerde