Thanks for that info. Sounds like you are in one of those 'once in a lifetime' situations where all the stars align and make it possible (albeit scary) to get some serious volume and the gear to process it. That wholesale pricing and differential to retail is familiar. I think it must be a similar case around the world where the closer we get to the primary producer of an agricultural or forestry commodity the less actual profit there is. Conversely, the closer to the retail end of the market, the fatter the margins.
If the numbers stack up on the wholesale end by itself then the retail end will be the nice cherry worth chasing once all the new toys...er, I mean...tools are operational. Personally, I decided long ago I'd be on homicide charges within a year if I had to deal with the public every day, so I just look over the retail fence every now and then and covet thy neighbours margins.
So, firewood is sold per ton in your market, rather than volume (stacked or thrown)? Is that weight at a prescribed moisture content? Otherwise it could vary a fair bit between green and seasoned. You did mention 18% MC in an earlier post. Is that the max MC you can sell by the ton or do you simply have two prices for a +18% and -18%MC load? I'm not sure I would consider 18%MC seasoned though. I guess a good thing about wholesaling is not having to worry too much about the MC. In fact, if the margins are in the retail side, then they should be buying green and seasoning/sitting on it themselves I reckon - but it's difficult here to find anyone willing to do that.
I'm guessing at about 550kg/m3 green density for plantation gum (varies a lot between species though). So, a ton would be a little under 2m3. But here in NZ we mainly work in m3 of thrown firewood. A m3 of log (depending on the plantation species and age there may not be any bark at all or next to none anyway) equates to about 1.6-1.8m3 of thrown firewood. So, very roughly, I'm assuming a m3 of thrown gum firewood here would represent about 300kgs. If two people were working from a pile of logs around the 200-300mm diameter range, it would be about 3-4m3 (thrown) per hour, or about 22m3 per day allowing for breaks and various incidentals that can slow us down like refuelling, having a bad day, changing chains, shooting the breeze with co-workers, etc, etc, and that's about 1.4m3 (thrown) per labour unit. If you employed those two workers for a 40 hr week, they'd produce about 110m3(thrown) per week. Bringing that back to a tonnage rate at green moisture contents means about 33 tons a week.
But there are plenty of assumptions in the figures above that could materially change them. I always try to be conservative, so the actual, realised numbers could much better in real-world scenarios.
If you are able to process the gums green then that's easier, generally. Depends on the species but it seems to work out that way here for gums. Tweaking your SS to add the slip-on 4-way wedge like member CUCV did, as well as his extra flywheel, would significantly improve those figures above, if the gum stays green. I'm thinking if you limited the SS stuff to sub-200mm and got smart with bucking tables or that bucking saw you mentioned (we call those buzz saws here) you should achieve double those above numbers, so about 3m3 per labour unit/66 tons per week.
If you are harvesting, are you debarking or are these one of those species that don't really have bark? Also, how small a stem are you going down to and what happens with the rest? I ask because if the whole stem could be debarked/delimbed, but you find there's no point dealing with the small stuff because it takes more in labour than what you can recover in value of firewood produced, then I would also suggest you take a good look at the Bilke S3 processor. It's that green thing in the background on my photo above.
I got annoyed with leaving good, but small, wood behind on my jobs because it just didn't stack up to process it into firewood nor chip it. But the S3 changed the numbers. One average, real-world worker alongside a pile of small diameter logs (I go down to about 50mm in some species but around 75mm in most) will create about 30-40m3 (it varies considerably) a day. So, about 4.3m3 per labour unit, 175m3 (52tons) per week. If green, depending on the species, it can handle 150 and below, with the occasional stuff over 150mm but under 200mm. And it shears, not cuts, and stays remarkably sharp. No need to sharpen blades or chains. There are three drawbacks with it though - it needs to be tweaked a little to stay safe - guards around the in-feed belt wheels because an inattentive worker with loose clothing will not last long-, it needs a grill off the out-feed to separate out the trash (or you need a tumbler which you may already have given the volumes you are talking) because it creates heaps of trash so this is a must, and the split wood is a bit messy - not like the cleanly split wood of a SS. It depends on your market. Here, I can get away with it, especially if the output is mixed back into the firewood stream from the SS. It is a wonderful machine that I consider best in its class, much like the SS is arguably best it its class.
I only mention this machine because it looks like you have control over the harvesting, may already be debarking/delimbing down to small diameters, can process it green (an absolute must for gum in the Bilke S3 because it's too hard on the machine if dry gum - I have to limit it to sub100 in that case, just to be safe - haven't busted anything yet and occasionally a 200mm dry bit of something sneaks in there).
If you are getting the CRD rapido loco 20, are you getting a conveyor/tumbler? If you are getting the loco, and had control over the stems such that you could feed the small delimbed stems to a Bilke S3, I'm not sure I'd be chasing a SS. Instead, I'd stockpile the 250-150mm stems/logs and run them as a batch run through the loco with a 6-way wedge rather than their 8-way wedge. then, the green sub-150mm stems would go straight through the Bilke S3. Also, it might be worth asking CRD if they have customers who do actually process small stuff with their RL20, but just let a bunch of pieces drop into the splitting chute before pushing it through the 8-way. It may work fine it may be a nightmare - but worth asking.
Alternatively, if you are not obligated to take or process the sub-150mm wood, then perhaps just leave it behind when you thin and price the jobs accordingly so that someone else can mess with those, and you just deal with the larger stuff and don't worry about a SS or small-wood machine, rather just let that Rapido Loco eat as much as it can handle. Still could do 250-150logs in a separate batch using a 6-way wedge instead of the 8-way. I mean, the sweet spot for that machine is going to be obvious, and if you have a wall of wood ahead of you, there may not be any point trying to mess with the small stuff, unless you can't find a way out of that or a local small processor crowd who you can associate with to do the smaller stuff.
I'm just throwing ideas out there. Good luck with whatever you decide. Sounds like a great position to be in. Provided the customers who are saying they could order big numbers, are willing to front with letters of credit or you can completely trust them before you commit yourself to the machinery.
By the way, if you are ordering a CRD direct, and handling your own shipping/import then I'm sure you could convince CRD to find a way to get a SS into the same can before you float it all to you ;-)
