Stuart Wilson of Wilson Tree Surgery, based in Maidstone, Kent has recently purchased a Seppi MidiForst 225DT from nearby Lamberhurst Engineering for their contract with EDF Energy, on behalf of Brockwells Forestry Limited, to help manage the vegetation growing around overhead power lines across the Ryarsh village.

Ryarsh is a picturesque Kent village nestling amongst the North Downs and is within easy reach of many historic places. Local to West Malling, the Ryarsh village community is the way village life should be. Lanes weave between farm fields and country cottages pass through extraordinary Kent countryside.

Trees can cause reliability problems for the power distribution company as the South East is one of the most heavily wooded regions in the UK and trees and branches near power lines have to be continually managed and it was specifically for this task, that Stuart decided to purchase the Seppi mulcher which has been designed for fast and efficient brush clearance in forestry plantations, road and rail embankments and, in fact, anywhere that requires thick undergrowth to be removed.

Seppi has been manufacturing forestry mowers for almost forty years, have the largest range of machines of any manufacturer and have acquired a vast amount of knowledge of what works and what doesn’t.

Machines are available from as small as 35hp right up to 600hp. The heart of the machine must be the rotor and it is here that Seppi excel. All of the heavy duty mulchers from the ‘Miniforst’ to the ‘Maxiforst’ are offered with either a swinging hammer rotor or a fixed knife rotor. The design and construction of the swinging hammer rotor is unique and Seppi are the only manufacturers to use forged rotor sections which bring two major advantages.

Firstly, the rotor is approximately 20% heavier than a similar sized fabricated rotor. This gives tremendous momentum to the rotor and enables the machine to keep going when most others will stall.

Secondly, the forging process allows metal to be placed where it is really needed – in this case, the area where the hammer bar connects to the rotor. There are no welds in the area to break, no bosses to weld in, just a very hard wearing metal. Infact, the rotor is also heat-treated to greatly increase the wear resistance. All this means that the machine is designed to handle vegetation up to 30cm in diameter and stones up to 20cm – depending on the type of stone.

“It doesn’t matter what material you are mulching, the Seppi always works like a Trojan horse,” commented Stuart. “The mulcher will enable us to trim back as much as 600 metres of vegetation underneath power lines in a single day that it would normally take two staff working by hand two weeks to complete”.

On Lamberhurst Engineering’s prowess: “We are very pleased with the machines we have purchased and the superb service we have received from Lamberhurst Engineering. We know from experience that we can call on their after-sales service if it is needed, which is important when you are relying on machinery to clear a busy workload.”

The full range of Seppi mulchers and mowers are available exclusively from Lamberhurst Engineering. For further information, please contact 01892 890364 or visit www.lameng.com