Tree Shears Australia

Why contractors buy tree shears instead of another machine

Three tools cut standing trees mechanically: the chainsaw in a ground worker’s hands, the dedicated feller buncher, and the excavator-mounted tree shear. Each is fast at something. The chainsaw is cheap and precise but puts a person at the base of the tree. The feller buncher is unbeatable on sustained plantation production but costs a second carrier, a second operator and a second float. The tree shear sits between them, and its commercial case rests on one fact: the carrier already exists.

A civil contractor running a 14 or 20 tonne excavator on subdivision or road work can fit a shear for a clearing stage, then return the machine to the bucket. The excavator’s finance, insurance, operator and transport are already paid for by other work. The shear only has to justify its own cost against the clearing hours it produces. That is a very different equation from buying a machine that has to earn its keep on felling alone.

The workflow is also different from pushing trees over with a bucket. A shear makes a deliberate cut at a chosen height, leaves the stump in the ground for a separate treatment step, keeps soil disturbance to a minimum and lets the operator place the stem exactly where the next process wants it. On a site that will later see a stump grinder or root cutter, separating felling from stump treatment is often the most efficient sequence.

Typical Australian work runs from road and rail corridors and transmission easements through subdivision clearing and plantation thinning to farm redevelopment, woody weed programs and storm cleanup. The applications section covers each in depth.

Where the shear sits in the clearing chain

1. Standing tree
2. Tree shear
3. Forestry grapple
4. Chipper, mulcher or stockpile
5. Stump treatment
6. Ground preparation

How a hydraulic tree shear works

A tree shear combines a gripping structure, one or two cutting blades, hydraulic cylinders and, depending on configuration, a rotator and an accumulator. The operator positions the head around the trunk, closes the grip, and drives the blade or blades through the fibre. The stem stays held after the cut so it can be slewed and placed under control.

1. Position the head around the trunkAt the chosen cut height, with the blade square to the stem
2. Grip the treeThe gripping arms secure the stem before any cutting force is applied
3. Apply hydraulic cutting forceSingle blade or twin blades penetrate the trunk
4. Sever and retainThe stem stays in the head; nobody is under it
5. Slew or rotateRotation orients the stem for placement
6. PlaceInto a windrow, a pile, a chipper feed zone or a truck

That fifth step is where the commercial value concentrates. In repetitive clearing, the felling cut itself is rarely the bottleneck. The bottleneck is what happens after the cut: repositioning, handling, ground personnel exposure and double handling. A shear collapses most of that into one cab-controlled cycle.

Trevi Benne and the current range

Trevi Benne is an Italian attachment manufacturer founded in 1992 with demolition, recycling, earthmoving and forestry ranges sold through a global dealer network. Its forestry catalogue covers tree shears, wood splitters and root and stump cutters. In Australia and New Zealand the brand is distributed by Machinery Specialist from South Windsor, NSW. See the Trevi Benne brand page for the full range.

There is a model-history point every Australian buyer should understand before reading a quotation or a used listing. Older Australian marketing describes a WT Series of six tree shears, and that “six different sizes” wording still circulates. Trevi Benne’s current global catalogue instead presents two families:

• the WL Series, three models for smaller and medium excavators
• the WR Series, three heavy-duty models for large-scale cutting and harvesting

The WT range is not gone from the market. Units exist, they trade second-hand, and their six-model structure is still referenced in dealer material. But anyone ordering new equipment should be quoted a current WL or WR data sheet, and anyone buying a used WT should assess it against its original build specification and serial number, not a brochure.

Trevi Benne WL Series: compact and mid-size shears

The WL Series is the manoeuvrable end of the range. The factory publishes three models spanning approximately 240 to 1,270 kg, excavators from 2.5 to 21 tonnes, and trunk capacities from about 50 to 450 mm. Rotation is optional, as is an upper accumulator and a twin-cylinder oscillation system.

The accumulator is the feature that changes the economics of small-diameter work. Without it, every stem costs a full cycle: cut, slew to the pile, release, return. With it, the operator can cut and retain several small stems before placing the bundle. In dense regrowth, shelterbelt removal, plantation thinning or biomass harvesting, that can cut placement cycles dramatically and make a smaller WL-class shear more productive than a heavier single-stem head.

Accumulator cycle

1. Cut
2. Retain
3. Cut
4. Retain
5. Cut
6. Place bundle

The WL family makes the most sense for agricultural contractors, councils, road-edge vegetation crews, orchard and shelterbelt removal, light plantation thinning, regrowth programs and land reclamation, where mobility and cycle speed matter more than absolute cutting diameter.

