firewood processors

[wdchuck]

The ergonomics of that lever are great for future healthcare professionals, but not so good for the operator.

I have to agree on the speed though, pretty quick. :greenchainsaw:

 

[Moss Man]

The ergonomics of that lever are great for future healthcare professionals, but not so good for the operator.

I have to agree on the speed though, pretty quick. :greenchainsaw:

I threw the extra cash for the Easy model, all hydraulic controls. At my age I have no interest in pulling that saw down a couple hundred times in a row.

 

[BuddhaKat]

The ergonomics of that lever are great for future healthcare professionals, but not so good for the operator.

I have to agree on the speed though, pretty quick. :greenchainsaw:

What's wrong with the ergonomics? It looks like the guys wrist is more in its natural position than if the bar was straight.

 

[wdchuck]

What's wrong with the ergonomics? It looks like the guys wrist is more in its natural position than if the bar was straight.

The shoulders, the constant pressure he has to apply throughout the movement, the overhead reach then pressure in a way that is at the bodies less than ideal situation, also the number of repetitions per hour, at four hours or more per day will assure some physical therapy down the road.

Now, if he could implement something that amplified his downward force, that would help considerably, a cam perhaps. I'm not a mechanical engineer, but there must be ways to ease the operators effort.

Production lines in factories are a great place to find out what causes long term injury, and there are plenty of rotator cuff issues that can/will arise with that lever the way he has it. Hydraulic operation with a manual override option would be the best setup in my opinion.

Two cents...

 

[blackdogon57]

who is dealer in are area, or did you go right to the Mfg. I was talk to them and they don't have any one nearby. Are the processors made with parts off the shelf or must you buy every thing from them? What kind of $$ are the SCP - 30?

Go right to Built Rite in Ludlow, NH. You will save a ton of money and they are simple to import. I towed mine with conveyor on top all the way from NH - no problem. All the customs guys want is the sales tax. There is no duty.
There are also used ones that come up from time to time from dealers in the US. Try Thick and Thin Lumber in Portland, ME. He actually sold me mine and shipped it back to Built Rite for me. It had only 200 hours on it. Now hav 1200 hours and have had no serious issues other than normal wear and tear.

 

[Firewolf]

I use a Cord king 54" circular saw processor and i think its great A bit costly but you can get sizes from 48" - 60" depending on your type of timber
The type of processor depends on how busy you want to make your crew.
I can do aprox 3.4 cords per hr alone with a crew maybe 5 1/2

 

[havsawwilltravl]

There's processing wood and selling wood. One gets you paid and one gets you bragging rights. The ideal is to sell it as fast as you can make it unless you're in an area where you can scoop it up out of a stockpile that stays dry, but if you can do that, you're probably not in an area that needs much firewood.

Convincing your customers to buy wood from you by the loose thrown calibration will speed up your production almost as much as a processer. Marketing the amount your delivery vehicle holds is another productive strategy, it takes as long to dump one cord as it does two, why waste your time? I marvel at guys that that will buy a $100k machine that runs 2 hours a day because they spend the other 6 stacking wood. (But they get a $50 tip once in a while).

 

[Moss Man]

There's processing wood and selling wood. One gets you paid and one gets you bragging rights. The ideal is to sell it as fast as you can make it unless you're in an area where you can scoop it up out of a stockpile that stays dry, but if you can do that, you're probably not in an area that needs much firewood.

Convincing your customers to buy wood from you by the loose thrown calibration will speed up your production almost as much as a processer. Marketing the amount your delivery vehicle holds is another productive strategy, it takes as long to dump one cord as it does two, why waste your time? I marvel at guys that that will buy a $100k machine that runs 2 hours a day because they spend the other 6 stacking wood. (But they get a $50 tip once in a while).

You chainsaw or do you have a processor?

 

[havsawwilltravl]

You chainsaw or do you have a processor?

