Can a chipper wear out or work too hard?

[Tom Dunlap]

The first chipper that I used was a 12" Asplundh chuck n duck with a 6 volt electrical system. Tells you how long ago that was. The first chipper I owned was a 1962 Asplundh Whisper chipper that had a 352 Ford V8. The last one was a Bandit 150 with a 6 cylinder diesel.

There's no guessing how many tons of brush I've sent through chippers over the years. My way of thinking is to send as much wood as the chipper will take without lugging down the engine. With auto-feeds that isn't much of an issue. Even without, jog the infeed to keep the RPMs up.

I've sent as much wood through the chipper as I can. In my estimation its faster overall to chip rather than keep logs and haul them or toss them in the back of the chip truck.

There is another way of thinking which kind of confuses me.

The other camp thinks that chipping logs is hard on a chipper or will wear it out prematurely. That means stripping limbs and then having to load loggage. That always seems to take longer. Plus, chipping reduces the total volume. And, more and more clients will take the chips for mulch but don't need much firewood.

How can chipping, again, keep up the RPMs and don't bog down the infeed, wear out a machine. If the machine is made well there shouldn't be any undue wear and tear.

Without going through 'time in motion' cost analysis it would be hard to say absolutely that chipping as much as possible isn't economical. But if all the extra man-hours and dumpage is considered it seems that it would be much more economical to pay for a repair at some far distant time than pay wages now.

What is your mode?

 

[Treeweasel]

Tom,
I am 100% in agreement with you. I have found, especially if you are using a WTC, er, I mean 18" or better machine, that it is much faster and easier on the ground crew to simply chip everything possible. Since buying our Effer 655, it has become so much faster to chip whole tops and large leaders that our firewood stock has been reduced significantly. When we try to salvage smaller hardwood, our total job time increases noticeably. Just my humble opinion.

 

[scrat]

interesting, i was wondering why we were getting home earlier, less tired, with less logs, and more chip......

 

[flyingsquirrel25]

I think it has much to do with your operation. I know Im exactly the exact oposite, rather set the wood asside.
I currently have a 10" chipper and unless Im working a small job, I wont chip wood much bigger than 6". The reason for it is not due to my chipper wearing out but my truck is only 7yds. Everytime I load the truck, production has to stop and I have to go dump. When working with a crane thats unexceptable for me. My theroy is just toss the wood aside and keep the job moving. Then I can come back at a later time with equipment and dump trailer (or hire the log truck) to retrieve the wood.
Would I love to have an 18" machine and a 30 yard truck... No, not really. I like my little operation, it pays the bills and keeps me busy.
By no means am I suggesting that this will work for everyone, my situation is uniquely interesting. And it does well for ME.

 

[Paul Biester]

I get kind of torn here. I agree much faster when you are not worried about the wood.....But we sell like 100 cords a year and ive been doing it for so long .It seems like anything else . if you are going to do firewood you should mechanize for it!! seperate from the production side...set wood aside and let the log truck get the wood.keep the tree crew moving.

 

[treehumper]

I'm of the mind that we can find higher and better uses for the raw materials we produce. Generally, as suggested by the posts, we look at this material only as waste to be disposed of or, firewood and chips that have some economic value.

The company I'm with has been educating itself as to uses of the various species we come interact with. Running Bandit 150s we still chip a good portion of the trees but then will remove what can be repurposed for anything from firewood to buggy axles and everything in between. Worse case scenario it becomes mulch. While it is a learning curve we are becoming more efficient in the operation over time.

As for the title of the post, yes. There is a reason for different sized chippers. Sure we can jam through as much as possible and chip as close to the max rating on a machine but it will lead to wear and tear. They are designed to meet those maximums and have some additional capacity beyond that but it is an engineered product where load assumptions are made and design specs used to keep the cost down and thus the price of the unit competitive.

Run it at it's max and things begin to fail. Hydraulics, feed wheels, springs, hoses, bearings, etc., all have life cycles and not only require maintenance but are expected to be replaced over time. How long that may be will depend on how well it is used and cared for.

 

[rangerdanger]

You're right and wrong Tom. Chipping everything possible is faster. But the bigger the wood, the more wear and tear on the chipper. You're gonna be going through knives faster, putting strain on not only the engine, but the radiator as well, which is the big one imo. That radiator will be working harder to keep the engine cooler when chipping anything large. Bigger wood also causes more vibration, meaning things will be shaking around a lot more.

Here, we own a 17" chipper, but the only thing I'll put in it that big is soft woods, like Pine. Poplar, I'll throw something 12-15" in, maybe. But stuff like Oak or Ash, I won't put anything bigger than 10-12" in, if that even. The hardwoods just beat the hell out of the machine.

 

[treelearnin]

I agree with you Tom. I think a lot of it has to do with your service area and ease of disposal. We dump chips locally and easily for free. We dump wood farther away and it costs us. Its cheaper for us to repair the chipper than dump more wood.

We run a 1990xl with a 250 Cummins. If it fits, it chips.

 

[craneguy1]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree with you Tom. I think a lot of it has to do with your service area and ease of disposal. We dump chips locally and easily for free. We dump wood farther away and it costs us. Its cheaper for us to repair the chipper than dump more wood.

We run a 1990xl with a 250 Cummins. If it fits, it chips.

[/ QUOTE ]

1590xl times 2...got chip space...if it fits it's chips...crane or grapple load the wood truck(s)...everyone wants our chips; cause we chip wood. Can make 30 plus yards a day easy on my crew...and another 5-8 forest cords of wood. Big chippers do take a beating though you are correct. I swap out our knives every other week and rakings do not get run through.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

In all of my years of running chippers, starting with a 6 volt 12" Asplundh, I haven't seen excessive wear on a chipper. If the chipper is well built in the first place then it should have been designed to chip up to it's capacity. that doesn't mean running 12" wood continuously through a 12" chipper though. I've worked with companies that won't chip even occasional 10" wood, they limb up branches to 6-7" and make logs out of the others. that makes NO sense to me.

It would be almost impossible to correlate how knife wear relates to wood diameter chipped without a complex audit. From a gut feeling after decades of chipping it sure seemed cheaper to chip everything on site and not brush the wood off if that wasn't needed. To me, all things equal, chip as much as possible. Don't handle wood any more than possible.

Since most chippers aren't whole tree or plus 15" capacity I'm still thinking that any logs could still be moved by a person and chipped.

I'm going to see if I can get an answer from the manufacturers at Expo.

 

[brushbandit]

I'm not sure how a radiator works harder to cool an engine. A radiator is simply a static device with fins that are attached to tubes that coolant flows through. The least of my worries is how hard I'm working my radiator. We chip whatever we can up to 19" with our Bandit 1890. That's why I bought it. With auto feed the motor is always running in its sweet spot which drastically reduces wear and tear. Of course you have to maintain the machine and service the blades and anvil.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

When I was at Expo I talked with a couple of sales reps for chippers. They all said that any piece of machinery should be able to have a long service life if they worked at about 75-80% of their capacity 75-80% of the time. They're made for full capacity of course, but any machine will wear faster if they're used at higher capacity more of the time.

Chips ahoy!