Cold bending for the production of bent parts in forestry machines

Cold bending for the production of bent parts

used in forestry machines and in the equipment typical of the forestry sector.

What are forestry machines and where are they used?

Forestry machinery is mainly used for felling trees and transporting logs. These machines are widely used, especially in Northern Europe. In countries such as Finland, Norway, Sweden, Russia, and Germany, forests are particularly vast. Forestry machinery is used to cut and transport the wood needed to produce furniture, houses, barrels, light poles or firewood.

Forestry machines are used in many other countries in the world, such as France, Italy, and Poland, to maintain and clean woodlands and parks. These include state parks, oasis and nature reserves.

There are many types of forestry machines: 

l mulchers

l saws for stumps and roots

l rock crushers

l brush cutters

l trailers for logs

The technological advancements associated with the production of these machines have completely changed the process of transporting wood and cleaning the bushes. The use of cold bending technology to produce curved steel pipes and bars also makes these improvements possible.

Application of steel pipes in forestry machinery

The wooded terrain where forestry machinery is used is usually rugged and steep. Forests are rarely flat. The log load is heavy. All this means that the transportation of logs with forestry machinery will be under great pressure, which greatly increases the risk of damage or breakdown. Therefore, it is very important to determine the correct cross section of the pipe to be bent during the project phase. In addition to the diameter of the round tube and the cross-section of the square or rectangular bar, the thickness and quality of the steel are also important. We recommend buying only steel produced by foundries, which have passed quality certification to prove the characteristics of the alloy. Zechin uses only hot-bent steel pipes. The reason is that they guarantee greater resistance to pressure. The diameters of the steel tubes we use are between 40 mm and 70 mm, and the cross-sections of square and rectangular elements are between 40×40 and 120×120. The thickness of the tube is between 4 and 6 mm. But customized sizes is also welcome.

Steel tube bending

The most important step in processing pipes used in the production of forestry machinery is the cold bending process, which is more than 25 years of specialization in Zechin. The CNC pipe bender can be used for mass production of pipes for forestry machinery. The continuous repeatability of the bending process allows the company to reduce production costs while maintaining high quality standards.

For some of the latest generation of forestry machinery, we also use roll bending technology. This is a bending that does not use a matrix, but is bent by passing a steel pipe through three rollers. Unlike the bending radius being fixed and imposed by the matrix, in roll bending, the bending radius can be larger and have various sizes.

Laser tube

Before bending (or rolling) the pipe, we made several cuts on the steel bar. Using a laser tube to perform cutting operations, the machine can be used to make high-precision holes, grooves and oblique cuts. Use of laser tube also allows us to speed up the entire production process, because the above process is no longer necessary after bending.

Special equipment

Sometimes, we will be required to perform specific processing on the pipes of forestry machinery. In these cases, we design and produce the equipment required for CNC work centers or the latest generation of lathes. These are in particular the matrix (determining the radius of the bend in the tube), sliders, counter sliders, flanges and clamps.

Assembly of welded steel tubes

Generally, forestry machines made of bent steel pipes are equipped with all the plates or bushings used to fix the machine on the tractor. In this case, the assembly is done at the Zechin factory through MIG-MAG welding, Tig and brazing, which allows us to produce items such as third point arches or welded cabs that are completely completed with the highest level of quality.

Processing of bent steel tubes at Zechin

With a huge fleet of the latest generation of machines and our advanced technology, as well as the superb skills of our employees in 3D design, we design and bend steel pipes of the highest quality and performance for the production of the latest generation of forestry machinery. For their production, we use tubes and tubular elements made of cold-formed steel.

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