Rottne H8 harvester in second thinning

We have had a series of articles here at NordicWoodJournal.com about different forest machines. You will find links to some of those articles at the end of this article. It has mainly been big machines, but now we will have a look at a smaller harvester – Rottne H8.

Rottne H8 harvester – small but efficient

By the mid 80’s small harvesters started to turn up from the major machine manufacturers. The first (that I saw) was ÖSA “Lillebror” 0410 which was a combined feller and skidder for thinning. A little later, the Lillebror turned up as a harvester, ÖSA 0470. I operated one myself in Germany in the 90’s. (ÖSA later became FMG, Forest Machine Group, Timberjack and today it´s John Deere Forestry)

The idea with the Lillebror (baby brother) concept was that the harvester should operate also between the strip roads in thinning and process the trees towards the strip road for the forwarder to reach. The forwarder should then stay on the strip road.

Around 1990 Valmet, today Komatsu Forest, launched their small harvester, the Valmet 701. Further on, Rottne joined the small harvester line with Rottne 2000. Now there were three major manufacturers of forest machinery that could offer this type of machine.

Rottne got new company

Somewhere along the timeline both Valmet/Komatsu Forest and ÖSA/FMG/Timberjack/John Deere let go of this concept. Rottne, however, kept on doing the small harvesters under the model names Rottne 2000, 2002, 2004 and eventually Rottne H8. In the meantime, other brands of small harvesters have turned up such as Malwa, who only manufactures small machines.

Rottne H8

Even though the machine has become larger compared to the Rottne 2000, the H8 is quite small. The length of the chassis is 4834 mm (190 inches), width 2050, 2200 or 2420 mm (80/87/95 inches) depending on the type of wheels, and the height is 3212 mm (127 inches). It can still operate between the strip roads and is mainly used in young thinning.