Wood Processors worth the money?

[Westwood]

In the end, they worth it? I have no shortage of trees. Have an L series Kubota. We heat with wood, but I'm also thinking perhaps sell a few cord a year for side money. The residential grade (<$10,000) ones seem a bit underwhelming such as skimping on power and whatnot.

Processors pretty much a commercial thing?

Thanks.

 

[speeco]

In the end, they worth it? I have no shortage of trees. Have an L series Kubota. We heat with wood, but I'm also thinking perhaps sell a few cord a year for side money. The residential grade (<$10,000) ones seem a bit underwhelming such as skimping on power and whatnot.

Processors pretty much a commercial thing?

Thanks.

You should checkout Range _ road brand, I have one of these, processors. I have 250. Hours on it.

 

[Westwood]

You should checkout Range _ road brand, I have one of these, processors. I have 250. Hours on it.

haha, that's actually the model that made me want to ask about it. I see it can be a bit low on power? Its held up alright though? No major issues?

 

[Del_]

I think to justify a processor you'd have to be in the range of doing 20 or more cords per year.

Unless you are well off and just want one!

A lot of processors of the smaller type are going to want to be fed smaller pretty uniform trees. In the tree biz we get trees of all sizes and some of them huge and small processors would have a problem with them.

 

[speeco]

haha, that's actually the model that made me want to ask about it. I see it can be a bit low on power? Its held up alright though? No major issues?

Mine is not at all low on power ! 14 hp Kohler is more than enough. The first year I put some time on it to work out any bugs with it. Under warranty. And the current models have more improvements, than mine.
I do 150 to 200 face cords a year.

 

[Westwood]

I do 150 to 200 face cords a year.

holy ****. I'm looking at, like, twenty. maybe a bit more if I start selling off some wood.

Eh, looks like I'll stick with the Husky and TSC splitter. My good friend said it best, I don't see the value, but I do see the benefit. Looks like its more of a nice thing to have. If I were doing hundreds of cord a year maybe.

Alright, I appreciate it. Thanks.

 

[hoskvarna]

We make those little bundles of wood where I work
2-3 semi loads going out per week
We have a Multitek processor, it is definitely commercial at $185k
We do 16-18 cord per day
5 kilns
I run a bobcat feeding it logs
I’ll get some pics today


Sent from Hoskey hilltop

 

[rancher2]

Years back I looked at the processors that were ten grand and under. None would do the size of wood I wanted to do. So I built one have about ten grand in parts and a lot of time. I burn about 10-15 full cord a year and was doing about 20-25 cord. We cut wood on my own farms. For a few years after I built the processor we had a lot of nice locust logs and it worked great. Now we are back into crooked hedge and the processor sets in the shed a lot. If I were you I would skip the processor and spent the money on up grading your splitter. If I were to do it all over I wouldn't of built the processor. I just don't have enough processor type of wood.

 

[sirbuildalot]

holy ****. I'm looking at, like, twenty. maybe a bit more if I start selling off some wood.

Eh, looks like I'll stick with the Husky and TSC splitter. My good friend said it best, I don't see the value, but I do see the benefit. Looks like its more of a nice thing to have. If I were doing hundreds of cord a year maybe.

Alright, I appreciate it. Thanks.

Keep in mind a face cord is 1/3rd of a true cord. So 150 face cords is only 50 cords of wood.

 

[Westwood]

Keep in mind a face cord is 1/3rd of a true cord. So 150 face cords is only 50 cords of wood.

ah ha, I gotcha. was going to say, 150 cord is MOVING! haha

 

[sirbuildalot]

I never understood why people don’t just say full cords. I guess to sound like a more impressive number.

 

[speeco]

I never understood why people don’t just say full cords. I guess to sound like a more impressive number.

Because 2 face is what I haul on my dump truck. This way there is no figuring to do in your head. I have a full time job also. So go easy on me.

