Toyota Huski carving through timber business’ workload.
Atimber-cutting business has carved through its workload since purchasing its first Toyota Huski skid steer loader, using it to move 30 tonnes of timber in a single day.
Fox in the Woods, located in Tamworth, New South Wales, recently purchased a Toyota 5SDK9 skid steer loader, after much research and preparation.
Fox in the Woods is a family run business that gathers timber and repurposes it in various forms, as owner, Justin Fox, explained: “My partner and I run the business and we focus on creating handmade timber products,” said Mr Fox.
“We use a lot of recycled timber and hardwood timber from farms. We mill all our own timber to suit, whether it be dimensional timber for building right down to kitchen chopping boards and platters.
“The Huski skid steer comes in as our heavy-lifter. We might go out to a farm and grab some felled trees, or a farmer might have a stack of wood in preparation for a bonfire and I will just go through it and pull the good bits out of it. They would only have to burn it otherwise, so it’s real recyclability.
“Or a tree-cutting company might ring up and say, ‘look we’ve got this wood if you’re interested’ and I’ll say ‘absolutely’, so they can drop it to my yard, or I’ll go and pick it up with the Huski and load it onto my truck. Conversely, I sometimes work alongside the tree-cutting companies and take my Huski along to help them with their jobs.”
Mr Fox’s favourite attachment is the grapple that allows him to lift and hold large timber logs whilst traversing uneven ground, without losing control of the load.
“That grapple attachment is unbelievable, it’s worth its weight in gold. You can grab and pull with it, crush things. Pick things up, run them around, throw them on my truck. I’ve had jobs removing old tanks and I just drive it straight into the sides of them.
“It does a phenomenal job, carrying around three-tonne logs all day. On my first day with the Huski I moved 30 tonnes of logs a good distance to my truck, which was amazing.
Such productivity has made Mr Fox’s investment a worthy one. “It has been a big investment for our business but it’s already paying for itself because of our massively increased efficiency and production. It’s paying for itself in hire fees, alone.”
Things have come a long way for Mr Fox, who started out with “Just a chainsaw and a trailer. Having this multi-purpose machine that can grab everything I need has made such a huge difference to our business. It’s the difference between getting up in the morning and being able to pull my boots on because I haven’t had to manually lift anything. It makes a big difference to my body.”
Asked about his favourite Huski feature, Mr Fox said “It’s the controls. The forward and reverse controls are red-hot. I like how you’re just sitting in it and it’s happy days. It’s so natural to drive.”
For more info free call 1800 425 438 or visit www.huskiconstructionequipment.com.au