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.
 
stig said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
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