Brand-new brand name: contractor Shawn MacPhee got Timberjack's first John Deere machines in North America. His latest purchase, the 1063 harvester, has his new commercial thinning operation humming

Canadian Forest Industries, Jul/Aug 2002 by McCallum, Bruce

Bowater is thinning its red spruce and balsam fir stands at 45-50 years of age. The company expects to conduct a final harvest in 10 to 20 years.

Four Criteria

MacPhee receives a base rate for wood to roadside plus a 25% performance bonus that is based on four categories: trail width, trail spacing, basal area removed, and harvest damage, which includes extraction. "We lose points for each item that does not meet the spec. We now lay out our own trails and do self-audits on each site. The company then audits our sites on a spot basis. We are typically receiving 90% of the available bonus, which I think is pretty good, but not good enough," he says.

MacPhee extracts his wood from the 1063 with his 1999 Timberjack 1010B. The 10-tonne 1010B forwarder is a good machine for this operation for several reasons, he says. "We don't currently produce enough wood to pay for a new forwarder. But the 1010B works well. It can handle the rocks and the hills and we often have long hauls, so that extra couple of tonnes that the 1010 can carry is a real plus." Bowater has a similar view. "The 1010 is a bit wide for a thinning operation. Ideally, we would like to have a somewhat smaller machine, but we do not have enough thinning in our eastern region to keep two harvesters busy and justify the investment in a smaller, thinning forwarder," Oxenham says.

Know their stuff

MacPhee Commercial Thinning is a three-man operation. Church and Stephen White run the new 1063 harvester. Originally, they were forwarder operators who graduated to harvesters. "You need the right operators with rubber-tired machines," MacPhee says. "Jaimie and Stephen know what they are doing and I don't have to watch over them." Forwarder operator Chris Densmore started in January. "I put him on a forwarder simulator for a couple of weeks and then he went straight onto the 1010B forwarder. The simulator has worked out just fine for my operations," MacPhee says.

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MacPhee is using the same split-shift system in his thinning operation that he uses in his clearcut operations. The working day starts at 5 a.m. and runs to 8:30 in the evening - 11.5 hours. Each operator has three hours of "off time," during which he does such tasks as sharpening chains, making up spare hoses, marking log piles. At 12:30, both operators spend up to an hour servicing the machine, greasing the head and all the grease points on the carrier, cleaning the rad filters, refueling, checking hoses on the head and making minor repairs. The split-shift system allows them to avoid working at night, a big plus from MacPhee's point of view.

Bowater Mersey Nova Scotia is so pleased with MacPhee's thinning operation that they are looking for another contractor to buy a thinning harvester and work in their western region, which extends from Liverpool to Annapolis Royal. "We have had a number of contractors express interest in this work, but financing is a big problem today. With all the turmoil in the forest industry in the past year, contractors are having difficulty financing new equipment," Oxenham says. "We have tried to interest Shawn MacPhee in this contract, but he is reluctant to work so far from home, given that he lives in Upper Rawdon, which is northeast of Halifax."