It can be a tough call. Buying a major new piece of equipment when you don’t know the brand and it’s a step up in price from the one you’re using now.

That was the situation for Jason Beaulieu who manages Beaulieu Logging, the company he owns with his father in Biddeford, Maine. Jason knew he needed a felling head with a high rotation wrist, a head that would allow him to work in different conditions: sides of the road, clear cutting, selective cutting and more. He wanted a light head offering maneuverability for fast movements. The weight was an issue because he operates a relatively small machine, a CAT TK711 feller buncher. 

Jason’s choice of the Gilbert 3022L head he bought last summer didn’t come easy, but now he says it’s “the smartest piece of forestry equipment we’ve spent money on.”

“I was using a CAT HF201 head which only has 30 degrees of movement,” Jason explains, “and we decided to go with the Gilbert head with the direct drive that has 350 degrees of movement. We really, really regret we didn’t do it years ago. It just saves so much time, we can do projects a lot faster than we used to.”

Gilbert Products Inc has been around for some time but it wasn’t on his radar as a potential purchase because of his “lack of knowledge about the product,” says Jason. “We didn’t know enough about the Gilbert heads until we took a chance and tried one.” Not only are there no regrets but he has become a loyal fan of the brand. Gilbert says he’s not alone - many other customers in new England have also discovered their head during the past year.

“It’s an attachment that’ll pay for itself easily,” Jason says. “It’s definitely a smart investment and we really don’t plan on going in a different direction for a felling head except for Gilbert.” The head was purchased through Milton Caterpillar in Brewer, Maine, who also provide support and service and local parts availability for the machine. 

Beaulieu Logging handles a range of contracts including selective cutting and forestry management, subdivision land clearing and roadside work. Jason uses the Gilbert head for all of it, cutting anything from small stuff on the subdivisions to big timber, like white pine 18 to 30 inches on the stump, in the woods. 

The Gilbert head is a star performer everywhere but especially on roadside jobs, says Jason. “We do a lot of road work for different towns and the State of Maine highway department, clearing around power lines, trimming the roads back. That’s one of the main reasons why we bought the Gilbert head, to be able to reach in and around telephone poles and power lines and obstacles alongside roads. Typically, in those places, they would trim the roads back with just normal hand crews and bucket trucks. We took that up a couple of steps up to the next level. Now, on roads that took 2 or 3 weeks to trim back, we’ll bring our operation in there and shut down one lane and do the same project in about a day and a half. It impacts travel a lot less. And typically it’s the same or a little cheaper than what the bucket truck would cost. We’ve already done about 150 miles of road work and now pretty much every town within 100 miles of us calls us up to trim their roads back.”