Chipper drum failure

Spoke with Todd at landmark machinery, unbelievably to me, he said they could fix the drum. Before I go that route though vermeer asked if they could look at the machine in their shop. I dropped it off this morning. If they determine it wasn't caused by some foreign material entering the machine and the drum just failed so catastrophically, I'm optimistic they're going to help financially with the repairs. As well as get a drum quicker than the 77 days I was told my parts. We'll see what happens.
 
Bigdog12 said:
Spoke with Todd at landmark machinery, unbelievably to me, he said they could fix the drum. Before I go that route though vermeer asked if they could look at the machine in their shop. I dropped it off this morning. If they determine it wasn't caused by some foreign material entering the machine and the drum just failed so catastrophically, I'm optimistic they're going to help financially with the repairs. As well as get a drum quicker than the 77 days I was told my parts. We'll see what happens.
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That’s encouraging! I hope things align in your favor on this!!!
 
Bigdog12 said:
Spoke with Todd at landmark machinery, unbelievably to me, he said they could fix the drum. Before I go that route though vermeer asked if they could look at the machine in their shop. I dropped it off this morning. If they determine it wasn't caused by some foreign material entering the machine and the drum just failed so catastrophically, I'm optimistic they're going to help financially with the repairs. As well as get a drum quicker than the 77 days I was told my parts. We'll see what happens.
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Please report back at least a final update when it's all said and done. I don't know why but I need closure on this. It's just so wild of a failure.
 
I'll throw this out there. Thinning of the metal due to wear lead to flexure and cracking/failure at a stress concentration location adjacent to a weld. If so would result in some onus on Vermeer, bulletin, SOP etc
 
Bigdog12 said:
Spoke with Todd at landmark machinery, unbelievably to me, he said they could fix the drum. Before I go that route though vermeer asked if they could look at the machine in their shop. I dropped it off this morning. If they determine it wasn't caused by some foreign material entering the machine and the drum just failed so catastrophically, I'm optimistic they're going to help financially with the repairs. As well as get a drum quicker than the 77 days I was told my parts. We'll see what happens.
Click to expand...
I hope that is correct, a drum exploding like that really shouldn’t happen!
Sure a chunk of metal fed into the chipper would cause epic damage, but I can’t really see how it would damage the drum like it did on yours outside of the knife/knife pocket area.
Maybe if you were machine feeding an I beam?
Anything would hit the knives first and damage that are of the drum. What you have going on is mechanical failure of the metal.

I can’t quite tell from the photos but the weld does look a little undercut. A crack could propagate from there. Look at the fractured edges, study the grain of the metal. It should be uniform grain size, and any cracks likely were there for a little while before failure. Probably small and hard to notice with a visual inspection. The older cracked area will be oxidized and a slightly different color, maybe even a hair rusty.

Welding heat will change the grain size of the metal potentially weakening it within the heat affected zone. I just can’t see how this could be anything other than a manufacturing issue. Thus a time bomb to failure at some point.
 
Is it possible that is an aged, dirt-munged up crack surface? It looks rough on zoom in. Also there's some cracked looking metal in the video I believe on the detached piece. 0:20 could just be torn sheet metal
 
Update.. Vermeer is covering the cost of a new drum (22k), my broken one will be shipped to vermeer factory for further evaluation. I appreciate vermeer doing that. That being said, collateral damage was significant. Most significant is the "cutter drum housing", as the name suggests it houses the cutter drum and is essentially the frame of the machine. When the drum exploded it blew a 6"x6" hole in the housing, broke the mounting welds and some bolts and wracked the whole thing out of square. The cutter drum housing is roughly 1,500 lbs and a new one is $28k. Total repair cost $56k, that's with vermeer covering the drum. Hopefully I'll get the machine back in June. I was going to buy a new miniskid this year, guess not lol.
 
On one hand I get Vermeer wanting to inspect the failure, and on the surface its very generous of offering a replacement drum. Yet on the other hand if you take them up on it, will you ever see the drum again or their findings?
If its a catastrophic defect, improper weld, or something that should have been caught in a quality control inspection you will likely have no future recourse.
Consider digging out the stuck part of the drum and paying for a 3rd party assessment of the failure. This would be cheap compared to the $50+ grand, and it would provide you with more information if they are indeed liable. Take these findings and hire a lawyer to write a demand letter for a replacement chipper. If they say no, consider filing suit.
 
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