Abstract: At the site where trees are freshly felled, the disclosed apparatus by means of a boom arm and claw, pulls the merchantable portions of one or more tree stems through a cutting head assembly. The tree stems are topped by a topping saw removing their unmerchantable tops. The merchantable portion of the tree stems fall by gravity into a guide through and are pushed through a flail mechanism which completely removes the smaller supple limbs and remaining bark missed by the cutter head assembly. The merchantable tree stems are then extracted by the boom arm from the flail mechanism and stacked or loaded on a truck to be taken to a lumber mill. Single tree stems of large diameter, multiple smaller diameter tree stems, and tree stems of hardwood or softwood may be processed by the disclosed invention. The freshly felled tree stems are grasped by the boom arm claw and put through the disclosed apparatus without letting go. This yields an efficient and quick processing method.

Abstract: An apparatus which delimbs and debarks one or multiple tree stems which are fed into the apparatus by a circle loader by its boom arm and claw. The tree stem(s) are pulled through the apparatus by the circle loader as the apparatus delimbs and debarks the tree stems with a flail means of various designs and configurations. The flail means if further designed to eject material striped from the tree stems in a controlled fashion from the apparatus. Other safety features contain and prevent uncontrolled ejection of material striped from the tree stems. The flail means is further designed to assist the tree stem feeding by frictionally moving the tree stems into the apparatus with the action of one of the flail drums; and thus reducing wear and tear on the circle loader. The expanse of the feeding opening is designed to accommodate larger diameter and more numerous tree stems resulting in more efficient, faster, and safer delimbing and debarking.