is effected by lifting the hold downs 10 and pivoting the lever 19 attached to the right hand side of the carrier slide 5 which lever is also or can be hydraulically operable subsequently the beam is released by a brief retraction of the axially clamping pressure cylinder 22 on the left hand side of the carrier slide the beam thus drops with a machined side onto the lower frame section 12 and is again retained by means of the hold downs 10 and axially oriented clamping action in order to prevent the beam from sliding off laterally during the lowering step about 7 14 cm depending on the bole thickness onto the narrow lower frame section 12 supports 24 that can be pulled upwards or folded upwards are provided on both sides of the carrier slide 5 at a small spacing from the latter see fig6 in the upwardly moved or upwardly folded condition these supports extend just up to the top edge of the lower frame section 12 of the carrier slide 5 so that temporarily a broadened support is produced suitably the movement of these supports 24 by means of a hydraulic cylinder 25 is coupled with the movement of the hold downs 10 after the subsequent return of the carrier slide 5 the two still remaining barrels of the bole 8 can now be cut off whereupon the beam is released on all sides and laterally deposited or laterally transported away on a chain conveyor the loading of the carrier slide 5 takes place transversely to its direction of travel by means of chain feeders 26 fig5 two chains arranged in parallel at a mutual spacing with strong drivers spaced apart in such a way that respectively.