Awesome Loftness forestry mulcher on a Kubota SVL95

Neil from Messick's here with Blake from Loftness and a forestry mulcher. Blake's going to walk us around this equipment and help me and you guys understand what makes a good mulcher. 

Blake Evanson: Hi. Blake Evanson with Loftness specialized equipment. We're a family-owned company at 65 years old. We're based in Hector, Minnesota and we make anything from forestry mulchers that you see here to grain bagging equipment, crop shredders, excavator attachments, a little bit of everything for vegetation management and the agricultural world. 

Neil: This is called the Battle Ax Forestry Mulcher, right? 

Blake: Yes, sir. 

Neil: Walk me around the-- [crosstalk] 

Blake: This is our newest version we came out with, newest rotor design. It comes in a 61-inch width and 71-inch cutting width. We do our widths by what we actually cut not the overall machine. This machine here can come in two motor variations. This one, in particular, has a variable displacement motor, you can also get it in a fixed displacement motor. You have three different tooth options. This here is hardened steel, you can sharpen these teeth. You also have a hard-surface version where they self-sharpen, and you also have a double carbide version which is your longest-lasting, it takes more of the abuse. 

Neil: You mentioned the motors there, there being a gear pump and a variable displacement pump, functionally, how does that impact the machine? 

Blake: For the lower horsepowers on your 75 Kubota SVL75, you could run the fixed motor which doesn't have enough horsepower to actually get the full benefit of the variable displacement motors. When you jump up to the 95's, you want the variable displacement, it acts like a transmission in your truck. On a larger diameter of material, you will get a shift point as soon as you lift off that shift point it'll decrease your RPMs and increase your torque, and as soon as you lift off that motor responsive peaks. 

Neil: Is it functionally like a two-speed track motor like we had, more or less? 

Blake: Yes. Similar. Same concept. 

Neil: How does that shift, is it a load-sensing thing? 

Blake: It's a load sensor at the psi. There's three different settings in the motor and they come from the factory set up for what carrier we're going to be putting them on. This knows the psi of your Kubota, at that certain shift point, it'll downshift and upshift on the pressure caused by your rotor. 

Neil: We're looking at the underside of it here. What are the different parts that we're looking at here? 

Blake: The difference of ours and some of the competitor units, we run a shear bar similar to a whole tree chipper. This has four different cutting sides on it and you can adjust it closer or further away from your teeth to get different sized material. This also reduces all of your wear on the inside of your shell or your machine. A lot of the competitors will sell inside shell, replaceable shells for about $3,500. We've run a whole shear bar, this here retails for about $250. I've literally sold probably three of them in five years. They don't really wear out. 

Neil: What is doing the work here, then? I guess the tooth is taking chunks off and then they're getting cut again against the shear bar? 

Blake: The initial cut is coming down when you're grinding it. All your regrind materials when you're back dragging, you're going to bring all the material into this bar, you're going to get that small gap in between that all that material is sitting in here and getting chopped off as you go in, that's where you get your small chips. 

Neil: Really, you're cutting it twice. You're taking a big chip off with the tooth and then using the shear bar to make small chips? 

Blake: Yes. 

Neil: Would that be different then, if you were to say compare among different companies that what you're producing as far as chips is going to look different? 

Blake: Ours is going to be finer chip and less passes. All mulchers in general, you'll drive forward, grind the tree down and then you'll back up over to get your final product. We just have to do that less, less back dragging to get that finer chip. A lot of the competitors' units, something similar, it's simple. This bar, you can actually use as an extra set of hands, you don't have to get out of your machine to replace that tree that might have fell the wrong way, get a tree out of the ditch bank and pull it back to where you're grinding. A lot of the competitor units will stop about here when you're about a foot away, so you still have to get out of that machine, you still have to-- 

Neil: I follow you. Everybody uses that bar to push the tree over? 

Blake: Yes, sir. 

Neil: But you've added additional parts onto it to be able to then manipulate it once it's on the ground? 

Blake: Yes. The way our hitch plate is designed, you've got a lot more roll than the competitor's units and with that design, you also have-- These hoses are still very loose, you don't have the strain that you will on the competitor units of constant pull on your hydraulics. You still have very open play on these hoses so it does not stress on either our attachment or the carriers. 

Neil: Cool. That seems really smart because that potentially removes needing to have another attachment, right? 

Blake: Or getting in and out, safety concerns in and out of the machine. 

[video cut] 

Blake: The new generation of the Battle Ax, you're going to notice we have this. This is our bite limiter design. A similar concept as a raker tooth on a chain saw. You still have your bump that limits your cut, so you still have that half-inch cut. Unlike a lot of the competitor ring rotor, you'll see the rings that are all through and that's their limiter. With the rings, you reduce the amount of material that can actually be vacuumed into the machine. With these bite limiters, we can still take the chunk, but you still have your [unintelligible 00:05:52] rotor design to bring all that material that's on the ground into the machine and process it. 