Trevi Benne WR Series: heavy commercial felling

The WR family is the industrial range. The factory publishes three models spanning approximately 1,250 to 2,225 kg, excavators from 11 to 35 tonnes, and trunk capacities from about 400 to 550 mm. The WR uses a twin-blade system that penetrates the trunk from both sides to produce a controlled cut rather than forcing a single blade through the full section. Blades and gripping structures are made from wear-resistant Hardox. Options include hydraulic rotation (360° dual-motor or twin-cylinder configurations), an accumulator, a fork tower for handling larger stems and a pedestal for steep-slope work.

Trevi Benne positions the WR for large-scale cutting, unsafe trees, road vegetation, steep ground, embankments, cultivation and environmental work. Regional dealer literature commonly groups the three models as follows:

Treat those bands as a purchasing starting point. Bracket, rotation, counterweight and boom configuration can all move the recommended pairing, which is why the Australian quotation and the factory compatibility assessment are the final word. The WR10, WR15 and WR20 pages go into each model’s commercial position.

The legacy WT six-model range

Historic factory literature for the WT family lists six models from the 340 kg WT002 (150 mm published maximum) to the roughly 1,835 kg WT020 (500 mm), with indicative flow requirements from 50 to 180 L/min and carrier pairings spanning roughly 5 to 35 tonnes depending on whether the match is considered optimal or merely possible. The full table, plus a used-buyer’s inspection list, is on the WT Series legacy page.

The practical advice for a used WT is simple: confirm the exact model and serial number with the factory or distributor before valuing the unit, because mounting arrangements and specifications differ by production year, and blade, pin and bush availability should be checked before money changes hands.

Maximum diameter is not production diameter

This is the most important rule on this page and it applies to every cutting attachment on this site. A brochure figure such as “maximum cut 500 mm” tells you approximately where the attachment’s physical limit lies under suitable conditions. It does not tell you how fast it cuts that diameter, which species produced the rating, whether the timber was green, whether repeated cutting at that size is intended, whether the carrier can control the resulting tree, or what it does to blade life.

Production is governed by wood density, species, green versus dead timber, fibre structure, trunk shape, multi-stem growth, blade sharpness, hydraulic pressure, actual carrier flow, operator technique and the mass of the stem after it is cut. A 300 mm pine and a 300 mm dense eucalypt are not the same job.

For commercial costing you need a diameter distribution, not a single maximum. An illustrative site might look like this:

That site should be priced, and the shear selected, around the three-quarters of stems below 200 mm, not the rare 400 mm tree. The occasional oversize stem can go to a chainsaw crew, a grapple saw or a subcontracted heavy machine. The whole fleet does not need to be sized for one per cent of the vegetation. The guide on maximum diameter versus production diameter explains how to sample a block properly.

Australian hardwood changes the decision

Most Australian shear work lands in eucalyptus, acacia and other dense hardwoods. Density affects cutting resistance, the cylinder force required, cut time, blade loading and the mass of the tree once it is severed. A brochure or demonstration video produced in European softwood should never be treated as a production guarantee here.

Before purchase, ask the supplier for Australian hardwood examples, reference customers in similar timber, a demonstration in representative stems, expected blade life in the intended species and a recommended continuous cutting diameter for that species. The Australian hardwood guide covers what to record during a trial.

Tree mass can be the limit before cutting capacity

A shear is unusual among attachments because it holds the object after cutting it. Imagine a head that can physically cut a 500 mm trunk. Once the cut is made, the excavator has to control that tree, and a long, dense 500 mm hardwood stem can weigh several tonnes.

The radius matters more than most buyers expect. A lift-chart value at three metres is irrelevant if the operator typically reaches seven metres to cut a tree on a batter. Contractors working beside roads, houses or power infrastructure should be especially conservative, because controlled placement of the severed tree is the whole point of the tool. The lift chart guide and the lift capacity calculator walk through the arithmetic with real attachment weights.

Hydraulic matching

Tree shears are less hydraulically demanding than a forestry mulcher running continuously, but poor matching still costs production. A shear that technically operates but closes slowly wrecks the cycle time that justifies it. Ask for minimum, recommended and maximum flow, minimum and maximum pressure, the rotation circuit requirement, the accumulator control requirement, hose diameter and coupler requirements.

Give the dealer the full picture, not just a tonne class: excavator make, model, year, operating mass, quick hitch, auxiliary flow, auxiliary pressure, number of circuits, return pressure, case drain, boom type and counterweight. The hydraulic matching guide explains each item and the request for quote template puts them on one sheet.

Tree shear versus the alternatives

Against a grapple saw, the shear is stronger where felling is the primary job, stems are repetitive and a blade cut is acceptable; the saw is stronger where sections must be cut at height, retained and placed precisely near infrastructure. A contractor dismantling dangerous trees beside buildings will make the saw the core tool, and a contractor clearing kilometres of regrowth will get the stronger case from a shear. The tree shear versus grapple saw comparison covers the hybrid fleet as well.

