Visions from FinnMETKO (Part Three)

Taking one last look back at the recent FinnMETKO Show in Finland, with the best of the rest from the equipment on display.

No visit to a machinery exhibition in Finland is complete without stopping by the Lännen Tractors Oy (now owned by Suma Defence) stand, to checkout their legendary multipurpose backhoe loaders. There have been many changes in staff at the business, with many of my previous contact’s moving on to different businesses, there is a lack of familiar faces.

However, the awesome machines are ever present and this time they presented at least two examples, including this 8800M Series machine, which has been specced for working on track in a rail sector application.

Also presented was the Lundberg 6260 compact wheeled loader/tool carrier. This mid-sized machine in the 3-model range, is described as a Swiss army knife model, capable of working with a variety of attachments including, snow ploughs, buckets, rear mounted tools and washing and street sweeping tools.

A familiar face greeted us on the AFM Forest stand in the form of our German friend Torsten Schick, who was attending on behalf of HOLP GmbH and showcasing their Rototop rotation system and other attachments such as the CutWheel hydraulic powered timber saw.

Something we had seen before at this event was the MultiFEX, a multi-functional machine based around a Sunward SWE35UF mini excavator, and specifically aimed at the forestry sector. There is a lot going on with this machine, enabling it to undertake a wide variety of jobs, in addition to basic earthmoving, it can prune trees, fell them, and transport short timbers out of the forest.

Avant have invested heavily in electric power systems and battery technologies for their compact wheeled loaders. At FinnMETKO they were showcasing examples of their electric range including the E513 and E727 machines, in addition to their OptiTemp Cube 47 mobile power unit, all manufactured in their state-of-the-art facility in Ylöjärvi, Finland.

Leading Finnish forestry attachment manufacturer TMK Machinery were demonstrating their latest Next Gen TMK 300 collector & de-limber with its Tilt Extension. The family-owned business has been leading the way with these attachments for some time, and it’s always good to catch up with them to find out what’s coming next!

Finnish Hitachi dealers Rotator Oy have recently added the German Schäffer compact wheeled loaders to their portfolio of products, and presented a couple of the at FinnMETKO including the S2445 which is powered a 3-cylinder Kubota diesel engine offering a power output rating of 37 kW (50 HP) and has an operating weight of 2,700 kg and a bucket capacity of 0.50 m³. Compact wheeled loaders are very popular in Finland and central parts of Europe for snow clearance and street sweeping applications.  

I found an interesting old 6.5-tonne class Neuson 6502 wheeled hydraulic excavator on the stand of Austrian business LASCO, as it happened the Austrian built machine was being used to demonstrate one of LASCO’s cone log splitters.

As you read this post this morning, I will be heading off to sunnier climes on my annual vacation, so you might notice a lack in posts from the Digger Man Blog for a couple of weeks, but if all goes to plan we will be back again on the 27^th-28^th October, however I will still be active on our various social media accounts including Instagram, especially if I encounter some interesting old or new machines during my travels in Cyprus, so its over and out from me for now, and thanks for the continued support of the Digger Man Blog.