Förderverein Großes Moor e.V.

The cutting machine

a masterpiece of engineering

The Heinz Kunze peat works was founded in 1950 and produced fuel peat until 1970. Today, fertiliser peat is produced, which is sold to nearby supermarkets and garden centres.

The peak times for sales are from March until mid-June and from September until mid-November. Dry days are used for extracting peat. The areas are harrowed and vacuumed off after drying. An auxiliary unit on a tractor with a 2-metre wide suction nozzle is used to collect the peat in a 15 m³ drum.
Tracked vehicles (Fig. 2), tractors, sifting and packaging machines are used in operation.

In addition, Heinz Kunze also receives and restores numerous historic machines (Figs. 3 and 4). And he owns a working cutting machine (Fig. 5). This is well maintained and undamaged. Once a year he demonstrates how fibric peat is cut.

The individual parts of the machine are connected by chains and sprockets (Fig. 6) to enable the machine to cut the peat, move it onto a belt and then set it down beside the ditch (Figs. 7 to 9). While doing this, it continually creeps forwards so that it can cut, transport and set down the next sod of peat.