Against a dedicated feller buncher the question is asset utilisation rather than felling speed. The feller buncher wins where thousands of harvesting hours are available and plantation geometry suits mechanised felling; the shear wins where the excavator already exists, clearing is only part of its year and the machine has to go back to digging. The feller buncher comparison sets out the cost logic.

Against a mulcher the split is recover versus destroy. Choose the shear where the wood will be chipped centrally, sold or recovered as biomass; choose mulching where the objective is vegetation reduction priced by treated hectare and the material can stay on site. Many contracts want both, and the mulcher buying guide and mulcher versus tree shear set out that hybrid workflow in full.

Who buys a tree shear, by excavator class

Below about 6 tonnes the buyers are arboriculture, councils and small agricultural contractors, and attachment mass, access and transport decide the purchase, which suits a WL head with an accumulator. The 8 to 15 tonne band is the strongest crossover class, because the carrier still floats easily between jobs while carrying a meaningful shear. From 16 tonnes the carrier supports materially heavier heads and larger timber, which is where the WR family starts to make sense, and above 25 tonnes a buyer with very high felling hours should price a purpose-built feller buncher alongside it. The excavator size pages list every attachment for each carrier band.

Detailed selection scenarios

Roadside regrowth contractor

Most vegetation is 80 to 180 mm with the occasional stem approaching 300 mm. The wrong approach is to buy the largest shear because a few trees are large. The right approach optimises for the dominant material: a fast open-and-close cycle, an accumulator, manageable attachment mass, useful rotation, a transport-friendly carrier and a reliable blade supply. A WL-class machine may outperform a heavy WR head here because it processes the normal stem faster and preserves boom agility, with the occasional oversize tree handled another way.

Plantation thinning

Thinning brings different priorities: protection of the residual crop, narrow access, controlled placement, accumulator performance and visibility. A very heavy shear can be counterproductive if it damages standing trees or slows manoeuvring between rows. The plantation guide covers the wider system.

Biomass harvesting

Biomass values stem accumulation and bunch placement. Ask how many small stems the accumulator can retain, whether bundles can be placed ready for chipper feeding, whether the cut leaves acceptable material for downstream processing and how the head copes with dirty regrowth. See biomass and chipper operations.

Productivity and cost modelling

For shear work, record stems per productive hour, average stem diameter, travel time, placement cycles, fuel per hour, blade maintenance, operator delay, the share of stems needing a second cut and the share needing chainsaw assistance. Then:

One hectare of scattered regrowth is a fraction of the work of one hectare of dense hardwood, so never assume hectares are equal. If a contract is quoted per hectare, use a sample block to establish stems per hectare and productivity first. The attachment looks cheap next to the excavator, but the hourly figure has to carry both: blades, pins, bushes, seals and rotator service on one side, fuel, undercarriage, operator, transport and cooling on the other. The tender rate guide and total cost of ownership guide build the full model, and the cost per unit calculator does the arithmetic.

Blade management

Blade condition directly affects cut time, hydraulic load, fibre tearing, required pressure and cycle speed. Ask the supplier for the sharpening specification, minimum blade profile, replacement threshold, blade material, local sharpening options and replacement lead time, and carry a blade strategy for remote projects. The wear parts guide lists every consumable by family.

Buying used

Inspect blade straightness, blade edge and any previous hard-facing, main pivot pins, bush wear, cylinder rods and leakage, frame cracking, rotator play and leakage, hoses, bracket welds, accumulator arms and any repairs around the blade carrier. Request a live cutting test in timber, not an open-and-close cycle in a yard. The used attachment inspection guide has the full checklist.

Red flags

Be cautious when a seller quotes only an excavator tonne class, when there is no written hydraulic requirement, when maximum diameter is presented as normal production diameter, when the total attachment mass excludes the rotator, when the supplier will not discuss Australian hardwood, when replacement blades have a long international lead time, when the carrier lift chart has not been checked, or when a used head carries extensive structural welding without repair records.

Confirm in writing before ordering a tree shear

• Exact model (WL or WR) and build specification, with the current factory data sheet
• The carrier make, model, year, boom and stick, counterweight and hitch used for the compatibility assessment
• Complete attachment mass in the ordered configuration: head, rotator, bracket and hitch
• Recommended continuous cutting diameter in your dominant species, not just the maximum
• Minimum, recommended and maximum flow; minimum and maximum pressure; rotation and accumulator circuit requirements
• Whether a case drain, additional circuits or electrical control are required
• Blade material, sharpening specification, replacement threshold and blade, pin, bush and seal kit pricing
• A demonstration opportunity in representative Australian timber

Frequently asked questions