By Louis Anthony Loftus
October, 3, 2018 was the Continental Biomass Industries (CBI) & Ecotec Factory Forum at CBI’s facility in Newton, New Hampshire. CBI and Ecotec are Terex® brands that design and manufacture land clearing and of wood processing, biomass and recycling equipment.
The three-day event was an opportunity for the company’s U.S. and international customers to see live machine demonstrations of their equipment, including the new Magnum Force 6800CT Horizontal Grinder, and to attend technical workshops and presentations, as well as to visit historic Portsmouth Harbor. This year’s Factory Forum was the second and had special significance to CBI, as it coincided with the 30th anniversary of their founding in 1988.
Demonstrations of the merchandise—a mix of upswing and downswing grinders, flails, and drum chippers – was the main event. First up was an excavator-mounted log and stump screw, which made quick work of its woodpile. Next was the CBI 7544 Flail and Chipper. CBI recently combined its 604 flail debarker and 754 disc chipper. Armed with a 75 inch diameter chipper disc, the 7544 reduced a formidable stack of felled trees to a pile of playground-ready wood chips in a matter of minutes, spraying them from its discharge chute like water from a high-powered hose.
The star of the show was the new Magnum Force 6800CT Horizontal Grinder. Combining the 6800BT’s 60-inch wide rotor, feed hopper and discharge belt with a larger engine (optional 1200 hp CAT C32), larger screening area, fuel tank, hydraulic capacity, and shaft and bearings, the 6800CT can process in excess of 200 tons of material per hour.
The rest of the demonstrations was taken up with the horizontal grinders, the 6800CT and a 5800BT (essentially a smaller 6800BT), followed by a pair of 6400s. True to their name, horizontal grinders don’t cut wood so much as pulverize it, producing wood grindings that make safety glasses a necessity. By the time the dust cleared, four more stacks of logs had been transformed into four piles of log bits.
On the Cover
Photo taken by Andrea Watts of a Holbrook Inc. operation near Electron, Washington.
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It’s the Employees
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New manual with best practices focusses on preventable injuries in the logging industry.
2018 CBI & Ecotec Factory Forum
The three-day event was an opportunity for the company’s U.S. and international customers to see live machine demonstrations.
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Pacific Logging Congress review
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Guest Column
Time to create and tell our story.
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