Mayer Tree

I am thinking about the human jobs displaced by machines like Sennebogan. On the other hand… there are probably some (but less) jobs maintaining Sennebogans. I wonder how many mechanics Mayer has in-house and how many Sennebogan factory techs are on standby?
 
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  • #77
Idk but while they certainly require some maintenance, after watching 2 of em work for a couple hours, the routine maintenance looks minimal as they are highly similar to an excavator.

Distintinctive Tree was working on I-95 in town for approx 2 weeks and one day while I was driving by around 6 pm where their machines were parked by an on-ramp, I stopped and chatted with the foreman. They were doing prep work prior to the start of the shift, greasing and lubing and cleaning windows etc. The ground guy was filing a saw (the ground guy's main job is to cut stumps lower which for whatever reasons of angles and/or reach, the Sennebogan can't cut low enough, but there aren't many of those. The foreman was the brains of the crew and the lead operator in the company. He said the Seenebogans are quite reliable but the Albach giant chipper they use in tandem with the Senneboggens are German-made and a bit finicky and give some headaches due to sensor issues and the like.

Prior to working with Distinctive, he said he had alot of mechanized land clearing experience. He looked to be in his early 30s, soft spoken, and among other things, said he is their only operator of their Fallbach machine ( another even larger, heavier duty grapple tree cutting machine mounted on a Grove 3060 chassis which is noted earlier in this thread), a $1.5 million machine. And he said the Senneboggens are indeed highly capable and productive but to run one effectively you have to be a good operator and also know trees and tree-cutting or you could get into trouble with it. He said that in the cutting head there are (at least )two hydraulic motors and if you happened to blow them out by taking and then losing too big of a piece, it's $50k to replace them.

As I was chatting it occurred to me I had 2 crane jobs on the books that were very close (within a 1/2 mile) of their current work site so I asked if they ever sub out the machine for quick hitters nearby. He said sometimes yes and he'd try to take a look so I texted him the addresses . One job was a large, bushy Norway Maple 6' from a house and the other was two 40' white pines in back yard behind a fence off end of driveway at edge of large patio and pool. Having seen the Senneboggen work I figured the maple was maybe 20 minutes worth of work (after a 45 second set up :dude: ) vs 2 hours with a crane and the pines would be 10 minutes vs 45 minutes with a crane. I never heard back from the kid but nevertheless, those descriptions give you an idea of the capabilities.

The Senneboggens require a flat bed and tractor for transport to job site but I was daydreaming that with my micro work area, I could get a license plate for it and easily road it to every job ;):dude:.
 
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Good luck with that machine in Europe.
We don't have the easy access that Americans do.
That is why our chippers are way smaller, too.

I bring in a Ponsse Buffallo with a harvester cutting unit for the very few jobs where it is feasible, but I sure don't see it as any kind of competition.
 
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  • #79
My understanding is Senneboggens were originally designed and manufactured in europe/Germany for markets there. They rule for roadside clearing and cutting back. Mayer was the first to utilize them in 'Merica.

Another interesting thing I observed about the Senneboggens doing town work here- on the I-95 work and the vids I've seen online, they work in concert with a huge yet relatively compact Albach chipper if they are chipping simultaneously rather than just stacking brush and moving on. But the RI guys cutting town trees on busy roadways here were using your basic Morbark 18" chipper blowing into your basic forestry body bucket truck. At a glance I thought that was bizarre but thinking on it, it makes sense, maybe not the perfect set up but plenty good because the Senneboggen cuts a big bushy piece and sets it directly by chipper chute, then a ground guy cripples or bucks it as needed for the chipper to handle and then the S. feeds each piece into the chipper and puts the logs aside out of the way, thus resulting in MASSIVE time and labor savings. The chipper guy just has to pick up a few twigs on the ground after 99% of the piece has been handled by the S. and the chipper.

And when the tree is finished, the S. quickly loads their dump trucks with the logs to be carted off, thus eliminating the need for their bobcat to load the wood which is how they used to do it for the most part.
 
Good luck with that machine in Europe.
We don't have the easy access that Americans do.
That is why our chippers are way smaller, too.

I bring in a Ponsse Buffallo with a harvester cutting unit for the very few jobs where it is feasible, but I sure don't see it as any kind of competition.

I’ve never heard of this easy access you speak?
 
Ever tried driving a Volkswagen bus through a Portuguese town and had to take the side mirrors off to avoid scraping them off?
 
are 7A13200A-48CE-450B-89C9-172D8EF85DAD.jpeg 6B9F7CE6-3C31-46C9-B6A3-68373F68CBE8.jpeg 5F1824BC-BEF7-487C-B8C9-95C115945262.jpeg 59EF6926-2C1A-4AE7-82F5-4A55B7CCFF50.jpeg There are senebogans in the UK and are used mainly on roadside works. Grapple saws are becoming more common and are put on various bases - excavators and merlo rotos being the most popular as they are so adaptable. We hired this impressive machine and operator in from a local company - it has a GMB 500 head on it - 50cm cut and is insanely productive compared to a climber or conventional crane on the right job - it is the future for much of our work.
 
