New Brunswick logger Colin Maclean had an idea to develop a hot saw excavator attachment for mechanized pre-commercial thinning—and it became a family affair.

Colin joined forces with his cousin, Rodney Maclean, and they formed Forged Timber and have developed a hot saw excavator attachment called the Timber Claw, which they believe will set a new bar for mechanized pre-commercial thinning.

Colin and Rodney got their early start in forestry at around the age of seven, following their respective fathers, Peter and Bruce, on their harvest operations near their homes in Plaster Rock, in northwest New Brunswick.

“Rodney and I are about the same age and we grew up very close, closer maybe than a lot of brothers,” says Colin. “Our fathers took us to the woods so we also have that experience in common.

“When I went looking for someone to help me build and launch what has turned out to be the Timber Claw, Rodney was my first choice,” added Colin. “Rodney has businesses in construction and industrial cleaning, but he listened to my dream to develop this new tool and he believed in me and my concept, and we have brought it from concept to production in just a number of months.”

Colin studied welding and fabrication at the New Brunswick Community College in Moncton, worked in the industry and achieved Red Seal certification. However, his forestry roots loomed large, and he followed a dream to become a mechanized harvest contractor, with Timberjack and John Deere gear. That enterprise ended in 2024.

“I’ve admired the versatility of my father’s compact excavator with an Arbo harvesting head, and I looked for an opportunity where I could build a business around owning and operating a compact excavator of my own,” he explained.

“Initially, I tried to imagine configuring a mulch head to handle pre-commercial thinning. On my discovery journey, though, I checked out pre-commercial thinning using shear heads on compact excavators and quickly concluded they were not terribly efficient, and I soon envisioned a hot saw head for pre-commercial thinning.”

Cousin Rodney bought into Colin’s dream for a hot saw head and they formed Forged Timber Inc early in 2025. “We took my idea and rough drawings to a local machine shop. However, their enthusiasm was lacking, and we soon moved on to another shop which expressed a good deal of enthusiasm for the project,” says Colin.

The initial prototype was built based on a twelve-inch by twelve-inch square tube as the main frame. Brackets were fabricated to mount the head to an excavator, and to mount the hydraulic motor inside the tube. An arbour with bearings was fabricated to power the 23” diameter circular saw equipped with replaceable bits. A pair of simple grapple arms were mounted and function by hydraulic cylinders.

“I shared my concept with many people experienced in mechanized equipment and fabrication, and frankly, they generally commented that it would not work. Basically, our concept is a miniaturized feller buncher head, and they have a long history of performing very effectively—so why wouldn’t a smaller version of the basic concept work for pre-commercial thinning?

“Our first prototype was hung on a seven tonne Cat excavator in early 2025, and I admit I was very nervous to see it start up. But the unit has continued to operate effectively with no major mechanical issues. We have broken some hoses and bent the grapple arms, but it has worked effectively for more than a year.”

In their testing, they were impressed with the performance of the Timber Claw. They were achieving about double the area that shear heads were achieving in a shift.

“We went ahead with a second prototype which went to work in June 2025. It is the same basic design using a twelve-by-twelve tube as the structure, with slightly refined gusseting. One visual refinement was to create a 45-degree cut from the top of the tube to allow the head to tip back to the excavator without contacting the stick boom and tipping linkages. The second prototype also saw the collector arms widened and strengthened.”

The Timber Claw operates with just four hydraulic supply hoses: supply and return to the motor and supply and return to the grapple arms. The saw motor is equipped with a check valve which allows the saw blade to spin freely when oil flow is paused. The freewheeling allows the power to the saw to be delivered more smoothly and efficiently. The check valve also avoids motor damage in case of a jamming event at the saw.

In August 2025, the third prototype went to the woods. This unit was fabricated from half-inch, steel plate rather than the square tube.

Colin says that using steel plate cut the weight and provided a pleasing atheistic look and still provided the required strength. Using steel plate also allowed for easier mounting of internal framing. The third prototype is the model that Timber Claw production is based on.

