Lifting stump grinder

Tom Dunlap

Tom Dunlap

Here from the beginning
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Retired in Minneapolis
We have a Carlton stump grinder. Model 2100 I think. A small, self propelled none the less. I was told it weighs about 1,500#

There are some jobs that don't have good access but are crane accessible. The idea would be to gather enough of the jobs to make it worthwhile to rent a small crane for a day and get them done.

Has anyone made a lifting arrangement for a stump grinder?

An idea that I had was to find a place close to the balance point. Then weld on a receiver hitch mount. Out of that a tube could be fabricated with a lifting eye. If the place on the machine isn't quite at the balance point it would be easy to make the lifting tube in an inverted "L" shape. That way the lifting tube could be removed when it wasn't needed.
 
Tom
No matter how many jobs you line up it would never be worthwhile.
First take the time to get the crane to the first job site, next setup time for the crane, next time to attach grinder, lift the grinder and unhook the grinder.
We didn't even start grnding yet. Grind out the stump(I take it your grinder is about 25hp even with new teeth your talking 30 to 60 min for a 30" stump, more if you have to do surface roots. Time to remove the grinder, break down the crane and time to the next job. One stump so far and we spent at least 2 to 3 hours.

You would have to charge alot of green to make it work.
 
You would have to charge alot of green to make it work.


When I ran my company in Minneapolis I did a job for a man who was a very successful salesperson. He gave me money to take care of his trees but someting more valuable that he gave me was this insight:

"Don't spend your client's money. Let them do it."

If you have a client who wants something done, figure out a way to get it done. That's our job.

The sales department is telling our pruning department that they have clients who would be willing to pay to have those stumps out. It's our, the pruning department, job to figure out how much to charge.

Another encouraging thing that I see coming out of this idea is that we might have finally got the sales department to understand the value of using cranes on removal and pruning jobs. If this is the toe in the door, we'll push a little harder.
 
Sounds pretty cool to me. We have lifted our smaller one a few times. We only used slings to do this. I used three to keep it balance well. I have heard of people using chains where they would use a hardened bolt to lock the chain into a threaded hole in the frame.

It would seem to me that just using the slings would be sufficient for one or two days of work? Are you seeing more jobs in the future?
 
Tom's point about pricing makes sense to me. If a crane is what it takes to remove the stumps then those stump removals are worth some serious green. This is assuming that there isn't a more efficient means of doing it. You can't go punishing your customers with high prices because your stump grinder is too big. However, if any stump grinder is too big, then supply and demand call for high prices.
 
why not just buy a smaller stumper ,like i did when i constantly had to let my client's down because we couldn't get access for the 252 ,i bought a rayco rg16,i know she takes a long time to grind a stump but i charge accordingly,i kept the 252 also ,when i change this machine i shall no doubt get the 352 ,imo you need 2 machine's if your offering stump grinding as a service ,

just one other thing ,if a client is dead set on getting there stump's out ,they will find someone who can ,i lost a few client's who i had worked for a number of years just because i couldn't get the bigger machine to there stumps ,now these ex-client's get these other firm's in to do there tree work as well... /forum/images/graemlins/mad.gif
 
Every piece of equipment you buy increases your overhead, which means you have to charge more for each man hour on the job. If you can utilize the equipment enough the cost is justified. If you can't you need to find another way to get the job done.

I have a Rayco Super Jr which fits through a 36" gate, another local tree service has a Vermeer 110hp tow behind unit. I grind all their stumps they can't do and they grind all my large stumps. No money exchange! The only problem to date has been when somebody is backed up and somebody has to wait. I am sure you all know not many customers want to wait. We are also starting to take each others grinder to complete the jobs, no waiting plus the customer only sees the company contracted. I admit this won't work for everbody, there is a big trust factor involved.

If anybody else has a similar arrangement let me know.
 
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