January 2001 - Logging and Sawmilling Journal -

The old yellow and black school bus may be a bittersweet memory of childhood, but loggers at Anything For A Buck Contracting Ltd are still taking the bus with them to every job site. In fact, they wouldn't want to be without it. Those rows of sturdy seats that contained generations of hyperactive school kids have since been stripped away and the bus interior converted to a mobile support system. "We run older machines and we have to be able to fix and look after them," explains Arlan Wium, who runs Anything For A Buck from a base at Burns Lake in central British Columbia.

Arlan Wium started off subcontracting skidder work before establishing Anything For A Buck Contracting 20 years ago. The contractor has some vintage logging equipment, but it's in good shape. "We run older machines and we have to be able to fix and look after them," says Wium.

The old school bus contains a neatly organized and comprehensive parts inventory in imperial and metric sizes. It's also a repair shop, fitted with everything from grinder and chain sharpener to air compressor and welding equipment. It provides separate storage space for all manner of equipment useful to a resourceful contractor intent on keeping equipment running well. And run it does. Consider the Keto 500 harvester, which is closing in on a remarkable 16,000 hours of bush work, spread over six years. "We've never done any major overhauls on it," says Wium. Track frames and motors have been replaced but, for example, the pins and bushings in the track feed system are original.

The Keto's been double shifted, putting in up to 20hour days, functioned well in temperatures down to 35C and worked in much bigger wood than it was designed for. "And we've trained five operators on it," adds Wium. "It's been a really dependable head ." Clearly something else is going on here to extract such exemplary performance. "We service our equipment really well. Operators spend an hour a day greasing and fixing, and you find other things when you're greasing ." Things like loose bolts, weakening or leaking hoses, or a broken pin perhaps. Wium tries to keep one operator to each machine to get to know it really well. Wium's been around the block a few times as a logging contractor.

He started off subcontracting skidder work 28 years back and established Anything For A Buck Contracting 20 years ago. His crews log between 35,000 and 40,000 cubic metres annually for Babine Forest Products' sawmill complex near Burns Lake. Anything For A Buck is the "go to" contractor for sensitive, steep and right-of-way applications, any situation that doesn't require a major contractor, says Wium. The reason is the company has the adaptability and versatility to tackle the array of assignments. That's reflected in the company's equipment fleet. It includes a 1987 Case 1187 B carrier for the Keto and another for a feller buncher head used to pick up extra volume. A Ranger 66F grapple skidder and Cat D4H move the felled and processed timber and a Kenworth or Western Star self loading logging truck transports the wood to Babine's mill yard.

About five people typically work for the delightfully named Anything For A Buck Contracting. Wium adapted the name from an old Bob Newhart TV show and it helps keep the tongue firmly planted in the cheek, a useful attribute these days. In July, 2000, Wium bought a new Keto 525 on the stump harvester with a 14inch top saw from its Finnish manufacturer Hakmet. "The biggest reason for choosing the 525 was I liked the other Keto. With every head you have to retrain and learn its quirks, so don't do that if you don't have to. It takes about a year to become really efficient with a new head," he says. Hakmet makes 14 harvester and processor models including the Keto 1000, the largest on the market with a 39inch opening.

The 525 TS is a singlegrip, dangletype head weighing around 2,750 pounds and best suited to harvesting trees in the 20inch diameter range. "Akey statement, I think, is if you're looking for a harvesting head for 20inch wood don't buy one with a 20inch maximum capability," says Jack MacLeod of Forest Harvesting Equipment Ltd, the Keto rep based in New Westminster, BC. You get more from a machine and it's easier on it if most of its work is within and not right at the limit of its design parameters, he says. Ketos have a powered track rather than wheeled feed system. In the 525 TS, the two tracks are almost 29 inches long and seven inches wide, providing a larger footprint or surface contact with the tree.

