What to look for in a processor?

[Sandhill Crane]

Good luck with your build muddstopper. I don't have the option to build. Everyone does I guess, but to build I would need a space to do it, tools to do it, and knowledge to build it safely. If I was a younger man it would be fun, and I envy those who can. I wish I had the skills to do simple modifications, such as a double log deck idea to feed the log trough from both sided. I do know several professional welders, so I leave it to them when I need something. They have to eat too. So the real answer is I choose not to attempt to build a processor. Time factors in also. It would take me just this side of forever. As for purchasing a 'do all' machine it just pushes the price up past practical.

ValleyFirewood brings up something I've experienced as a carpenter but would have never thought of when looking at processors. That is pneumatics freezing up stuff in the winter. I did not realize processors used pneumatics at all. It can shut you down to a crawl, not that winter doesn't do that anyway. I sometimes get snow between the bottom drum and the rubber belt of the conveyor. The compression turns it to ice which throws off tracking. There are a lot of guards there as well and it is about impossible to clear. I'm surprised to hear they use it on mobile equipment. I guess semi's use it for air brakes on semis however.

The logs I buy vary quite a bit. But, as I'm on my tenth plus semi load I have found you can be more selective. They know I'm not running a processor and can handle some larger stuff mixed in. The last two loads, nothing over 15-18" max. I'll be getting two more loads for a total of six this year. I would think that means a little to more them then the guy buying one load a year.

I bought tree service logs to feed the TW-6. At first they were cheaper. Not so much now and I quit buying them. I drive by their small yard that is piling up with logs. Love to get some, but they think it's gold piled there. I liked doing that bigger stuff in the winter and not using the conveyor. Big stuff does make nice split wood. I always seem so trash a few chains in it though, which adds to cost. Blue oak.

A Block Buster 15-20 is probably all I really need size wise to speed up what I'm doing small scale and reduce the physical effort. That ValleyFirewood bought a second machine of the same brand as the one he's been using says a lot.

I have a lot tied up in the TW-6. Maybe sell it and put it towards a processor that will get way more use. I can always noodle the few big ones that I get. Looking online at used processors just to see what is out there I came across a TW-5 w/conveyor, and a TW-6 on e-bay for sale. They're good machines.

 

[muddstopper]

I know I sort of side tracked your thread with the discussion of my build. For that I do apologize. Hopefully in doing so, I pointed out a few things for folks to consider if they do choose to buy or build their own machine. Most of the wood I get is free to me for just hauling away. I do go to logging sites and will take the cutoffs and other stuff they cant sell for lumber. I dont get to pick and choose the wood I take, especially since they usually load it on my trailer for me to get it out of their way. Most of this wood I normally wouldnt take if I had to cut and load it myself. In the past I have even pushed some of the worst over the hill because it just wasnt worth the effort to process. Buying a processor that would handle a lot of this wood would be out of the question and cost prohibitive. Considering your statement about wood size in the 15-18in range, I think I would give the blockbuster 18-20 a second look before settleing on the 15-20 model. It would be a pain to have to set aside a log that was 16in dia and process by hand just because it wouldnt pass thru the smaller opening of the 15-20. I dont know the price difference between the two machines, and thats something you would have to decide if its worth it or not.

For productivity, it would be hard to beat the guy that had the extra splitters set up beside his processors conveyor for resplits.His helpers simply picked the oversize splits off the conveyor as they came by them and ran them thru the smaller splitters, dropping back on the conveyor. Takes a extra person or two to do it that way, but I guess if your selling processed firewood by the tractor trailer load, its probably worth it. I might want to add, he also has a blockbuster set up to process 4ft lenght wood alongside his cordking. The 4 ft wood went to a resort that burnt the wood in a fireplace in their dining areas.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

Muddstopper: Block Buster 15-20 splitting 20" isn't an option.

It can split over 20" without trouble, although being limited to a 6 way wedge it does mean having to resplit unless you are fine with fairly large pieces. Cutting is limited to about 18" as is from the factory. I need to open the throat on mine and put a longer bar so I can do about 22-24"

Ideal size is in the 12-16" area, which most of the wood we log is.

 

[cantoo]

Muddstopper, that 190 hp engine is going to drink some fuel. That's kind of what I meant when I said big wood takes big everything to make it small.
I really like doing wood and would like to process wood but the dollars just aren't there for me. Also have a few guys around here that do custom splitting to cut their cost of having the machine down. And then there is the Amish that have tons of kids that they put to work doing wood. I have a buddy that sells wood as a side business, he's always chasing down his money.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

The 18-20 is for sure a bigger machine. I can't remember the cost difference but it's up there. The 15-20 and 20ft conveyor cost me just under $40k to give an idea (some of that cost was getting up to AK as well though)

 

[muddstopper]

Muddstopper, that 190 hp engine is going to drink some fuel. That's kind of what I meant when I said big wood takes big everything to make it small.
I really like doing wood and would like to process wood but the dollars just aren't there for me. Also have a few guys around here that do custom splitting to cut their cost of having the machine down. And then there is the Amish that have tons of kids that they put to work doing wood. I have a buddy that sells wood as a side business, he's always chasing down his money.

