There is a variety of land clearing equipment that is commonly used on large land clearing and maintenance projects in order to clear the ground quickly, including horizontal grinders, whole tree chippers and wood chippers.
The Vermeer’s HG6800TX horizontal grinder. Courtesy of Vermeer
The Vermeer’s HG6800TX horizontal grinder is a horizontal grinder that can power through large materials like whole trees and large stumps.
According to Vermeer Australia’s National Specialist Technical Advisor, Steve Batchelor, the HG6800TX is built for land-clearing and pipeline right-of-way operations and offers a high-horsepower engine on a tracked machine with a compact design. Steve says:
“It’s a fairly powerful machine, and due to its functionality and features, it can handle both big and small materials.”
“The low side walls on the grinder are well-suited for feeding whole trees and other large objects with less restriction, which reduces the need for operator interaction with the material, a great safety feature.”
The feed roller in the HG6800TX can climb up to 1.27 metres, helping the machine to crush logs or stumps that need to be rolled, and allowing operator flexibility with different material types.
Steve also says that one key thing that operators need to think about when using the HG6800TX is choosing which tips to use, as different types of material need different tip types. Steve says:
“Vermeer Australia has a broad selection of grinder tips which allows you to choose the right tip to meet the demands of your specific job — processing waste faster and more efficiently.”
“Wide block tips are the most common within the industry and can be used for a variety of applications such as general land clearing, regrind and green waste. And the best part is they can be flipped over and used on the other side, basically giving the tip double the lifespan.”
“Wing tips on the other hand have quite a unique design, with an overlay of a carbide compound that helps with processing large-diameter woody material, mostly over 2ft. The narrow centre section helps the tip pierce the log, then the wings clean out the remainder.”
Steve says you can use different tips, but you need to make sure the tips on either end of the drum match, so you don’t put it out of balance.
“A common configuration is wide block tips on the outside of the walls, then wing tips in the middle. If you have green waste with a lot of chunky wood, it’s better to have wing tips to grind down the material better.”
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