Processor these days, it'll do 4-5 cord/hr too but only if you're running powerpole size logs through. 20" logs split 8 ways is a niche market at best, our bread and butter is condos that like "palmable" size wood thus, we like the 12" logs. We still load a 2 cord truck in a half hour but when you average things out at the end of the day--Startup, sorting, loading the table, processing, delivering, fueling and maintenance, two guys can deliver 12-15 cords in a 10 hour day. That's about 1.5 cords per hour in the bank, hardly the 4 cord an hour figure that gets everyone excited about a processor but about triple what you could do without it.

We try to never touch the wood, we have a few old customers that expect it stacked on their porch and some old ladies that get whatever they ask for but, we try to do all dump loads. We tell everyone that calls that it wiil be delivered loose but when THEY finish stacking it, it should measure out at 128 cubic ft per cord paid for. We fill the truck to 150% of what a stacked cord would be and it seems to work. There's definitely some old guard wood customers who demand a stacked delivery that measures 128cubes stacked on the truck but that's OK because there's still some old guard wood producers that won't do it any differently either. I say if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten.

Some people don't get the "dumped" part of our ad or they pretend to not get it, so when they ask "so explain what you mean, dumped?" I tell them "I back our dumptruck up as close as I can get to the area you intend to store it, then I roll the window down far enough that you can shove money through the crack and then I push the button to release the wood and drive away!" That usually explains it well enough for all to understand.

 

[Widmere]

Pain

The shoulders, the constant pressure he has to apply throughout the movement, the overhead reach then pressure in a way that is at the bodies less than ideal situation, also the number of repetitions per hour, at four hours or more per day will assure some physical therapy down the road.

Now, if he could implement something that amplified his downward force, that would help considerably, a cam perhaps. I'm not a mechanical engineer, but there must be ways to ease the operators effort.

Production lines in factories are a great place to find out what causes long term injury, and there are plenty of rotator cuff issues that can/will arise with that lever the way he has it. Hydraulic operation with a manual override option would be the best setup in my opinion.

Two cents...

I have a similar setup and found that standing on a pallet made a world of difference - these machines - afterall - are designed to be used by Vikings

 

[Curlycherry1]

I'm late to the party but I got a few items to add. Our family has been cutting wood since the 1960s, most all of it by the old chainsaw then splitter method. My brother has run a Timberwolf for about 8 years now and he sells over 2000 face cords per year. Here are some tips that he has learned.

Get a unit that is servicable. If you are waiting around for strange parts to come from some other part of the country, you are wasting money. If something breaks you want to dash to the nearest farm store or machine supply and get what you need and get it back on the machine pronto. A down machine is no income. Check where the parts are sourced and get a machine made from common stuff available everywhere. That fancy Sweedish thingamabob may do a darn good job when it is working, but if it goes kaput and Inga cannot get a new one to you later today, you are toast.

Quality of logs to match the processor is CRITICAL. It makes zero sense to have a processor set up with a 4-way or 5 way wedge and be pushing 4-5" or 14-20" logs through it. You get slivers or boogers too big to handle. So one needs to find loggers that can get the logs that are straight and match the size the processor works best at. My brother does a sort of some of his logs and he has a daytime helper do the tough stuff because he does not pay the guy much. So he can afford to have a guy crunching the knarly bigger logs or the ones with crotches cut out. At night my brother processes the "good" stuff and he can pound out 2-3X/hour what the helper can do.

Spend time splitting the wood correctly. Although the splitter is automatic, it is important to spend two seconds making sure the wood will go through ok and not split in a weird pattern. It is amazing how a good splitter operator can make decent looking firewood and a hack can crank out wood that looks like hairballs. Pay attention to the size coming off the splitter. Lots of folks figure if it made it through the wedge it is good to go. That is not the case. Lots of wood will end up too big to handle and folks do not like that. Grab some of those big escapees and pull them back and split them again. This takes time, but the reason my brother has captured so much business in his area is because he does not have big goonies in his piles.

Clean logs are critical. If the logger cannot get you clean logs find a new logger. Buy logs cut on snow if possible or find guys that use forwarders. A dirty log will end up costing more money in the long run than 2-3 clean ones. Dirty logs can be cleaned with a powerwasher or they can be cleaned by spreading them out in a field and spraying water from an irrigation sprinkler on them. In the few times my brother has had dirty logs that was how he salvaged them.

