A question about cutting stumps.

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I'd rent a big excavator, CAT 320ish. Brute force and fun, even if they whack you a grand for the rental it works out to 10 bucks a stump.
 
This is a cheap way to cut a stump lower than ground level.

1 skill saw, 2 blades for it, 1 crowbar or 1 hammer and chisel.

Use the skill saw to cut parallel groves about 1/4" away from each other in the entire stump and don't worry to much about hitting dirt the carbide tipped teeth will take lots of abuse before they dull.
Use the crowbar to lift and remove the stump wood now in thin strip format.
Cost 2$- 5$ and 1 hr- 2hr work depending on how deep you go or how much stump was left.
 
Hand-held wire brush. No water needed. Costs a few bucks, lasts a long time, and it'll abrade the outer layer of the bark right off in a few seconds, leaving you a clear cut line that you know doesn't have any rocks in it. A dirty rock looks like bark - even washing it sometimes you'll miss one. This thing has saved more chains than I can count. Faster, too.

HW-BRUSWR416-N-000.jpeg
 
Hand-held wire brush. No water needed. Costs a few bucks, lasts a long time, and it'll abrade the outer layer of the bark right off in a few seconds, leaving you a clear cut line that you know doesn't have any rocks in it. A dirty rock looks like bark - even washing it sometimes you'll miss one. This thing has saved more chains than I can count. Faster, too.

That's exactly how I remove any dirt, that's on logs loaded on my sawmill... It works pretty good.

SR
 
Oh, if you're pulling stumps all the way down... I've had real good luck with a sawzall-type tool and a long demo blade. The blades are durable and cheap, and you can jab them right in the dirt and get roots that you haven't fully unearthed. Usually you get a few and you can use a long pry bar to start moving the stump to find the others. Unless the tree has a tap root, I can usually get even a good-sized stump out in about an hour this way. It usually kills the blade, but at $6-$8 per (even for the good ones) that's pretty good compared to those guys I seeing dropping whole bags of good charcoal on top to burn them out, or using stump-rot and waiting a decade. :) I save the charcoal for pigs and beef, you know?
 
several years ago I had a bunch of pine trees cut from around my place. I rented a little excavater. It wasn't too expensive, $800 for 40 hours. It blew a radiater hose on monday. The rental company swaped out that little one for a big John Deere 200 LC. Same price for the rental, and made quick work of even the largest stumps, and kinda fun. I ended up just riding around looking for stuff to do with that big thing. I dug a huge hole and burried stumps instead of burning them. I even went around and popped up thoes pesky roots that I always had to mow around. Scraped down some limbs that hung too low from my maple trees. Glad it had a thumb. Those things are handy!


Thanks
 
I've dug out many stumps with a machine . You get a big hole you will need to fill up. I would not want to have to fill in 100 holes and I have a skid steer . Then you have to get rid of the stumps , this will take some sort of machine to move them around or burn them that takes a long time. I've had stumps burn for weeks and in the end you get a huge pile of dirt and parts that didn't burn. One man operation 100 stumps dug out and removed with easy access and a machine and dump truck or trailer I think you would be very hard pressed to do this in a week working like slave 12 hour days . And you will have to get topsoil to fill the holes and a machine to fill them . I can tell you 24 tons of top soil may fill 10 if you lucky depending on root structure . . By one of those 30$ forester bar and chain combos and a carbide chain , plunge cut and work you way out to the dirt . Don't cut the sand into the wood. You will get a good 10 to 15 times life out of a carbide chain but you can't sharpen them with a standard file . Drill a bunch of holes in the stump after cut to below the ground level and let them rot away on there own


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Thanks guys! Bushwaker, Knox Indiana is the closest town, about 40 miles SSW of South Bend.

Getting heavy equipment in there would chew up too much of the grass. Plus the roots aren't near the surface. The reason why they died is because the contractor that dug the ponds piled dirt around the trees, some have 48" of dirt on top of the original dirt level. If the stumps can be ground level or a hair under, then covered with dirt and grass seed then I'm good. It's taken 3-5 years for the trees to die, and I expect more to bite the dust next year. It's a shame, there are Red Oaks that were in the 130 year old bracket that died.

Let me look at Bailey's for a carbide chain and bar for the 7900. I'll take some pictures tomorrow. I thought I had some, but they aren't in photobucket. I've got some on the phone, but it's a PITA to put them on from the phone because of the poor signal here.
 
Am about 20 miles south west from there, Medaryville. Aiming to be at Golden Horseshoe saddle club for the swap meet Sunday. May be your close by ?

Brushwacker, I'm close, just not this weekend. Off to Northern Wi. to get the last bit of work done on the hunting cabin before season starts in November. Before I leave in the a.m. I'll try and get a pic to photobucket, then to here of about a dz stumps.

What's you buddy want to grind 'em, or do you want to see 'em first?
 
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