Marlton, N.J. May 01, 2016: Bill Mollard, owner of Davis, West Virginia-based Timberline Landscape Care, went from being the owner of a Black Splitter S2X 800 wood splitting attachment to a dealer. This unique German-manufactured cone splitter enables an operator to handle and split large timber without leaving the cab of a construction machine.
Timberline is a tree service and landscaping outfit that also distributes firewood and the equipment used to process it. Based in a tourist destination on the densely wooded northeastern fringe of Blackwater Falls State Park, the firm has been serving residential customers in this West Virginia tourist destination since 2006.
“The stone in our boot, so to speak, was what do we do with all of these big pieces of wood we can’t put through the processor,” said Mollard. He began researching cone splitters as a possible solution.
Mollard purchased an S2X 800 from Marlton-N.J.-based Atlantic Excavator Attachments and put the unique attachment to work quartering logs that were too large to feed into its firewood processors. Upon recognizing the efficiency of the attachment and evaluating the future direction of his firm, he negotiated an agreement with owner Eric Ransome to become a Black Splitter dealer in the Mid-Atlantic Region covering West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, and Western Pennsylvania.
“It was a combination of the right time and the right place,” recalled Mollard. “We’ve been transitioning away from labor-intensive work and getting more into equipment sales.”
Timberline is off to a strong start with its first sale of an S2 800 to a landscape contractor in Charlottesville, Va. Matching up the hydraulic fittings, hoses, couplers, and cone threads of this German attachment with an American excavator required thorough up front phone and Internet-based coordination between Timberline, Atlantic, and the customer.
“We had to drill down into the details,” Mollard said, citing the pun with a chuckle. “We worked hard to get the preliminary information and it paid off because the machine was shipped to the customer and all we had to do was attach it to his excavator.”
Download Full PDF | Originally published by Fraley Construction Marketing.