Fighting above its weight: the new Levesque 240 processing head from Quadco is handling big and mixed wood, but without all the extra weight of its competitors

Canadian Forest Industries, May 2004 by Jamieson, Scott

Testing prototype equipment is nothing new to Hodgson's Chipping Ltd. of Truro, NS. The family operation of a father and his four sons tried out the first Peterson Pacific flail chipper to hit the woods back in 1989. Not only was their hands-on experience and feedback incorporated into the design of future Peterson chippers, but the 15-year-old chipper is still working as one of Hodgson's production models.

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Thus it's no surprise that the first Levesque 240 mixed-wood processing head from Quadco is cutting its teeth on one of the Hodgsons' job sites, despite the fact that the crew was more than happy with the processing heads it had been using to that point, a pair of Hornet processors.

"I had a hard time convincing myself to try the Levesque, because we've had such good luck with those Hornets," says Vaughn Hodgson, one of the four brothers and a leading force in the growing company. "But I kept an eye on the prototype as it was being made, and I liked a lot of the ideas that were being built into it. And we've never been afraid of trying something new."

It is also no surprise, then, that the head's early performance seems promising.

Team approach

Hodgson's Chipping is a full-service contracting outfit that does almost all of its harvesting for Kimberly-Clark. The operation was started 40 years ago by McKay Hodgson. One by one the logger's four sons have joined the fray.

For his part, 40-year-old Vaughn started in the operation in 1986, after finishing a heavy-duty mechanics course. Soon after, the operation began mechanizing, starting in 1989 with a rail delimber and that first Peterson chipper. Growth has been steady since, and today the operation employs 40, including the four sons. Vaughn works as mechanic, overseeing the whole operation in an effort to keep everything running smoothly. Surprisingly to some, he says the mix of four brothers and father has served Hodgson Chipping well over the past 15 years.

"It works well. We're each in charge of a different part of the operation, so we know it's all being looked after. My youngest brother, Dale, does the trucking, Roger's in charge of the logging operation in the woods, and Paul looks after the chipping operation. My father is president, and has a say in every aspect of the business."

Operations in the woods are divided into chipping and roundwood harvesting, with all phases handled internally. For chipping, a Tigercat 860 buncher fells for a trio of grapple skidders - a Tigercat 630 and John Deere 648 GIII that feed the newer Peterson chipper bought in 1994, while a Cat 525 feeds the original 1989 Peterson.

Up until a little while ago, the roundwood side consisted of a Tigercat 860 buncher feeding two Hornet processors working at the stump, followed by Rottne and Fabtek forwarders. When it comes to choosing carriers for the processors, the Hodgsons follow a unique strategy. After two years of double-shift bunching, feller bunchers go into the pre-retirement role of processor.

"We put about 4 000 hours on the bunchers a year, so after two years we get a new one, and convert the older one into a processor. It's an easy life for a carrier, and with those hours they do the job no problem. That way the frontline bunchers are always new. We've been doing that for a few years now, and it has worked out very well."

An older Prentice 620 buncher is used as a filler as required, or for odd jobs on private land. All the logging gear runs on two shifts, but Vaughn says they have found that a slower pace serves the chippers best.

"We've tried all kinds of shifts, including 24 hours, seven days a week, but with the chippers we find that if you can get the loads you need running single shifts five days a week, it's best all around. The logging gear is run on doubles five days a week, because it's too expensive not to, and to tell the truth, we couldn't buy new chippers and afford to make the payments on single shift, at least not for the first five years."

The chipping crew targets 55 loads per week per chipper, and farms out all chip hauling except for one tractor and chip van. For logs, the weekly production target for veneer, pulp, sawlogs and stud sorts combined is 2 000 tonnes, which is hauled using the crew's seven self-loading log haulers. One float for the logging gear and two shunt tractors for the chippers keep gear moving between sites.

Lean but still mean?

With the addition of the new Levesque 240 processor, mounted on a Tigercat 860, the crew will now run three processors in the hopes of picking up extra volume.

"That's where that extra buncher comes in," Vaughn explains of the Prentice 620 FB. "Two bunchers followed by three processors will make a good match for us."

The Levesque processor is billed by Quadco as a robust 24-in processor with plenty of power for hardwoods and plenty of speed for softwoods. This is done with 1 600 cc Valmet motors that apply 9 750 lb of feed force and allow 15 ft/sec of feed speed. Designed by the same Levesque brothers who invented the Target, the 240 is aimed right at the mixed and big wood processing market already served by the Hornet (or older Target models).