The first processor and first with parallel crane
Whether it was the fresh air that led to Börje Karlsson’s imaginative ideas for new innovations will remain unsaid, but it was during a holiday in the mountains with the family in 1976 that the idea began to grow of what would become the first one-man controlled processor. The result was the prototype for the 770 processor, which was delivered to customers the year after.
With the processor we now had a comprehensive machine programme on the market. Ten years after production of the first forwarder, it was now time to manufacture and sell processors, the predecessors of today’s harvesters.
Whether Börje spent any time at all on the slopes during that mountain holiday is unclear. historien.
Crane with raw strength
As so many times in the past, the Rottne 1981 was behind yet another innovation. The RG-81 parallel crane, launched with the new felling unit RF-81, meant that machine operators could now grasp a tree, fell it and then lift it to the processor directly from the stump. The crane could reach out ten meters and had a lifting force of 1,5 tonnes at full extension. Thanks to the strength of the crane, attention was now turned to developing a new and suitable felling unit.
From chain to gear
In the same year, the idea grew forth for a geared bogie. Blondin was equipped with a roller-driven bogie, but Börje and the chief engineer at the time, Risto Hokkanen, wanted to make the machine more capable when operating over difficult terrain.
There were bogies on the market with chains in the bogie boxes, but it was felt that their service life was not acceptable. Instead, the duo started experimenting with a prototype using gears, as they were convinced that this would produce a better solution. They involved NAF and together developed a gear bogie based on Börje and Risto’s idea.
Virtually all the companies in the world that manufacture forestry machinery now employ geared bogies on their forwarders and harvesters. What not everyone knows is that those behind the idea for the modern geared bogie worked at Rottne in Småland.
Popular replacement system saves both time and money
At the end of the 1970s, we launched our replacement system, which today is called Rottne Xparts and it quickly became popular. With Rottne Xparts, you save both time and money by preventively replacing parts on your machine during a previously scheduled stop. The risk of accidents is eliminated, and you can be confident that unwelcome downtime in the forest will be avoided. Even in the event of unscheduled machine downtime, it will not be much longer than if it was scheduled, regardless of whether it is a harvester or forwarder. This is a concept that only we at Rottne offer. Something we are quite proud of.