I'll agree, 190hp is a lot bigger than anything any of the manufacturers use. It will drink fuel. The thing is, most folks dont figure the fuel used by all of their support equipment. The blockbuster 15-20 is a good machine, the one I demoed had a 25hp honda engine and probably just sipped at fuel. Then to feed the processor, the guy used a skid steer to pull the logs out of the pile and load on the processor. This thing uses fuel too, but for some reason, nobody wants to mention how many times they have to fill it up. My plans are for a knuckle boom mounted on my processor. This serves two purposes. First, having the knuckle boom mounted on the processor allows one operator to keep the machine fed, pull the processor next to the log pile, and start processing wood. Second, big wood and crooked wood just dont feed well thru a processor, having a knuckle boom will allow the operator to give the stuck log a bump and move it on into the saw. Its no seceret that multi split wedges take large cyl's, high pressure, and high flow to be productive. Your not going to pull a pair of 4.5in bore cyl with your little two stage pump with any amount of speed. This means using a single stage pump of high flow, I will have 75gpm of 3000psi oil flow to operate my splitter, I will have 33 gpm of oil dedicated just to the saw motor, which will give me a hydraulic chain saw with over 25hp of cutting power. You just cant pump those oil flows and pressures with a 25hp honda engine. I will also be pulling a air compressor and another pump just to run the conveyors and the knuckle boom. Anyways, this all adds up to needing serious hp to run my machine. As for processor speed, you have to put things into proper perspectives. All manufactures rate the productivity of their machines using max dia and log length capacity of their machines. Thats the reason why nobody ever get the advertised production numbers of x cords a hour, every log is not max dia or max lenght. My machine will handle a 30in dia round 30 inches long. The cycle speed is around 6 sec, Now if you do the math, thats about 12cuft of processed firewood every 6 sec., 1 full cord a minute, 60 cords an hour. Now of course I will be happy with just a fraction of those big numbers, and dont expect to get anywhere near those big numbers, but when you are figuring fuel economy, you have to include the actual production numbers. Sure you can get by with a gallon of fuel a day with a little engine, but if you only process 2 cords of wood is it any more efficient than burning 10 gal of fuel and processing 20 cord. If you only have 2 cords of wood to process, is it worth the fuel saved to be there all day processing it when you could be done in and hour and have the rest of the day to deliver the processed wood. To me fuel numbers are meaningless unless you factor in all the other cost and dollars lost trying to save a few cents on fuel.

 

[Sandhill Crane]

Muddstopper: I agree you have to factor in everything, the complete picture, one number, or even a few out of context is misleading. And if any one piece of equipment breaks down then I can shift and do other things, but basically, I'm down. Two years ago after a hard winter I couldn't get logs till the end of June, can not do much firewood without logs, so now I buy further ahead. This spring I cut logs into rounds waiting for the PackFix. When I get through those approx. thirty cord of rounds I'll have to set up the make shift log deck/cutting table again and start cutting logs. And as I say, it will be several years before a processor is possible. Sometimes I think all I really need is two hydraulic live decks, one on each side of the SS. I run three small gas engines, a 7 hp, 5.5 hp, 4.4 hp, and the Kubota diesel in the forklift. Unfortunately the cycle times are quite short, so lots of starting and stopping because I'm doing each phase of 1/4 cord at a time. Not ideal. To change over to electric would be better, also very costly as three phase power is not available to me. Two people might be better also to keep the flow going.. Although not necessarily more productive because out put should be calculated by man hours per cord. If I do two cords a day, and two people do four cords a day productivity has not changed, until four plus cords are produced.

 

[muddstopper]

Agreed. The high production guy I know has several folks working. He has a set of scales and buy truck loads of wood by weight. A large knuckle boom to unload the truck and sort the log quality. Folks on forklifts changing out baskets of split wood to take to the kilns and then folks doing bundles of dried wood. Lots of people drawing paychecks and lots of productivity. Is he making any more money with his high production setup than a one or two man team doing just a few cords, I have no way of knowing, but its easy to see his overhead is pretty high. To top it off, he sells wholesale so you know his prices cant be real high. I can bet the head aches are a lot more with his business than it would be with a one or two man setup and if you figure cords per man hr, I would just about bet a two man team with a small processor is more productive. Of course I havent seen his books, but some things you just think about when you dont know all the facts.

