by Larry Trojak

In the realm of overused clichés, “Right tool for the job,” might just be king, being used to describe the perfect solution for a vexing problem. Occasionally though, one tool so outperforms any alternative or any previous method, that what was once simply cliché becomes fact. This was proven in a site-clearing project for a gas company undertaken by Metzler Forest Products (MFP). For years, MFP had tackled those projects—essentially the clearing of an area, followed by logging of the timber and grinding of the residual green waste/woody debris—using first an excavator-mounted bucket and thumb, then later a traditional fixed-mount grapple, to feed a horizontal grinder. While effective, company equipment operators and management alike saw the grinder-feeding portion of the operation as inefficient and costly in terms of equipment wear. Seeking an alternative tool for this function, they chose a rotating Power Attachment grapple from Rotobec. The ability to rotate the grapple rather than having to reposition the excavator for access to the grinder’s infeed hopper immediately improved onsite efficiencies while dramatically reducing wear on the base machine’s undercarriage. That, in turn, “fattened the company’s bottom line,” a cliché they were only too happy to embrace.

Range of Services

Established in 1986, Metzler Forest Products serves the entire state of Pennsylvania and has tackled projects in neighboring New York and Virginia as well. The company provides a broad range of services including land clearing, excavation, timber harvesting, custom grinding, and more. According to Alan Metzler, company president, even those descriptions only touch upon the full scale of their capabilities.

“We do so much more within each of those categories,” he says. “For example, in land clearing, we clear for everything from highways, to airport runways, to right-of-way for gas, water, and electric lines, to golf courses, to commercial and residential development. Our excavation capabilities cover stream restoration, creation of timber haul roads and stream crossings, site work for agriculture and commercial development, wildlife food construction, and generation of high-quality screened topsoil and topsoil blends.”

In addition to all that, MFP has a robust chipping operation that provides clean paper chips to area paper mills and board plants, and a commitment to provide natural and colored mulch to both the general public and local landscapers.

Production Lost

While obviously diverse in nature, one common thread runs through many of MFP’s capabilities: the need to process material that has been cleared from a job site. It was in that facet of the operation that MFP first started noticing the shortcomings of their grinder feeding operation. According to Max Peachey, the company’s Grinder Supervisor, though it was not a logjam, it was definitely more than a hindrance.

“The grinding operation is one of the key components to our land clearing efforts,” he says.  “We have a pair of CBI 5800 horizontal grinders that are outstanding pieces of equipment and will grind almost anything we can feed them.  However, they are only making money for us when they have material running through them—and that was the problem.  Feeding them with either a bucket and thumb or a standard grapple was slowing down productivity.”

Part of the problem, says Peachey, is the fact that the excavator has to be perpendicular to the grinder to place material into its infeed hopper. That generally means that if the machine is not in the right position for loading the grinder, he would have to jockey himself back and forth until it was.

“That may not seem like a big deal,” he says, “until you realize that, in the time it takes to line up for the right angle, the grinder has already processed the previous load and has been sitting idle, using fuel and waiting for more material.  Do that over and over again throughout the course of a day and you’ve lost a lot of production.”

And, adds Metzler, the constant movement of the excavator was also taking its toll in terms of undercarriage wear.  “A machine that has to continually move to have the right access to the infeed hopper is adding undue wear on the undercarriage.  So, no only were we losing throughput on the grinders, we were increasing maintenance costs on the machines feeding them.  We started seriously looking at alternatives.”

Flexing Some Muscle

The solution, Metzler and his team knew, was a grapple that could rotate, thereby moving the payload, not the machine. After a good deal of research, they chose Rotobec, contacted Cleveland Brothers, the dealer serving the area, and made their first Power Attachment grapple purchase.  The difference was immediate and impressive says Peachey.

“It really made all the difference in the world to our operators,” he says. “Now they say that it is so easy to pick up and place a load—whether it is logs, brush, mulch, pipe, whatever—that they almost see it as an extension of their arm. That’s how comfortable they are working with it.”

Continuous positioned rotation is what differentiates the Rotobec Power Attachment grapple Metzler chose—the RPA 3045R—from standard grapples so commonly in use today. The full cycle of material handling or processing, from grabbing to placement, is made faster, more efficient and—by nature of smoother movement—safer, by simply rotating the attachment to the correct position. It is precisely this advantage that has allowed Metzler’s crew to excel in the gas line clearing project mentioned above.

“A job like clearing for a gas well pad is a perfect example of just how valuable a tool like this can be,” says Peachey. “At that site in north-central PA, we’ve used it for everything from helping with the tree-felling operation, to separating and stacking logs, to feeding brush and wood waste to the grinder, to re-grinding material for mulch production. In addition, the grapple offers a 70-inch (1778 mm) opening which allows for larger payloads and less movement back and forth to the pile. We couldn’t do a fraction of what we do now with a standard grapple, let alone a bucket and thumb.”

Three and Counting

Today, Metzler Forest Products owns three Power Attachment grapples: two of the larger RPA4570R models and one model RPA 3045R, and uses Rotobec grapples on their log loaders. While the attachments’ performance was key to MFP choosing Rotobec, Alan Metzler says it is they way they were treated by the company after making that first purchase that has kept them coming back.

“We are big believers in treating our customers well, and were pleased to have found an equipment supplier in Rotobec that shares that philosophy,” he says. “Over the years we’ve really developed a nice relationship with them; we’ve been lucky finding both Rotobec and CBI.”

He says that, when they were first going through their evaluation process, they knew for quite a while that Rotobec was the company with whom they would eventually go. At first they hesitated making that investment, however, thinking they could get by just a bit longer with what they had.

“But now that we have that rotational ability—and the benefits that came along with it—we can’t imagine being without the Rotobec tools. Our business has survived and grown, largely because we have diversified, tackling new projects and new markets. It’s not a stretch to say that our grapples have both helped us make inroads in those markets, and helped keep us profitable doing so. They’ve really been an outstanding fit for us.”