Organize deliveries or encourage organization by customers. Charge $10 for getting to their street and if they order the whole truck load at 2-3 houses, then they can split the cost of the $10 among neighbors. That way you fill the truck once and drive to one block and you get rid of the entire load in that block. If you have to drive 1/4 mile to another house, then they get dinged the $10 delivery charge. Dump deliveries only and if they want it stacked charge them a fair but steep price for it. Stacking should have no different pay per hour than doing any other part of the firewood processing. My brother's wife is not a big woman and yet she delivers probably 70% of his firewood. Kids with strong backs and weak minds load the trucks for her, and she just drives, dumps and collects the money.

Equipment to feed a processor and move the wood away is critical. An old truck will work fine for moving the wood away once processed. Any old dump truck that barely runs will do the job. Moving logs from the pile to the processor is a dangerous, heavy and tricky job. Do not underestimate the machinery needed to do this job and do it well. My bro used a 40 Hp Kubota for about 5 years and it worked ok but he could only handle a single 40' log at a time. The feeder person was moving logs alot during the day so a person was spending too much seat time on the tractor moving logs. That is not value added. He upgraded to a 90 Hp Kubota that is now big enough to handle 2-4 logs at once and it does it better with more balance and more control. Now the feeder only needs to to his job a few times per day and he can do it in just a few minutes.

A hard pad around the processor will keep things going under bad weather conditions. If you have access to good soil, stone or even old road grindings, they make a good foundation that will keep you going when the weather is bad. Concrete is expensive and if a very thick pad is not put down it will get eaten up by the weights being moved over it.

Dry wood sells and people will pay for dry wood. If you have the space and can stack it to dry then it does pay. My bro pay $3/face cord and has kids pile it in long rows. Then his deliveries come flying in from Mid-August through February and he is pretty much done. He does not deliver green wood that is fresh split because there are too may hacks already doing that. Besides, customers often what their wood to burn now, and green wood does not meet that need.

My brother's processor has held up well. He has it under cover in a shed so he can load it and process out of the elements. The machine is in good order and I think he has about 9K hours on it. He has blown a few major parts but overall he is very happy. He likes the serviceability of it.

I hope some will find the above information useful.

 

[Dalmatian90]

Thanks for the post Curlycherry!

I'm not a commercial guy (in a few years I may sell a few cords on the side for toy money, but I don't plan on anything significant), but I enjoy reading good posts like that filled to the brim with common sense advice.

 

[Curlycherry1]

One also needs space. Here is a pic of my brother's operation. You can see the piles of logs and the piles of split wood if you know how to tell the two apart in a photo. The green roofed building is where the processor is. Those pile along the road next to the green building are piles of logs about 30 feet high.

 

[Circle B MN]

OK, now I am officially jealous......

 

[Curlycherry1]

OK, now I am officially jealous......

He lives in NY, not Minnesooooota. Another two weeks and his dash for the cash will begin as customers start flooding his answering machine with orders. Did I mention he gets paid in almost 95% cash? Weeks 1, 2, 3, 4 he is a happy camper because all that work starts paying off in moneymoneymoney! Then it starts to get old long about October when he gets into a backlog situation and he is 2-3 weeks out on deliveries. People start to get cranky because they expect themselves to be his ONLY customer and thus can deliver their wood 1 hour after a phone call is made. Then in November things get sticky. Snow starts to happen so he has snow to plow and the snow makes people FREAK that they did not get their wood yet and his phone basically blows up. The constant wear and tear of delivering wood 14-18 hours per day on weekends and 8-10 hour days during the week gets ugly. But the cash keeps piling in and his wife stops at the bank at least twice per day on her deliveries and keeps plunking the cash into the bank.

One forgets all the work that is done the other 8-9 months of the year when the cash comes flying in, but it is a lot of work and a lot of cash goes back out for machine costs, fuel, maintainence, labor and most importantly logs. One some days his suppliers will blow in 10 to as many as 20 tractor trailer loads or tri-axel loads and he is right there to pay them. They like that but it means BIG chunks of money going back out. For some reason he does not like that part.