That means better control of the tree, says MacLeod. Two track gear motors attached to sprockets directly drive the tracks without reduction gears at speeds up to 16.4 ft/sec. Keto offers three different tracks including its zero fibre damage level of aggressiveness. The large track footprint means it's possible to run at lower pressures with less load on hydraulic lines, says MacLeod. The 525 TS has approximately 6,860 lbs of pull at a pressure of 3,800 psi. Pressure and flow control takes place in the carrier's valves and pumps, which are proportionally controlled by either the operating pressure or set and adjusted, via the computer for smooth and precise control.

The Hakmet computer system has a standard dual measuring capability for length, diameter and volume. Anew software package allows correct measurement even if one track slips. Wium says his new 525 has superior up and down tilt which permits cutting small trees, holding and turning them under a firmer grip, he explains. The feature has helped reduce chain saw bar bending problems by about 25 per cent. Production is a function of tree size and operating conditions. But in the good going, Wium figures the 525 can fall and process 100 to 160 trees an hour. But in poorer going and where there's no room to swing, that might drop to only 50 trees an hour.

The company and contractor have developed a good working relationship through the years. When Wium looks at layouts and makes suggestions, Babine listens. In the rightofway situation, for example, the wood was removed from a gradual hillside leading away from a small stream classified as fish bearing. He alerted Babine which dispatched crews to insert hay bales in ditches to contain any potential deleterious runoff. The precaution proved unnecessary, but it demonstrates an attitude. "Water quality is important to everyone," says Wium. "Something we can all do is care for the environment. When we see a potential problem we can do something about fixing it ." It's kind of the same reason Anything For A Buck goes to work in a school bus.

The most recent addition to Anything For A Buck Contracting's is a new Keto 525 on the stump harvester, with a 14inch top saw, from Finnish manufacturer Hakmet. Arlan Wium says the 525 is an improvement over his faithful Keto 500.

You could say that Finland's Lauri Ketonen, who developed the Keto head, has always been interested in mechanical things. Even as a young boy, Ketonen could be found taking apart and rebuilding household items just to see how they work. At 13, the mechanically minded Ketonen won local fame by building a farm tractor from a scrapped car transmission, engine and other parts. In the mid1970s, while taking a masters degree in mechanical engineering, a group of students including Ketonenwere asked to look for possible improvements that could be made to the newly developed single grip harvesters and processors. Single grip harvesting/processing equipment was still in its infancy at the time and most early processors had difficulty delivering enough tractive effort and delimbing force to shear limbs quickly and reliably.

Ketonen felt that utilizing a tracked feed system, rather than spiked rollers, would increase tractive effort and decrease spin outjust as it does with a dozer or tracked excavator. It was no surprise that in 1978 Ketonen modified a farm tractor to help him prove his new concept and optimize tracked feed roller geometry. Starting out in his garage, Ketonen patented his designs and began building his new tracked single grip processing heads for local logging contractors in the western part of Finland. Tracked log measuring was soon added. KoneKetonen Ltd.(or Ketonen Machine) was established in 1984.

Over the years as business grew, the original facilities went through some 20 expansions and additions and now encompass 80,000 square feet of fabrication and assembly space. Today, some 2,300 Keto harvesting heads later, Ketonen employs 35 people and leads one of the largest harvesting head companies in the world, producing between 250 to 300 heads a year. Keto Developer a Born Tinkerer Lauri Ketonen (left) developer of the Keto head and Erkki Kukkonen, vicepresident of Hakmet Ltd. The small harvesting head directly in front of Ketonen cuts trees up to 18" and was the first Keto ever sold. He bought it back from the contractor and is restoring an old carrier to mount it on. The large new head to the right is a Keto 1000. It cuts 32" diameter timber and is one of the largest capacity single grip harvesting heads in the world.

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GOTO Contractor

Anything For A Buck Contracting has developed a reputation as the people to go to for logging in sensitive and steep slope areas.

By Jim Stirling