Company

DESIGNED TO PERFORM. BUILD TO LAST.

MORE THAN JUST FORESTRY MACHINERY

Who are we?

Westtech develops machines for forestry technology and covers the entire biomass logistics chain with solutions for cutting, sawing, splitting, and clearing. The Woodcracker® portfolio includes cutting heads, felling grapples, grapple saws, wood grippers, wood splitters, splitting tongs, rootstock shears, and clearing rakes. With an excavator mulcher and the Mowblower—a mower with a blower—we also serve the landscape maintenance sector. Thanks to this wide range of products, we are a system provider for forest and landscape maintenance.

What does “Westtech” stand for?

Out of his own need, founder Werner Steininger developed the first wood splitting tongs on his parents’ farm – with the aim of being able to split solid tree trunks efficiently with minimal effort.

The company name “Westtech” is a combination of Werner Steininger and technology.

From practice for practice

We manufacture machines that are designed simply and precisely for their intended purpose, with exceptionally high quality and a high degree of in-house production. Since our products are used worldwide and have to meet a wide variety of requirements, they are deliberately overengineered to ensure maximum reliability and durability. The result is equipment that lasts forever. Our first splitting tongs are still in use after 20 years at Lake Tegernsee.

Marcus Reinhold W1000 und original machine mit Beschriftung

Biomass logistics

With our Woodcracker product range and our know-how, we provide support to you throughout the entire biomass logistics chain.

Harvest > Storage > Transport > Chipping > Recycling

OUR VALUES

INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY

Every Westtech product line is developed by our experienced technical team, always in close cooperation with our customers.

INDIVIDUAL CUSTOMER SERVICE

We develop and optimize our products specifically according to our customers’ requirements and implement individual requests.

QUALITY MADE IN AUSTRIA

Development and manufacturing from a single source guarantee the highest quality standards and the associated longevity of the products.

Everything from a single source

Our expertise – from the initial idea to the finished Woodcracker.

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Die Woodcracker Story

Find out who is behind the orange Woodcracker machines for cutting, sawing, splitting and clearing – from the creation of the first splitting tongs to the current process and where Woodcrackers are used worldwide!

Westtech academy

Cataphoretic dip priming and powder coating

The company Pöttinger in Grieskirchen executes the machine piece’s dip priming and powder coating for WESTTECH.

The process involves the following steps:

Surface preparation: In this process the surface is cleaned and the edges rounded off.
Pretreatment: The automatic handling system conveys the units through the baths.
Priming: This involves a 3-zone CDP (Cataphoretic Dip Priming) process using water-based paint, as used throughout the automotive industry. The advantage of this type of priming system is its excellent corrosion protection and uniform thickness of each coat right into every cavity.
Baking: Optimum adhesion of the primer to the workpiece is ensured by baking at 200°C.
Top Coat: The top coat is applied using powder coating.
Baking: The powder coating finish needs to be baked at about 200°C to achieve the best possible quality.

The advantages for the cataphoretic dip priming are perfectly clear:

excellent corrosion protection
uniform thickness of each coat
every cavity gets coated completely
very eco-friendly due to very little solvents

The outstanding resiliency and durability are marks of this coating process. No cracks will generate in the coating even with stress due to shock or deformation. Likewise, the method is one of the most eco-friendly coating methods. The production and processing happen without any solvent. Westtech uses this coating method with all their machines to achieve the highest possible longevity.

Multigrip and Autospeed

The so-called Multigrip is composed of a big hydraulic block inside the Woodcracker® machine and regulates with just one double-acting hydraulic connection the gripper’s opening, closing and the cutting unit. This regulation is achieved by a pressure control sequence, which provides the gripper and the cutting unit with oil. While closing the machine the gripper has the higher priority, when opening the machine it’s the other way round. Thanks to this feature working with the Woodcracker® C is much safer, due to the tree’s safe grip while cutting. The Multigrip enables very high hydraulic performance, depending on the carrier vehicle between 100 and 200 l/mins.

The hydraulic block has a default pressure protection at the input side which is sealed, additionally.

Optional can “Autospeed” be built in at an excavator’s lower hydraulic power. Autospeed enables 30% higher speed when closing the cutting unit during an empty run or with lower load.

The saw unit

The CS serie’s saw unit – innovative technology at its finest

The CS series by Westtech, a forestry machine producer in Upper Austria, contains four different grip saws up until now. The Woodcracker® CS, CS smart and CS compact got developed for rigid mounting and especially for safety tree fellings. The Woodcracker® CS crane, on the other hand, is cardanic mounted.

The machine’s centerpiece is the saw unit with the chain saw.

This component sets itself apart by a lot of outstanding features.

1) actively suspended saw unit

2) automatic chain tensioner

3) automatic grease lubrication

4) easy chain and bar maintenance

1) actively suspended saw unit

The saw unit has a swinging chassis with active suspension and can be tilted. The suspension prevents clamping of the saw even at high-risk force and the tilt function ensures a safe retracting of the saw, even with a positional change of the cut material.

2) automatic chain tensioner

The automatic chain tensioner keeps the chain under the right tension – no matter if the machine just gets started or if it’s already operating for a while. The working process doesn’t have to pause to mount a jumped off chain again.

3) automatic grease lubrication (Woodcracker® CS, CS smart and CS compact)

The chain gets supplied with grease by an automatic lubrication pump. With every cutting operation a defined amount of grease gets pressed into the saw bar.

Compared to an oil lubrication, there is no oil fogging and therefore no contamination of the driver cabin windscreen. Additionally grease lubrication is long-lasting and economical.

4) easy chain and bar maintenance

The saw bar is easily accessible via the machine’s maintenance position. If it is necessary to change the saw chain or the saw bar, these processes are a piece of cake.