Antti Luukkonen has made his dream job a successful business – with a little help from Black Bruin rotators

Mr. Antti Luukkonen has been driving forest machines since 2005 and been an entrepreneur since 2007 in his company Heavy Rakenne Oy, based in Taivalkoski, eastern Finland. Antti is also a heavy user of Black Bruin rotators with altogether 6 harvesters, mainly Ponsse Scorpions, all of them equipped with Black Bruin RH3016 rotators.

Heavy Rakenne has quite an impressive operation employing over 40 people. And the business is growing, although there’s a continuous shortage of drivers. There are both very experienced drivers and also some young ones in Heavy Rakenne’s payroll, both men and women. Antti Luukkonen is especially glad about the increase of female drivers and gives them due credit: “They tend to be very enthusiastic about their jobs and perhaps a bit calmer while learning, and they are quick to learn about it.”

The rotator of a lifetime

In 2017, Ponsse suggested that Antti might change to Black Bruin’s RH3016 rotators. At first, Antti had some doubts. He recalled some historical problems in the BBR H rotators with Ponsse’s H60 harvester head. He soon learned, however, that the old problem of the case drain line had been solved and so he decided to try it and is really happy that he did so. “No way I will go back to any competing technology or brand,” he declares. Antti Luukkonen says that since 2017 hardly any of Heavy Rakenne’s six Black Bruin RH3016 rotators have been replaced or even serviced apart from the normal basic daily maintenance routine. The only exception is that in the second oldest Scorpion with over 18,000 working hours, the rotator’s upper pin has been changed due to getting loose, but that is a detail hardly worth mentioning, as Antti says this is only to be expected with such an impressive number of working hours. And it is not a critical repair target in general.

The first 2017 model Scorpion already had 22 000 working hours with over 6 years of service and it still had the original rotator. ”We were just not able to break it,” Antti laughs. Finally, in 2023 the machine was replaced with a new one, but not because of the rotator.

Take care of the rotator, and the rotator will take care of your business

A harvester head is lubricated once a day during a 5-day working week, and at the same time, a small amount of grease is added to the sealing cover of the rotator. That is all. ”Water will enter the bearing unless you lubricate the neck of the sealing,” Antti explains. He has found Black Bruin a far stronger and more efficient rotator than a rotator powered by a vane motor. “You definitely feel that in use. Even with an older machine, the rotator still has its power: It’s like working with a brand new machine.” In Antti’s experience, if Black Bruin radial piston rotator is compared to a vane rotator, the latter will be replaced at least once during the machine’s lifetime. “After 10,000 hours it just turns sluggish,” Antti declares.

Drivers have different driving styles. It depends on what type of machine they are used to or maybe on what they were first taught to drive. Some drivers like to adjust the brakes and others don’t adjust them at all after the initial stiffness disappears. “There’s not much need for adjustment. In harvester use, it is after all easy to get used to the movement. Antti hasn’t really thought of Black Bruin for forwarder use, because there the use is so much lighter than with harvesters, which throw the heavy harvester head and trunks back and forth. ”That demands a lot of the rotator,” Antti Luukkonen sums up.”

Loving the forest and the work

Antti Luukkonen is very happy with his Black Bruin radial piston rotators and does not want to use any other model. Whenever there’s a chance, he recommends the Black Bruin rotators to other contractors. According to Antti, the quality of today’s Black Bruin rotators is so high that between the drivers they have started to joke that Black Bruin might start to deliberately reduce their quality.

Even though Antti runs a successful business, he does not want to stay in the office. He loves to work in the forest. ”The forest is a beautiful and peaceful working environment and I enjoy working on my own. And luckily these days, I don’t need to do much administrative work anymore, because we have other people for that, so I can concentrate on productive forest work and managing the operations.”