I can't even dream of it. Maybe in an other life if I'm lucky and if my brain is wired differently. :D
 
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  • #88
Yeah aite, bump.

The OP date is 2010. Since then, the Mayer Effect has spread slowly but surely in the northeast area. There is one outfit in my hood, "Rayzors Edge" and actually quite a few in MA and NH- East Coast Tree service, Tree Masters, Marquis, Warwick Tree service, etc etc etc. All with at least one if not multiple massive (100t) cranes, gigantic chippers, and the accompanying massive fleet of massive log and chip trucks. Plus Sennebogans and Merlos thrown into the mix. And fairly huge service areas to feed these dragons.

I guess I'm posting because.... basically I don't get it.

When Mayer was rolling deep and presumably the only one doing it, the concept of running around with giant cranes and doing mass quantities of tree removal was wild but perhaps fathomable if you can get past the notion that most every tree removal has the threat of being very dangerous with or without crane use. So you gotta have good sales force to keep it rolling and good workers to get it done at a profit. And if those workers are that good, presumably many will leave to start their own thing.

Now, with many similarly huge, well equipped outfits in the area, the concept perhaps gets even trickier as completion increases. And one wonders how there are any trees left in MA :|:

And let's say you are in construction and own a boat load of large, expensive equipment- that stuff tends to stay on site for days or weeks or months until moving to a new project. These tree outfits are moving the iron even single day. Seems like a rat race kinda. Are they making big bank?

Here's an IG post from one guy parting out his Grove. Did it tip? I guessing so. Oh well, just get another, bigger million dollar crane and go even harder!?!

 
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  • #89
Dan Mayer himself always said, when asked how can you afford these cranes doing treework, that the cranes make so much money so fast, he couldnt possibly afford not to have them.

But still, when 'everyone' has a huge crane, does the metric change?
 
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  • #91
I'm probably just too small-time to fathom it all
 
From what my cousin has told and shown me, crane work is very common in the big city. Apparently his company will bring a crane in for many removals that I wouldn't have considered it needed for. The folks he's working for are a relatively small business, and are constantly in need of climbers and ground crew. So I'm really not sure about the monies.

For some reason that I can't fathom, all the treeple I meet consider a crane to be an aspirational acquisition.
 
There are a ton of big dollar machines within 20 minutes of me. 4090, 4100, various boom trucks, Palfinger, Sennebogan, and Merlo.
 
I'm sure they pay off , many Tree outfits here have become Crane owner operators .... I'm sure if payments are due and Treework is slow there's plenty other rig and hoist work around , roof trusses and HVAC systems come to mind
 
I would have thought construction crane work involving known weights, picking off the ground/truck with precise distancing would be infinitely preferable (and more lucrative) to tree work for crane operators.

Just my thoughts, from a position of knowing eff all about it.
 
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  • #97
There are a ton of big dollar machines within 20 minutes of me. 4090, 4100, various boom trucks, Palfinger, Sennebogan, and Merlo.
You worked at the kind of large outfit I'm referencing. Was it a kinda crazy rat race or was it more casual, given that once a crane is on site and set up, the resulting tree removal tends to be hugely easier and faster than doing it sans crane.
 
It depends on the operator. If they get cranky, they can f the ground crew over pretty hard, and there is no reason for it. Huge pics that don't fit in the drop zone. Pushing to set the next pic when the ground crew is understaffed. It's definitely the way to go, if the $$ is right, however.
 
But still, when 'everyone' has a huge crane, does the metric change?

No, i think it's safe to say that in some markets at least that's now considered "the way." It's been moving that way for awhile, and it won't be overnight, but they've proven that if you really wanna make bank cutting trees then that's how it's done, nothing else even comes close. @lumberjack had a tree mek, same tool basically although i think what mayer is running is a bunch bigger. It's a tale as old as time, new machine and methodology replaces labor, and the owners of said machinery make a ton more money if they can feed it. When excavators and large earth moving equipment first came on the scene it was the same thing for companies that hand dug everything with a ton of guys, how could they afford all that just to dig a hole? But a few decades after their introduction there were no companies left that didn't have them, and gone were the huge crews of guys with shovels. Today no one could even imagine doing even a moderate sized earth moving job without machinery, labor would simply cost too much, even landscaping companies eventually go the way of machinery and as they do they become more and more profitable. Of course you still have guys digging by hand, but it's nothing compared to what it used to be. The large expensive machinery is cheaper than paying labor costs.

