Page 200 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

Weiler Feller Buncher
WEILER TAKES ON CAT FORESTRY PRODUCTS (2019)
In April 2019, Cat officially sold its purpose-built forestry product line of wheel skidders, track feller bunchers, wheel feller bunchers and knuckle-boom loaders—minus its log loaders—to Weiler Forestry, Inc. The Cat facilities in LaGrange, Georgia; Auburn, Alabama; and Smithfield, North Carolina were also part of the agreement. Nothing would change, according to both Weiler and Caterpillar, except the name on the machines. “They will continue to be built in the same factory, by the same people, and designed and supported by the same engineers and service reps.” Parts for all Cat-produced machines remains available through the Cat parts system. Weiler was founded in 2000—based out of Knoxville, Iowa—to manufacture asphalt paving equipment. In 2019, they formed Weiler Forestry to purchase the purpose-built forestry division of Caterpillar.
The 527 was customized so much that it need- ed its own parts book. Joe Frati (Special Services project manager) spent eight months compiling one, fully rendered with 3D drawings. “The TSK supplemental parts book contains all of Peterson’s custom fabricated parts and pieces,” explains Frati. “Nuts, bolts, washers, O-ring seals, hydraulic fit- tings—everything that we used to modify these machines.” In the end, Peterson’s Portland weld shop made over 1500 individual pieces for each TSK build, roughly sixty percent of the machine.
IN THE WOODS
In 2017, Tony Leonardo bought Peterson’s second production machine, basically off the floor of the Redwood Region Logging Conference. “I had a 558 log loader and a skidder there in the show.5 That Cat (TSK) was parked right next to them. I loved the way it looked, the way it sat on the ground. I just had to have that Cat.”
About a week later, Leonardo had the TSK on demo, out in the woods. “It stayed on the ground. It got around really good. I loved the way it han- dled, everything about it. So I bought it.” He al- ready had two D6R grapple machines and two D5G skidders, but, according to Leonardo, “that TSK could outperform any one of them.”
“I’d never had a 527 because they’d walk up on their finals when you were skidding with them. They just didn’t have the weight in the front to hold them down on the ground. And they were under- powered. But Peterson engineered the TSK with a bunch of weight in the front so it’s not walking up on its finals. And they extended the track frame and put the weight up front underneath the radia- tor. It’s a hell of a machine.”
5 Peterson displayed Leonardo’s new 558LL and 525 skidder at the Redwood Region Logging Conference along with a Peterson TSK, which he bought a few weeks later.
198 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG