Why yellow when I can have black, Tobias Bücker thought. Inspired by the calendar picture of a black Welte, the 27-year-old Sauerländer decided to make a dark appearance with his new Welte W210K. Or as Bücker himself puts it: "That's something special and you can be seen with it, it looks, it wants to be." The short phrase from Sauerland "that looks" means something like "that looks grenade-like good". The dark Lord Welte was painted by the manufacturer himself. In fact, there is also a marketing idea behind the black robe: "This way we can set ourselves apart from our competitors," explains the entrepreneur.
Of course, Bücker knows that the basis for asserting oneself against the competition has to be laid in daily work. He does just that in a private forest in the Sauerland. With a thick back, his team makes a clean appearance. In fact, the brand new black world - in the company since May - is not driven by the boss himself. Driver Kai Schulte sits in the W210. "We already know each other from kindergarten," reports Bücker. Schulte acquired his specialist knowledge in the past seven years, during which he drove all the skidders of the company founded in 2012.

1.1 square metre clamping bench
Today Schulte is moving masses of spruce out of the private forest. A four-hectare stand was aborted by Bücker's men. The reason: bark beetles, of course. A truly tragic end for the spruces, which just grew in solid cubic meters and value and are now being washed up on an overloaded wood market. At the same time, however, it is a great opportunity to fully exploit the W210's willingness to perform. "The machine has a brutal performance," enthuses entrepreneur Bücker, a statement that Skidder pilot Schulte directly proves: One spruce hole after the other moves from the Epsilon gripper to the clamping bench. In the end, there are 15 logs in the clamp, each with a volume of about one cubic meter. Bücker did not even choose the large standard clamping bench. Frank Hellekes, salesman at manufacturer Welte, explains: "We usually install the Burger clamping bench with rope tension and 1.6 square meters of content on the 210". But in this case, the customer ordered the 1.1 square meter version. The main reason lies in the thinning of Sauerland stands, where often not enough thick wood comes together, so a large clamping bench would not be used to capacity. Welte man Hellekes knows however an important advantage of the smaller back assistance: The arms of the 1.1 square meter bench permit much wood, do not build however so broadly. This means that the clamping arms do not block the driver's view to the rear, and the risk of colliding with standing timber in narrow forest passages is also significantly reduced. But the range of applications of the machine also determined the choice of tools: The boss himself moves short timber with a Timberjack 1010D. But because he also invests a lot of time in the company organisation and resource planning, he doesn't manage to pull back every day. At peak times, the world has to move behind its own harvester - a Komatsu 911.5 with Thomas Struwe at the wheel. "We have a small clamping bench, but a large stake basket," explains Bücker. Tobias Bücker, for example, ordered the Welte W210K with the largest Welte swap body, which can be exchanged for the clamping bench. The 4.3-square-metre front surface accommodates quite a bit of short wood. Although the back of thin paper wood is hardly worth it, the entrepreneur knows that sections go super. "But 90 percent of the wood used in the machine is strong.

Large cab and six-cylinder engine
The concept of the forestry service provider is based on several points: Bücker mainly works in large private forests and often cooperates with engineering offices such as Forstkontor Sommer. However, Bücker's strength lies particularly in his own motor manual powers. About 15 men work with the moraine saw in the stop and cut strong timber. These often include thick beech, oak and poplar. As a rule, the wood is brought to the alleyway with a Fendt machine and then collected by Welte. Because the company regularly harvests hardwood early in the year, which then carries a green crown, the trunks are particularly heavy because they are in the juice. Bücker therefore opted for the powerful Epsilon crane X140 F102 with a gross lifting torque of 160 kNm and a reach of ten metres. Bücker also ordered the K version.  The short Welte winds its way better through the alleys with heavy lank wood.
The entrepreneur turned to Welte on the basis of good experience. On the one hand the Welte company had repeatedly been able to supply him with used machines quickly and unbureaucratically, and on the other hand entrepreneurs and drivers were convinced by the test drive in a W190. But since the larger cabin of the 210 made sense for both, and Bücker also preferred a six-cylinder, the choice fell on the W210K. In the Skidder, the water-cooled six-litre Deutz booms with 245 hp at 2.00 revolutions per minute. The black colour perfectly rounds off the overall package for Tobias Bücker. With this impressive machine, with his work and his team, the company will probably also impress its customers and partner companies.

The complete article was published in the magazine "Forstmaschinen Profi", issue no. 7 July 2019.