Tree Shear vs Grapple Saw

Both attachments grip a tree and cut it from the cab, which is why buyers keep asking which one to buy. The short answer is that a tree shear is a felling tool and a grapple saw is a handling tool that happens to cut. The one question that decides it: is the piece you cut the end of the job, or the start of it? If the stem drops into a windrow and the next machine deals with it, the shear wins on cycle speed and simplicity. If the piece has to be held, lowered, cross-cut and placed where it cannot fall, the grapple saw is the tool you are actually paying for.

How each one works

A Trevi Benne shear such as the WL Series or WR15 closes gripping arms on the trunk and drives one or two Hardox blades through the fibre with a hydraulic cylinder. The WR family uses twin blades that penetrate from both sides, and options include rotation, an accumulator that lets the operator collect several small stems before placing the bundle, and a fork tower for larger stems. The cut is a crush-shear cut, fast and tolerant of dirt, and the stem stays held for placement.

A Powerhand grapple saw such as the EX28 is a 0.28 m² forestry grapple with a chainsaw bar mounted in the headstock, an Indexator continuous-rotation rotator and, on the EX28 and EX36, a choice of saw motor displacements and 0.404 inch or 3/4 inch chain. The grapple secures the piece first, the bar swings through, and the severed section is already in the grapple when the cut finishes. The saw leaves a clean flat face and can cut anywhere along a stem, not only at the base.

Shear cycle

1. Grip
2. Shear
3. Slew
4. Drop or place
5. Return

Grapple saw cycle

1. Grip
2. Confirm load
3. Saw
4. Lower under control
5. Place
6. Return

Where the difference shows up on site

Cycle logic

A shear cycle is short because the cut is almost instant and the operator often does not need to think about the stem afterwards. In regrowth, shelterbelts and thinning, an accumulator-equipped WL shear can cut and retain several stems before one placement move, which is where its production advantage concentrates. A grapple saw cycle is longer by design: the saw takes seconds rather than a fraction of a second, and every piece is lowered rather than dropped. On kilometres of 100 to 200 mm regrowth, that difference compounds into a large gap in stems per hour.

Control of the severed piece

The grapple saw’s advantage is that the piece is fully secured before the cut and remains secured after it. That is what lets an operator dismantle a dangerous tree over a fence, take a limb off above a roof or section a windthrown eucalypt across a road one controlled piece at a time. A shear also holds the stem, but it holds the whole tree at the base, and a long hardwood stem held at one end is a very different load from a two metre section held near its centre of mass. Neither saw nor shear capacity is a safe suspended-load figure; the carrier lift chart at the working radius is.

Cut position and finish

A shear cuts at ground level or wherever the head can be positioned on the trunk, and the crush cut is fine for material headed to a chipper, mulcher or burn pile. A saw cuts a clean face at any height and can cross-cut lying timber into log lengths or chipper-sized billets. If the contract includes log recovery, firewood, tree-care finish or sectional dismantling, the saw is doing work the shear cannot.

Attachment mass versus payload

Attachment mass is where the two families separate on the lift chart. The rigid EX25 grapple saw weighs 651 kg for an 8 to 12 tonne carrier; the EX36 is 1,176 kg on 16 to 25 tonne machines. A WL shear spans 240 to 1,270 kg across its three models and the WR family 1,250 to 2,225 kg. The point is not that one is heavier. It is that a grapple saw carries its piece out at radius, so every kilogram of head is a kilogram not available for the section. Run the lift capacity calculator with the real head, rotator and hitch masses before choosing either.

Wear cost and maintenance

A shear’s consumables are blades, pins and bushes, and Hardox blades tolerate dirt, bark and the occasional stone. A grapple saw adds a chain, bar, sprocket, saw motor and chain-tensioning system, and chains are cut and blunted by soil, grit and embedded wire. In dirty Australian clearing, saw consumables per stem are higher and stoppages to swap chains are part of the day. If the work is ground-level felling in dusty conditions, that maintenance load is a real reason to prefer the shear.

Hydraulics

Both need pressure and flow to the main cylinder and a rotation circuit. The grapple saw adds a saw motor circuit whose displacement must be matched to the carrier’s real auxiliary flow, plus a case drain. The shear adds accumulator control if fitted. Neither is as demanding as a continuous-duty mulcher, but a saw motor starved of flow cuts slowly and burns chains. See the hydraulic matching guide.

The numbers that matter

Figure	Trevi Benne WR15 (shear)	Powerhand EX28 grapple saw
Indicative excavator class	17–22 t	12–25 t
Attachment weight	WR family 1,250–2,225 kg (three models)	986 kg
Cut capacity	Around 500 mm nominal trunk	600 mm maximum saw cut, 900 mm bar
Cutting system	Twin blade, penetrating from both sides	Chainsaw, 0.404 inch or 3/4 inch chain
Rotation	360° dual-motor or twin-cylinder options	Indexator saw rotator, continuous rotation
Holding	Gripping structures, optional accumulator	0.28 m² grapple, 1,632 mm opening

Per-model WR figures are indicative and come from regional dealer literature; confirm the current data sheet for the model quoted.

Running both: hybrid fleets

The most productive corridor crews tend to run both on different carriers, or swap heads on the same carrier between stages. The shear clears the bulk of the corridor at ground level, the grapple saw handles the individual trees that overhang the road, the fence or the conductor, and a forestry grapple feeds the chipper. A grapple saw also processes the shear’s oversize stems into manageable lengths. See the clearing workflow guide for the full sequence.

Cost logic

Illustrative only. Assume a corridor with 3,000 stems, 90 per cent under 250 mm and headed for a mulcher. If a shear averages 40 stems an hour including placement and a grapple saw averages 15 because each piece is lowered, the shear finishes in about 75 hours against 200. At an assumed carrier and operator rate of $250 an hour, that is roughly $19,000 against $50,000 of felling time. Now assume a second job: 40 dangerous trees beside a highway that must come down in sections under traffic control at an assumed $2,000 a day. A shear cannot section a standing tree, so the job either becomes a climber’s job or a saw job; if the saw saves two days of traffic control against a climbing crew, that alone is $4,000. The two tools rarely compete on the same job.

Decide with these facts in hand

• Diameter distribution of the stems, not the maximum
• Share of trees that must come down in sections rather than whole
• Where the material goes: windrow, chipper, mulcher or log stack
• Carrier lift chart at the radius you actually cut at, less head, rotator and hitch
• Auxiliary flow, pressure and case drain available for a saw motor or accumulator
• Chain and blade consumable cost per week in your soil conditions
• Whether a second carrier could run the other head in a hybrid crew

Frequently asked questions