The production model weighs in at 730 pounds and requires oil flow capacity in the range of 12 to 20 to gallons per minute, supplied at 2,000 to 3,000 pounds per square inch.

The Timber Claw saw blade is 23” in diameter. Four face bits are supplied from the Quadco Group based in Quebec.

The two very inventive and resourceful cousins behind the Timber Claw: Colin Maclean (right) and Rodney Maclean.

Timber Claw advertises that the cutting capacity is eight inches, but Colin explained that with a bit of operating finesse, larger diameter stems can be safely felled. He added that in certain stand types, effective thinning can be carried out without using the grapple arms, but noted that in most cases using the grappling on the stems and piling them aside allows the operator a clear view of their work.

The first Timber Claw prototype continues to work on their Cat 307 excavator. The second and third protypes were installed on Hyundai HX8.5 and Hyundai HX 9 excavators.

To test operability of the Timber Claw, Forged Timber contracted pre-commercial thinning natural regeneration and plantation cleaning for AV Cell, a Crown lands licensee with operations in north and central New Brunswick.

Early in 2026, Forged Timber had all three Timber claw prototypes operating in a Crown land planation west of Fredericton, carrying out cleaning and thinning a spruce (fill plant) plantation. Crop tree heights ranged from two to about five metres, with a stem density in the range of 35,000 stems per hectare. The prescription was to cut volunteer species and thin the spruce density range to 1600 to 3000 stems per hectare (a tree spacing of two to three metres).

AV Cell decided to evaluate the advantage of creating trails for the Timber Claw machines to carry out the thinning. A pair of Kubota skid steers equipped with FAE mulchers were contracted to create 2.5 metre wide trail at 10 metre intervals.

“Pre clearing the trails has brought a significant increase in our thinning production and we figure the increase is in the range of 30 per cent,” suggested Colin.

Colin Maclean (at left) in discussion with mulcher operator working with Kubota skid steers equipped with FAE mulchers, on making trails for excavator thinning for a Timber Claw-equipped machine.

Mulching was contracted to Groupe SiMi, of Bathurst, NB, who used Kubota skid steer machines equipped with FAE mulch heads. The trails are mulched following GPS mapping on tablets installed in the skid steer cabs.

“As we developed the first prototype of the Timber Claw, we realized that we had to seek a patent to protect our investment,” explained Rodney. “As part of the patent process, our prototype was disassembled and a detailed CAD drawing of every component was created. Additionally, we had to prepare a lot of written documentation. We learned an awful lot about patent law in a short time, and at the end of the process, secured patent pending status for the Timber Claw. The patent process extended from February to October.”

They really like the eight and nine tonne excavators for working the Timber Claw. The nine-tonne class offer a greater degree of stability and lots of power for travel, climbing and supplying power to the head. They have tested the Timber Claw on six tonne machines, and while it worked, they understood it was not meeting the performance they had on nine tonne excavators. “We shared the issue with our hydraulic supplier, and they offered us a different hydraulic motor which required less flow demand, but generated high motor speed so the effectiveness of the cutting was comparable,” says Colin.

Rodney pointed out that they experienced no overheating problems through the summer of 2025, which came in as the hottest summer on record. Colin noted that when temperatures climbed above the 30-degree Celsius mark, they paused their day time operations, and opted for very early morning starts.

The Timber Claw head works effectively without using the collector arms in certain stand types. In dense stands, the collector arms are a definite necessity, when they are required to move cut stems, in order to see stems and make the correct silviculture decisions.

Timber Claw was the centrepiece of an In Woods Demo near Kedgewick, New Brunswick in late-2025. The day attracted some 70 guests, including AV Cell staff, DNR staff and contractors. Timber Claw will participate in additional demo days and was in attendance at the 2026 Atlantic Heavy Equipment Show in Moncton.

The Timber Claw thinning heads are currently marketed through Cavanaugh Forestry Equipment.