I dont sell firewood which makes me and others wonder why I even want a high production machine. Well my build didnt start that way. It came about because of scrounging parts and being able to source material for almost nothing to build a big machine and having to pay new prices for materials to build a small machine. As I said before, I will probably have less invested in my processor than you would pay for the small blockbuster. The used one I looked at the guy wanted $20,000. for it. I process about 4-8 cords of wood a year and even the smallest blockbuster would meet my meager demands. What the future holds might be different. I Might be retired because of medical reasons right now, but I will retire for certain next year. The opportunity could be there to pick up some side money doing on site processing for other folks, and I might want to set up a firewood lot to make sales. Then again, I might just trade it for a fishing boat and just have to worry about whether the fish are biting today or not.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

My processor uses a 35hp Kubota and burns about a gallon an hour. I fill it up about once a week.

I can process a cord by myself in about an hour, quicker if I have someone helping.

 

[sam-tip]

Do you guys break very many hydro hoses?

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

Do you guys break very many hydro hoses?

Haven't on the processor yet. Run lots of iron though and it happens. Just put a hose on the buncher yesterday, old one sprung a pinhole leak.

My grapple kept eating hoses until I went to 4000psi ($$) hose. It was fine on my S250, but I guess the TR270 makes more pressure.

 

[muddstopper]

You have to pay attention when buying replacement hose. Trying to go cheap might result in 2250psi rated hoses and they wont last long on a machine putting out 3000+ pressure. What I have found from over 40 years of fooling with hyd equipment, and changing probably a tractor trailer load of blown hoses, is if you let the hoses get chaffed and worn from rubbing against something, thats the hose that will blow. Also shock loads will blow a new hose. You usually wont see a lot of shock loading on a processor or wood splitter, even tho pressure can build to extremes. Where you have shock loading would be on loader cyl where you drop something fast and then try to stop the fall or run the load into something that doesnt want to move. Also trying to put a hose on that likes just that little bit of being long enough, but you use it anyways, well sooner or later that hose will start leaking around the crimp and eventually blow out. To long hoses have their drawback also as it seems that extra loop will find someway to get between two moving parts and get pinched. Other wise, I have ran equipment with hoses that I know are probably 20 years old, look like crap, and probably ought to be changed before they do blow, but they havnt blown yet.

 

[chiefs584ever]

I bought a new Blockbuster 14-12+ and have not regretted it one bit. Extended the live deck an additional leg and it will take a 18 foot log with no issues.
The plus package allows you to process logs up to 20 inches in diameter. Has a Briggs and Stratton motor and it will cut all day on a tank of fuel.
The plus also gives you a more robust splitter cylinder. Have not run into anything yet that it wont process.




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[Sandhill Crane]

chiefs584ever: Can you run 8' long logs on your live deck?

I sent Blockbuster an email asking about machines and prices. They got right back with me. Prices are in the mail however, with their DVD.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

I can do about 5ft lengths on mine, 8ft for sure.

If all you do is 8ft Blockbuster could probably custom build a setup.

 

[chiefs584ever]

Their standard 14-12+ will handle 8 footers with ease.
Tell Dave at Blockbuster John from Ft Madison sent you. They are just up the road from me. I spent alot of time visiting their assembly shop and watching their machines run before I ended up pulling the trigger and buying one.
It sure feels good processing a semi load in a day and not even be sore in tje back the next day.
Worth every penny for me.

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[cantoo]

muddstopper, have you seen this processor before? No sawdust, no saw kerf wasted and a nice boom.

 

[KiwiBro]

Looks like a chomper copy. That said, chomper appears out of business. I wonder what happened to the patents.
The chomper used a winch for log feed. No log deck, no log handling equipment needed. The shear blade is supposed to be self sharpening and can handle dirty logs. Crooked logs OK. No sawdust or blade/teeth sharpening. Shearing is supposed to help the wood dry faster than cutting. Auto-cycling so a single operator can focus on in or outfeeding duties.

http://www.arboristsite.com/communi...n-you-advise-the-pros-and-cons-please.168377/

 

[muddstopper]

I had never seen that video and I thought I had watched every one there was on youtube. The knuckle boom is very similar to what I have planned. I have already bought the box tubing and a hyd rotator for the grapple. I will have a conveyor and log deck for stageing and feeding the logs. I timed the cycle and it came out to about 8sec, best I could tell. That would be a lot of wood in a very short time. Not sure how the shear would work on larger dia woods like white and red oak. His shear cyl looked to be around 6 or 7 in bore so certainly some tonnage is involved.

 

[sam-tip]

Stopped at blockbuster last year to look around after hours. Had no idea what to look for. Was more interested in conveyors then.