Crane Mat Equipment
Crane mats carry heavy equipment across ground that won't hold it, and each one depends on holes drilled in exactly the right place.
Pendu builds the drilling systems for mat production. Material feeds in, every hole is bored in position, and finished pieces move on to your assembly station for bolting. The front of the system is built around how your lumber arrives, whether that's bundled timber that needs to be broken apart and fed one piece at a time, or material already separated coming off a deck.
The systems handle two different products, timber mats and laminated mats, and each runs through a little differently.
The first question we ask is how your lumber arrives, because that decides what the front of the system looks like.
Timber Mats: Heavy 8x8 timbers, processed piece by piece. The drill station bores all the holes at once, then the system flips the timber and sends it down to the assembly station, where your crew puts the mat together as pieces come off the machine. Handles 8’ to 20’ material in cant sizes from 6x8 through 12x12.
Laminated Mats: Lumber running two directions, up to 6” thick, typically 8’ wide by 16’ long. These get hand laid into a matrix on a jig, and the hole count runs much higher, as many as 101 holes to bolt one together. Single-head drill.
Infeed: Timber mats either show up bundled, which means breaking the bundle apart and feeding timbers in one at a time, or come off a deck already separated and go straight into the drill. An unscrambler on the infeed side handles the first case. Laminated mats are laid by hand, so the jig is the infeed.
Timber mats for soft ground: Laid down so crane trucks and construction equipment can cross ground that won't hold them. An 18’ to 20’ mat takes about four anchors.
Laminated mats for yards and roadways: Where the heavy timber mat is more than the job needs. Thinner, lighter, and bolted through in far more places.
FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
Which system do I need?
It depends on the mat. Heavy timber mats run through a multi-head drill station piece by piece. Laminated mats get laid into a matrix and drilled on a single head. If you make both, tell us and we'll work through what that looks like.
How does my lumber get into the system?
That's the question we'll ask you first. Bundled timber has to be broken apart and fed in one piece at a time before it reaches the drill. Material coming off a deck already separated feeds straight in. The answer changes the infeed, not the drill.
What sizes can you handle?
Timber mat systems run 8’ to 20’ material in cant sizes from 6x8 up through 12x12. For laminated mats, tell us your panel dimensions and hole count.
Tell Us Which Mat You’re Building.
Tell us which mat you're building, how your lumber arrives, and how many holes go in it. That's enough to start. We'll work through the rest with you.
83,000
Sq. Ft. Of Manufacturing Space
25+
Years Of Engineering Expertise
