150' douglas fir take down

[MattB]

This video is patched together from 60sec clips from my flip phone. Low quality camera work, but one of my biggest take downs so far.

We took down a 150' douglas fir behind the house in two days with two guys.

The track chipper proved it's worth by making it into a tight back yard.

We were able to speedline the majority of the brush and tops to about 6' from the chipper. Dropped off a 25' log making the cut at about 90' then flopped the rest of the trunk without breaking a single branch on the trees around it.

Big Fir Tree Take Down - YouTube

 

[squad143]

Is your tracked chipper a homemade hybrid? Looks like a Vermeer chipper sitting on an excavator undercarriage. Never seen a tracked chipper with a dozer blade.

 

[MattB]

Is your tracked chipper a homemade hybrid? Looks like a Vermeer chipper sitting on an excavator undercarriage. Never seen a tracked chipper with a dozer blade.

Yup. I bought it from one of the guys on this site in 2010. It's a BC1000 and mini excavator undercarriage. Cost about 1/4 of what a factory roll out would cost.

 

[8433jeff]

Nice work. Leaving the chips or?

 

[MattB]

Nice work. Leaving the chips or?

I mostly do work in a rural setting where people either want the chips or don't care if we blow them out in the forest if it saves them money. My trailer can only haul about 7 or 8 yards of chips which makes it hard to do big jobs if it all has to go. A new truck is in the works though.

 

[squad143]

Yup. I bought it from one of the guys on this site in 2010. It's a BC1000 and mini excavator undercarriage. Cost about 1/4 of what a factory roll out would cost.

Sweet!

Do you know what the undercarriage came off of? I guess the track hydraulics run off the chipper.

Ya, those factory tracked chippers come with a pretty heafty price tag.

 

[MattB]

Sweet!

Do you know what the undercarriage came off of? I guess the track hydraulics run off the chipper.

Ya, those factory tracked chippers come with a pretty heafty price tag.

The excavator was an IHI 3.5 ton machine. The guy who built it did a good job of matching the height of the undercarriage with the standard axle that came on the chipper, so the feed table height is almost identical.

The tracks run off the same pump that runs the infeed roller. It has a manual lever that switches the flow back and forth between the tracks and infeed.

The machine can only do about 1 mph so it is pretty slow going, but if you balance it with dragging a couple hundred arm loads to the truck it is much faster.