Every category guide answers the questions a professional buyer has before contacting a supplier: what the attachment really does, which carrier it needs, which model to look at, which specifications matter, what limits production in Australian hardwood, and what to confirm in writing before ordering.
An excavator is the most under-used machine on most Australian clearing jobs. It arrives for the earthworks, sits through the vegetation stage while something else is hired in, and goes home. Every attachment below exists to close that gap: to let a carrier that is already financed, already insured, already floated to site and already has an operator in it earn through another stage of the same project.
That framing decides what a good buy looks like. The correct attachment is rarely the one with the largest published capacity. It is the one whose dominant working size matches the material you actually cut, whose hydraulic demand your carrier can sustain at working temperature, and whose mass still leaves the machine able to hold what it has just severed. Those three constraints eliminate more options than any brand preference.
Each guide below covers a family in full: the current range with published figures, how to read those figures commercially, what limits production in Australian hardwood, what wears out and what it costs, what to compare the family against, and what to confirm in writing before ordering.
A hydraulic tree shear turns an excavator you already own into a mechanised felling carrier that grips, cuts, holds and places a tree from the cab. This guide covers the current Trevi Benne WL and WR families, the legacy WT range, and the sizing rules that decide whether the attachment pays for itself in Australian hardwood.
Felling the tree is often the fastest part of a clearing contract. The Trevi Benne WE Series is built for what comes next on sites where the stump has to leave the ground: a heavy hydraulic pincer that severs the structural roots, extracts the root ball and then splits it into something a truck, a chipper or a stockpile can accept.
Dipperfox does not sweep a high-speed wheel across a stump. It drills vertically through it with a large cutting screw and a geared drive, processing the stump in place and leaving the site without a crater, a root ball or a truck movement. This guide explains the three current models, where each one pays, and how to test one in Australian hardwood.
A forestry mulcher does not remove vegetation; it reduces it where it stands. That single difference removes felling, stacking, loading, hauling and processing from a clearing job, which is why mulching is priced by the treated hectare. This guide covers the Shearex VM excavator range and HM front-mount range, and the hydraulic, cooling and tooling decisions that decide the real cost per hectare.
The defining feature of a grapple saw is not the chainsaw. It is the ability to secure a tree or branch, cut it, and keep control of the severed section. That matters wherever a falling piece cannot simply land where gravity takes it: beside a road, under a powerline, next to a house, or on a storm-damaged tree nobody should climb. This guide covers the Powerhand EX family and the suspended-load rule that governs every purchase.
A forestry grapple looks simple until it is compared with a general sorting grab in a pile of springy, dirty, irregular timber. The Powerhand EX family is built around roundwood, brash and biomass: strong enough to penetrate a pile and wrap a bundle, light enough to leave the carrier its payload. This guide covers the four EX sizes, the Terragrip, and how to size a grapple to a chipper and a lift chart.
Mechanical pruning is not one machine category. It runs from a 40 kg cutter bar for 30 mm hedge growth to a hydraulic forestry pruner that severs 420 mm timber. Buying a pruning attachment without first defining the vegetation is almost meaningless. This guide sorts the OMEF TG, BF, TRI, BTD and CS families by material size, linear coverage and what happens to the severed piece.
A clearing project does not end when the last tree is down. Stumps, roots, compacted haul tracks, voids, trenches and planting requirements remain, and the contractor who can carry the job through to prepared ground earns revenue from more stages of the same project. This guide covers excavator-mounted auger drilling and OMEF CPT compaction, and where they stop and true forestry tillage begins.
| Your main job | Primary attachment |
|---|---|
| Cut standing trees quickly | Tree shear |
| Cut and retain large sections | Grapple saw |
| Handle timber and brash | Forestry grapple |
| Remove root systems entirely | Trevi Benne WE stump cutter |
| Destroy the stump in place | Dipperfox stump grinder |
| Reduce all vegetation on site | Forestry mulcher |
| Maintain branches and vegetation | Mechanical pruning |
| Prepare soil after clearing | Ground preparation |
Not sure which family fits? Start from your carrier with the attachment matcher, from the job with the application guides, or scan every model at a glance.
Send us your excavator model, hydraulic figures, tree species and typical diameters. We will come back with a carrier-matched configuration and a written specification you can compare against any other quote.