You have chainsaws, a chipper, large trucks, a huge loader, a lift, and even rent cranes for the exact same reason; because simply owning or using these things makes you wayyyyyyy more profitable. Is it possible to cut trees by climbing on 3 strand with handsaws and axes only? Of course it is, trees bigger than I've ever seen were logged on an industrial scale using just that, but today you would never be able to compete against the modern tools we all take for granted now. I was a lurker when everyone was debating if they should get a mini skid, and the obvious consensus became "you can't afford not to." Now it's all about the mini articulated loaders for most markets, because they're even more productive than a mini. The overwhelming theme is that iron makes more money than labor, the bigger it is the less it can get to everything, but you don't need to cut every tree. Just as earthmoving equipment didn't eliminate hand digging, there's always a place for the old school ways, but it's going to get smaller and smaller over time as the iron gets big enough to simply overpower the limitations, or small enough to fit in places nothing else can get to. Just as the lifts have gotten bigger and bigger over the years the cranes and other lifting machines will become quicker to deploy with greater capacity with grapple saws, and will slowly edge out the lifts because it eliminates a guy. Climbing will be minimized even more as the spider lifts and then spider cranes can sneak in the hard to access places with ever increasing reach and capacity, driven by and designed for the construction industry and then becoming common enough to be used for other applications like trees. Little did i know that the story of John Henry was probably the most important and prophetic story i would learn in school :lol:


I would have thought construction crane work involving known weights, picking off the ground/truck with precise distancing would be infinitely preferable (and more lucrative) to tree work for crane operators.

Around here the only crane hire guys that will do trees are owner operators, but they're a very small minority of the cranes being used (some tree companies do have their own here). Most cranes are either owned by construction companies or crane hire companies that only do construction jobs, because that's where the money's at (industrial and large commercial work). A tree guy could conceivably get to a point where they could hire out to do construction, but the reality is that operators on construction jobs have gone to school to do that, and are familiar with the tasks at hand. I'm union, so we only work with union operators who have all the required certifications and up to date training, so that's another big hurdle too for the tree guy aspiring to do construction, as the big jobs in the country are usually union. There's plenty of non union work too, but the market is hard to break into, changing trades/ what you're good at and know on the fly is hard enough but even harder when dealing with a highly regulated industry with huge price tags and usually enough competition to make the profit margins surprisingly small at times. The osha fines alone for not having all the required stuff is enough to bankrupt a company, so it's a very tough and unforgiving industry to work in, even worse than trees, because tree care was exempted from the majority of it. The cranes are often different too, what makes a great crane for trees is limited in construction because of design tradeoffs, and there's bonding so if you can't do the job on the dates agreed to you literally could have to pay for a competitor to do it for you.

Construction is an entirely different world, where the companies involved and the guys doing it have been around large cranes their whole careers, and if you think picking trees apart is hard try flying tanks and stuff into running chemical plants by radio contact only, use 2 cranes to invert it, fly it through the roof, lower it a bit, wait while it's turned to fit, boom up to drift a couple inches, lower another foot or so, swing a couple inches, spin again... The weights aren't known perfectly either, and we've done ones where the lifting trunnions were deemed insufficient so we had to weld new stuff on, and then torch it free so if they did the math wrong everyone there dies as the tank and crane crash into the live plant, which has a bunch of hydrogen and toxic chemical tanks and lines running everywhere. I've been on a job that used the largest crawler on the continent at the time, so to construction guys a 100 ton is just the same as a broderson, a crane, each with their own place, strengths, and limitations. The old school lattice booms are still really popular because they do certain jobs so much better, such as pick and carry, duty cycle work like setting iron, and heavy lifts, so the usual telescopic boom that would be used for trees could likely be deemed insufficient despite being capable on paper.

I drug up (quit) to go to a different job before they had the big crane assembled, but here's a quick video of it on the local news there (7 hour drive from where i live). It did only 4 picks, the final pick was over a million pounds at just under 500 feet up. I'll admit i was blown away watching them set up for that, it's still the same as any other crane but the scale of it was really hard to understand because it was coming in on trucks in pieces randomly and was insanely huge. I spent all morning one day trying to figure out what a piece was until someone said it was a winch drum, holy crap it was so big i couldn't even visualize it.

 
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  • #100
That is one kick ass post 09, great insight and presentation.

I guess I'm still a bit in the dark about how to feed the crane enough trees. We rent a crane probably once or twice a month so I'm fully aware of the benefits but selling enough treework and then running around 4-5 days a week setting up and taking down that heavy equipment just seems like a lot.

You made good analogies re heavy equipment on construction sites being fully the norm but as I mentioned, that gear stays on site for days or weeks or months, not moving 2+ times/day.
 
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