Australian hardwood plantation work looks superficially like radiata pine harvesting and behaves differently in almost every way that costs money. Eucalypt stems are denser, the bark is tenacious and often has to be removed to a mill specification, and the fibre is abrasive. A head that performs well in softwood can have poor economics in eucalyptus even when it physically fits the stem.
The defining requirement is debarking. Where the mill takes debarked stems, the head has to remove bark to specification at production speed, and that depends on roller configuration, knife geometry and feed force rather than on cutting capacity. Bark that is left on is a rejected or discounted load; bark removed by brute force damages the stem and the head.
Consumable cost is correspondingly higher than softwood work and much more variable between machines. This is the package where the head specification matters more than the carrier, and where talking to contractors running the same species is worth more than any brochure.
Every fleet produces at the rate of its slowest element and pays for all of them. This is where that element usually sits in this package.
Each one has an answer specific to your sites. A default taken from someone else's operation is where imbalance starts.
One configured for debarking in your species: roller type and pattern, knife geometry and feed force all differ from the softwood default. The same manufacturer typically offers a eucalyptus configuration of the same head, and the difference between configurations is larger than the difference between brands.
Enough hydraulic capacity to run the head at full feed force continuously, plus cooling margin for Australian summer conditions. A head starved of flow debarks poorly and wears quickly, which presents as a head problem and is a carrier problem.
Whatever the mill pays against. Where product is sold by measured volume, calibration drift is a direct revenue loss and the measuring system is a commercial component rather than an instrument. Confirm the calibration regime before purchase.
To the stem sizes and extraction distance, as in softwood — but note that eucalypt stems are heavier per unit volume, so a forwarder sized on volume alone will be working closer to its load limit than expected.
The package above assumes a typical case. These are the departures that change the configuration rather than just the rate.
Very few contractors start at the full configuration, and the ones who do are usually carrying more capital than their contracted work supports.
Phase 1
A eucalyptus-configured head fitted to a suitable excavator or existing harvester base.
Phase 2
A heavy harvester matched to the head, with cooling specified for Australian conditions.
Phase 3
Harvester and forwarder sized together, with consumable stock held for the campaign.
It will fit the stem and fail the specification. Poor debarking means discounted or rejected loads, and the head wears faster doing it, so the saving on configuration is lost twice.
Australian summer conditions at sustained full load are the design case, not the exception. A cooling package sized for milder duty results in derating exactly when the contract needs production.
Abrasive hardwood fibre consumes chains, bars, knives and rollers faster than pine. A cost model carried over from softwood work will be optimistic in a way that only becomes visible after several months.
Where the mill pays on measured volume, drift is revenue leaving quietly. Calibration is cheap; a season of under-measured production is not.
The cut-to-length machine — fell, delimb, measure, buck and sort in one cycle.
A machine in its own right — and the single most important specification decision in CTL.
Carries cut-to-length logs completely off the ground — payload × trips per hour is the whole economic model.