Neil: It's like a low kickback chain on a chainsaw, basically? 

Blake: Exactly. 

Neil: You're right. That profile looks exactly the same. 

Blake: No, we've not tried to reinvent the wheel here, we're taking things that have been proven for hundreds of years, incorporating it into our equipment and just make it simple, user-friendly, and effective. 

Neil: It makes perfect sense that you point that out, but I wouldn't have looked at that and thought that. That's cool. 

Blake: There's only one tooth hitting on this rotor at a time. A lot of the competitors will have multiple teeth hitting. We're only taking one impact at a time on this tooth design, so it's a lot less drag on the machine and a lot more efficient. 

Neil: If you would and you lined all these things up, you would have a tooth the entire way across, right? 

Blake: Yes, but only one will actually-- The way that's designed, there's only one tooth will hit. If you have a whole machine, a whole clump, you're only having one tooth hit at a time. Single-bolt design to take your teeth in and out. A lot of the competitors also have the double-bolt. This is new on this Battle Ax design as well. 

Neil: How long are the teeth on something like this? Is it depending on what you're cutting, or? 

Blake: It's your biggest fight and any of the mulching ours or anyone's had is your dirt, how much you are [unintelligible 00:07:05] on the ground. On the standard teeth you see here, hardened steel, you're about 150 hours on a set. These are flippable and sharpenable. You have two cutting edges on it, you can self-sharpen with a grinder or you can throw them out depending on what your application is. Your next step-up is your hardened tooth, you're getting about 275 to 300 hours out of those and the next step-up from there is your carbide. Carbide, minimum, you get about 350 up to about 550 depending on the applications where you're at and how you want the product to look. 

Neil: Tell me a little bit, what kind of track loader is appropriate for an attachment like this, and which ones are not? How much machine does it take to pull this one? 

Blake: The minimum you want is 30 gallons a minute. Obviously, the higher the gallon per minute and higher pressure, the better performance on these type of attachments. The 75 Kubota is going to be the smallest attachment of the Kubota family. I would put one on, 30 gallons a minute on up to 45 are our recommended size for the skid-steer versions. 

Neil: Then on the machine itself, I know you usually want demo glass in here, right? 

Blake: Yes. You definitely want a demo door installed on any brand size, anything you do with mulching equipment, you definitely want a demo door. We do offer an auxiliary hydraulic cooler that matches right up to the top of the SPL95. It comes with a complete mounting bracket, no alterations needed for your cab. We also have a hose kit that comes with it already pre-designed, pre-cut, pre-everything, for your mechanics. 

Neil: I have seen some guys actually running these without cooling packages on them before because, obviously, we're doing it right here. That is possible, but that wouldn't be a good idea, right? 

Blake: You can run it both ways. If you're going to be in these machines eight, 10 hours a day and you're making a full job of it, especially in the heat of the summer, the auxiliary cooler is definitely going to help keep your machine run cool. It's only going to prolong the life of your hydraulics. It runs with your machine no matter during a high-flow attachment or not, it's always going to be continuing cooling your hydraulics. 

Neil: Even just as we were standing here for that six minutes that you just ground, the hoses are already warm, it's obviously making a lot of heat. 

Blake: Another thing on the Loftness itself, we have four different pulley configurations and three different motor settings. Out of our factory, they come preset for the machine it's going on. A lot of the competitors will send you a machine and say they'll run between 30 and 45 gallons a minute. "Here's your machine. Good luck." We take pride in self-tuning the machine for what it's actually going on to get the best performance. 

Neil: If you have a customer moving that unit from one machine to the next, are those adjustments that they're able to make? 

Blake: Yes. On the motor, it takes literally five minutes. On the pulley configuration, it's a little more in-depth, it takes probably about a half-hour to change those pulleys to get your right RPM on your motor, but yes, anyone can do it. 

[engine revving] 

Neil: Blake, thanks for taking the time out here with us today and above all thanks for grinding that tree up. A couple of things that I learned, I have run these before in demo type situations but I haven't seen it done before in your technique of going in, breaking the thing up in the middle and pulling back over across it. I tend to just crash through things as a novice. I shouldn't even call myself an operator. 

Blake: I can operate it. I'm not an operator either. 

Neil: Those guys are a step beyond us sales guys. That's for sure. 

Blake: Yes, sir. 

Neil: Cool to see how this was able to work. In six minutes we went here from a standing tree and a really old stump to a bunch of mulch on the ground which is impressive. They're not inexpensive machines but for a job that needs to be done, you can't beat that. That's for sure. 

Blake: No. I appreciate taking the time and effort and bringing on product line to your dealerhsip. 

Neil: Cool. Thank you. If you guys have any attachment needs, if you could use a forestry mulcher or you need parts of service support for equipment you've already got, give us a call at Messick's. We're available at 800-222-3373 or online at messicks.com