 

[Sandhill Crane]

I too would like a processor.
If you have a tractor w/pto then consider a three point hitch processor.
They seem a lot more processor for a lot less money.
I also like the Euro style with opening hoods for easy access and auto lock out when raised.
Not sure where North is but Jappa and hake Pilkie are two brands, both with same parent company from what I understand, available in the US.

 

[nathan4104]

I think the processor is a time vs value kind of thing. Plus having to have the right sized wood for the particular machine. Most smaller ones take up to 16-18” at most. Some need extra tables/supports to handle longer than 8-10’ logs. I lucked out and got a used one that needed a bit of work. Now it does a cord an hour. Selling some wood is so regional, really depends on your area if it’ll be worth it or not and what other costs may be involved.
However, now that i have it, I doubt I’d want to do wood ‘the old way’!!!

 

[hoskvarna]

Pic of processor

Sent from Hoskey hilltop

 

[cantoo]

I have lots of firewooding equipment. I have a variety of splitters. I have my own homemade 36" stroke with 4 way hydraulic wedge and auto cycle splitter. I have several conveyors. I have 2 processors, a Japa that I have never used because I have no time to fix a couple of small things on it. I have a Wallenstein 1624 prototype. I bought it used and reasonable. I have most of the bugs out of it now and it's pretty easy to run. I sell maybe 12, or 13,000 pieces of split wood per year. Oh sorry that's about 20 full cord per year. It had a 6 way wedge when I bought it which makes for very small splits so I made a 4 way for it. I use the 6 way for campfire wood. I use an OWB for my house so I keep all the big tuff stuff for my 36" stroke splitter and keep the straight under 14" stuff for the processor. Using all my equipment I think I can actually do just as much volume with the 36" splitter as I can with the processor. The big difference is that after working a full day at my day job then after supper I can sit down at the processor and run 2 or 3 cord thru it and not even break a sweat. The new 1624 seems to work really well but like everyone says the cost is up there. In my opinion if you are physically fit then a fast splitter and a good conveyor is the best bang for your buck. With my 36" stroke splitter I can split all the wood that I need for the year for myself in a couple of easy days. I burn 32" long splits in my OWB. Cutting the logs to rounds is another day. It takes way longer to stack it in crates than it does to split it all.

 

[muddstopper]

I have a neighbor that has a timerwolf with the muilti wedge that splits the top of the round into a half and makes 2 splits on the bottom. Much like the Eastwood. Never seen it work but one day there will be a big load of logs setting there and the next day it is all gone so it must be pretty fast. He has two grown sons and they all have OWB'ers. They have a conveyor set up and load the wood in atandem dumptruck to dump at their house. I started a processor build and sold it to a guy in WV before I got it finished. He uses it as a regular splitter. I had build a 12way wedge and 30inch opening for the wood to push thru. He prefers to cut his rounds with a chainsaw and throw in the splitter.

 

[morewood]

At that # of cords a good option is to rent one. We stockpiled our logs last year and rented a Dyna sc-15. $300-350 a day if I recall correctly. Ran out of logs much quicker than expected. We easily averaged 1.5 cord per hour doing it that way. No maintenance costs, just fuel and bar oil. You do need straight logs, most processors don't like knotty misshapen pieces.

Shea

 

[sb47]

holy ****. I'm looking at, like, twenty. maybe a bit more if I start selling off some wood.

Eh, looks like I'll stick with the Husky and TSC splitter. My good friend said it best, I don't see the value, but I do see the benefit. Looks like its more of a nice thing to have. If I were doing hundreds of cord a year maybe.

Alright, I appreciate it. Thanks.

For what you say you burn and want to sell, there is no way you can recuperate the cost on such a low yield.
Most of those are better suited to long strait logs that can be feed in quickly optimizing production.
Multi wedge designs tend to create a lot of trash as well. If set up correctly and with a conveyor and nice strait logs they can really pump out the wood with less labor.
Think of all that labor as good exorcise. It's good for you.

 

[Wood Hound]

Well someone is making money-this is being custom built by Brute Force...