Chipper drum failure

[Reach]

Don’t take this as solid advice.
If you do re weld, two things that help with cracks in the heat affected zone and welding a crack are:
Drill through the steel at the end of the crack as sometimes the crack will continue to propagate.

As Reach said grind all the old weld out in a v groove basically all the way through or daum close to all the way though.

Preheat with a torch in a BIG area around the crack, make a few passes and add more heat. Keep doing that until finished, and slowly keep the steel warm with the torch to get it to cool slowly, finally wrap with a welding blanket or ceramic insulation.

Peening the weld can help sometimes too, I’ve seen scaling guns used for that. Or a ball peen hammer, best done as the welds are cooling to get the metal to stretch fighting contraction as it cools.

All excellent advice, and basically what I would do here in my shop were I to do it. In fact, I’ve welded drum cracks on my old 1590, and not yet had one crack again; some of those welds have over 2500 hours of hard use on them. Best to you @Bigdog12, if you get stuck or need a hand with anything send me a PM and I may be able to help you out myself. My shop is pretty well set up.

 

[Reach]

To all who’ve commented on this thread, I just read the whole thing and wow did that 2100 explode! Vermeer seems to be quite at fault, and in my opinion should have paid the full repair cost. I’m not the suing sort, but I sure would have considered it in that case, and not let Vermeer have the machine until the parts had been independently inspected.

Very glad no one was hurt, that could have been deadly!

Also, for such a large chipper, that drum looks awful light. I’d be curious how heavy Vermeer says the drum is, to compare with a Bandit. The 1590XP we have, with 8500 hours, has a drum that weighs over 800 pounds. The main steel seems to be full thickness still, with only notable wear at the edges of the pockets, and even there the wear hasn’t worn away the ripples in the factory welds.

I see too that the shell of the drum appears to be made of several pieces, and the marks in the wear make me think the steel is “bump bent” into shape, rather than rolled. I would be curious to know if that was the case.

We’ve had metal go through that old Bandit of ours with no drum damage - worst was a 1” square iron bar 18” long that had grown into an ancient Walnut at an old inn George Washington used to frequent. That one sheared off a few knife bolts, we had to change all the knives, bolts, and anvil, but the drum had no damage. That was probably 3k hours ago.

 

[Daniel]

The Vermeers
Thanks for sharing. I hate Vermeer more and more every year. I wonder if their drums are manufactured overseas.

I would never own one... my buddy just rented an 18" vermeer chipper and accidentally left the feed wheels engaged when he shut it down. He smoked the clutch before he figured out the drum wasn't turning, then the thing took 30 minutes to get freed up. No hydraulic crush cylinder, no winch. The paint looked like new, and when he opened up the drum: it had been welded... it was no stronger than my 1590. They call it an 18" machine, but it's no stronger than a bandit 15"... vermmer chippers suck.

 

[Chris Schultz]

Vermeer take ownership for anything?? Good luck with that one…..

 

[flushcut]

I would never own one... my buddy just rented an 18" vermeer chipper and accidentally left the feed wheels engaged when he shut it down. He smoked the clutch before he figured out the drum wasn't turning, then the thing took 30 minutes to get freed up. No hydraulic crush cylinder, no winch. The paint looked like new, and when he opened up the drum: it had been welded... it was no stronger than my 1590. They call it an 18" machine, but it's no stronger than a bandit 15"... vermmer chippers suck.

I’m not that familiar with that model but it looks like the knives are upside down.

 

[Reach]

I’m not that familiar with that model but it looks like the knives are upside down.

I believe the knives are correct, from memory. Bandit drum chipper knives all mount that direction too.

 

[Lumberjack]

Same with my Morbark.

 

[Bigdog12]

I would never own one... my buddy just rented an 18" vermeer chipper and accidentally left the feed wheels engaged when he shut it down. He smoked the clutch before he figured out the drum wasn't turning, then the thing took 30 minutes to get freed up. No hydraulic crush cylinder, no winch. The paint looked like new, and when he opened up the drum: it had been welded... it was no stronger than my 1590. They call it an 18" machine, but it's no stronger than a bandit 15"... vermmer chippers suck.

Above the vertical feed wheels is an access panel to the top of the feed wheels. There, there are 2 large springs that are forcing the feed wheels together. Remove the springs by hand and slide the feed wheels open to full width of the throat. The machine has an option for a winch also. prefer no winch as they get in the way of a machine feeding, granted I had this chipper long before I had a machine to feed it..Prolly 115 hp Cummins.. agreed underpowered for 18” but simple, solid machine IMO.

 

[Bigdog12]

To all who’ve commented on this thread, I just read the whole thing and wow did that 2100 explode! Vermeer seems to be quite at fault, and in my opinion should have paid the full repair cost. I’m not the suing sort, but I sure would have considered it in that case, and not let Vermeer have the machine until the parts had been independently inspected.

Very glad no one was hurt, that could have been deadly!

Also, for such a large chipper, that drum looks awful light. I’d be curious how heavy Vermeer says the drum is, to compare with a Bandit. The 1590XP we have, with 8500 hours, has a drum that weighs over 800 pounds. The main steel seems to be full thickness still, with only notable wear at the edges of the pockets, and even there the wear hasn’t worn away the ripples in the factory welds.

I see too that the shell of the drum appears to be made of several pieces, and the marks in the wear make me think the steel is “bump bent” into shape, rather than rolled. I would be curious to know if that was the case.

We’ve had metal go through that old Bandit of ours with no drum damage - worst was a 1” square iron bar 18” long that had grown into an ancient Walnut at an old inn George Washington used to frequent. That one sheared off a few knife bolts, we had to change all the knives, bolts, and anvil, but the drum had no damage. That was probably 3k hours ago.

I believe the drum skin is 5/8”

 

[Reach]

I believe the drum skin is 5/8”

Is it that thick? It didn’t look like it in the image. I’ve never measured my 1590, but that is probably about the same, and a 2100 is supposed to be a much bigger, heavier chipper. The Bandit 2090XP (in theory, the equivalent to your 2100) used to claim to have a nearly solid drum, I don’t see that on the website though since the model was updated.

 

[Bigdog12]

Used the grapple truck to pull the drum out, had to cut off one bearing, otherwise it went smoothly..got the drum back from weld shop today. Will reassemble next weekend.

 

[Merle Nelson]

Sounds affordable...balance could be an issue that will need to be addressed.

 

[Reach]

View attachment 100743 Used the grapple truck to pull the drum out, had to cut off one bearing, otherwise it went smoothly..got the drum back from weld shop today. Will reassemble next weekend.

What’s with the big crack on the side of the pocket visible in the photo?

Also, I don’t like that inside taper design of the drum, seems that would allow a certain amount of flex in the skin that might cause it to be more prone to delamination.

Hopefully that repair holds up well for you, and is balanced well enough to work properly!

 

[flushcut]

I personally would be sending that repair back based off of the pics. Maybe it looks better in person.

 

[Reach]

I personally would be sending that repair back based off of the pics. Maybe it looks better in person.

I agree, from those photos it does not look great.

 

[Matias]

I've never welded anything, so I was withholding comment, but I was shocked that anyone would bet their business on a rebuilding a drum. I can't imagine these things are cheap, but with the speed of that rotating mass, and the vibration and shocks that the metal is exposed to on a regular and consistent basis... These are the stories that really keep me wanting to keep to doing work I can manage with a smaaaaall chipper at most.

 

[Reach]

I've never welded anything, so I was withholding comment, but I was shocked that anyone would bet their business on a rebuilding a drum. I can't imagine these things are cheap, but with the speed of that rotating mass, and the vibration and shocks that the metal is exposed to on a regular and consistent basis... These are the stories that really keep me wanting to keep to doing work I can manage with a smaaaaall chipper at most.

I would rebuild a drum, but only if it was welded by a truly qualified shop. There’s a couple around here I know could do it properly. I am a good welder myself, and da fair amount of welding; I’ve repaired stress cracks on a drum, and last summer built up worn pockets on a chipper here, but I’m not putting one together like that. I’ll send it to one of the local top level shops for that.

 

[Merle Nelson]

...then turned down on a lathe for reasonable smoothness and checked at increasing RPMs for balance until it can run smoothly at full functional RPM. (That's me anyway.)

 

[Reach]

...then turned down on a lathe for reasonable smoothness and checked at increasing RPMs for balance until it can run smoothly at full functional RPM. (That's me anyway.)

If I had one rebuilt like that, by one of the local good shops, that’s what I would expect. Maybe not lathe turned, but definitely balanced.

 

[Bigdog12]

Idk if I said this already but a new drum from Vermeer is $11,500ish, that doesn’t include the shaft. A different company has drum and shaft available for $9,500ish..this weld cost me a couple hundred bucks.. that being said I don’t want to have to take this machine apart again if the weld fails.. I’ll get a second opinion on the welds. My understanding is the drum is held to the shaft via wedges with large bolts.. my current drum has 5,9000 hours and has never been off the shaft in 20+ years.so I’m not gonna try. Lots of wear on the drum, I don’t think welding this crack closed will have any significant bearing on the drum’s “balance”.