# Vermeer BC 1400XL comes apart at full tilt!



## Bigus Termitius (Jun 4, 2009)

Yeah...not fun...shrapnel and all. No one got hurt, that's the main thing.

It's the clearance company's chipper that I've had on the ROW for only 44.7 hours. It supposedly only had 250 some hours on it when we got it.

As you can see in the pics the blades came undone and popped the bolt heads. I have a feeling they were overused and torqued wrong.

My main concern is with the drum mount holes that are elongated.

The coop, Vermeer, and I want to see the drum fixed or replaced. The owner just wants me to back the bolts out and replace the blades and bolts keeping the cutting bar, which took some big hits.

What do you guys think, ever had any similar situations?


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## Cannuck (Jun 4, 2009)

New to the site, first post. I was a municipal arborist for 10 years in 2 municipalities and am presently a forester for a Utility. Thats just a little background. 
As far as that drum is concerned....refuse to use it....the manufacturer recommends replacement and for the simple reason of your post you know not to use it.
The bolts will not seat properly even when torqued. With the forces applied during the rotation the blades will shear off....and if you have ever seen a chipper blade embed itself in the back of a dump box after going through the chute....
Regardless your employer is not practicing due diligence in keeping his workers safe by suggesting such a fix.
It may seem a small thing but this is infact a very dangerous situation considering the damage.
The owner will just have to eat this one and learn to read directions that come in the little black box on the side of the chipper.



BTW...hi and nice to meet everyone.

Cannuk :greenchainsaw:


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## Bigus Termitius (Jun 5, 2009)

Good to meet you, welcome to the site, and thanks for the response.

It's pretty much what I was thinking. 

I thought that maybe after 61 views this morning and last night that someone around here would have had a similar experience, but I guess I'm the only one so far that works for an outfit that thinks that a torque wrench is an eight foot cheater bar and in order to get 210 pounds of 'dat there torque you put Jimmy Jo on the end of it....he be about 210.

Both blades were found at the bottom of the drum housing thankfully, but I was picking up chunks of blade and bolt heads from around the chipper....I only found two and a chunk, four maybe made it into the back of the truck, or out the back.

It started to come apart and I was off to the side and I reached for the lever, but it was already locked up by then. I had just fed it a medium sized branch.

I sent pictures to the owner and explained everything and told him we needed to run this through Vermeer.

So my next step is to roll this in to the coop for inspection and send pics to Vermeer. Between the two, we are going to lean on him good.

I don't want to lose my job, or the contract, but I'll trade them in for the life and safety of others and myself gladly. I'm set up to go out on my own if need be anyway.


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## outofmytree (Jun 5, 2009)

Kudos to you BT. It takes a set to stand up to belligerent idiots like the one you are describing. If I ever tell my guys to work with crap like that I hope one of them taps me over the head with the block splitter to help clear my vision.

You said it best. The job is nice but living is nicer.


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## BuddhaKat (Jun 5, 2009)

You can be absolutely sure that it's life threatening to do what the owner suggests. The reason is metal fatigue. When the holes get elongated the threads are no longer capable of holding properly. They'll concentrate force at one point while reducing it on the other side. That is a strain threads are not designed to hold. Anything requiring 210 Lbs. torque is already under a huge amount of strain as it is, especially if it is rotating at a high RPM. The centrifugal forces add to the strain. If you were to look at a microscopic image of the grain where the elongation occurred you could easily see that they're AFU. I'm sure Vermeer will back you up.


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## fishercat (Jun 5, 2009)

*simple to resolve.*

refuse to use it.tell the owner to use all the money he saved from not properly maintaining it and replace the drum.he should have plenty of money in his mattress.


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## ClimbinArbor (Jun 5, 2009)

Bigus Termitius said:


> Yeah...not fun...shrapnel and all.


so did the guys chippin have to get a change of undies??? glad everyones allright. i like the 1400xls but you have to baby the drum on em. looks like the bolts where just cheater piped on and called good.....



Cannuck said:


> New to the site, first post.


welcome aboard bucko.


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## Treetom (Jun 5, 2009)

Thanks for making this situation public. Perhaps the "owner" sould be directed to this post. A little preventative maintenance goes a long way. I recently checked the bolts on my Bandit 200, the bolts were just getting a little loose. Welcome to the new guy.


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## shack (Jun 5, 2009)

I had a similar problem with my 1000 xl. They wanted $4500.00 for the drum . My chipper is a 05 , it was 2 months out of warranty. Vermeer fix the problem for free.


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## T.L (Jun 5, 2009)

Hd some bolts break on a Bandit 250, tore the heck out of the cutter bar and put some deep cuts in the drum, holes were still alright so we just did a blade change , if the holes were not right we would have replaced the drum, situation just to dangerous to take a chance. The mechanic told us to change the nuts and bolts every third blade change. It don't cost that much extra.


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## VA-Sawyer (Jun 5, 2009)

I agree with the posts about the deformed threads and stress points. If Vermeer says to change it and your boss doesn't do so then the liability falls completely on his shoulders if someone gets killed or maimed for life. I would be surprised if his liability insurance would protect him in such a case. They may very well say "claim denied" because he didn't follow manufactures recommendations.

I have walked away from jobs over such things in the past. The boss was always able to find some idiot that was willing to take the risks, as a replacement for me. At least I know I did my best to make things safer. I can't stand the sight of blood, even worse when it's mine.
Rick


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## PurdueJoe (Jun 5, 2009)

That's what a BC1800A looked like after running a 8" long 1" thick piece of rebar through it. The company I worked for had that happen and I was o about a foot and half away when the drum blew off the bearings. Yeah they picked up a new on and had some guy fix the blown up one by a welder by trading tree work for the cost. They said it chips fine and looks great. I checked it out and the welds looked good but I would never use it on any of my jobs no matter how much I would like an 18" chipper. Guess who's responsible if or when that baby blows, not the guy that welded it. If I was him I would say "Who says I welded that, show me the paper trail that connects me"


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## booboo (Jun 6, 2009)

"You can be absolutely sure that it's life threatening to do what the owner suggests. The reason is metal fatigue. When the holes get elongated the threads are no longer capable of holding properly. They'll concentrate force at one point while reducing it on the other side. That is a strain threads are not designed to hold. Anything requiring 210 Lbs. torque is already under a huge amount of strain as it is, especially if it is rotating at a high RPM. The centrifugal forces add to the strain. If you were to look at a microscopic image of the grain where the elongation occurred you could easily see that they're AFU. I'm sure Vermeer will back you up."

+1

"I have walked away from jobs over such things in the past. The boss was always able to find some idiot that was willing to take the risks, as a replacement for me. At least I know I did my best to make things safer. I can't stand the sight of blood, even worse when it's mine."

+1 again

Obviously the bolts weren't tensioned properly, there's a reason they make torque wrenches. I don't see a fix for the drum, there's no fixing those holes and they are not safe to use. The cutting bar is FUBAR too, there's no reason not to replace it, it'll never be right again.

My .02


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## prentice110 (Jun 6, 2009)

We had a Bandit 19L throw some blades back in the day. Tore the holy hell outta the disk housing and both of the chutes. We were just blowing the chips into a pile, not a truck, and found parts of the blade 100+ feet away from the machine on the far side of the chip pile.


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## TreeClimber57 (Jun 6, 2009)

Bigus Termitius said:


> So my next step is to roll this in to the coop for inspection and send pics to Vermeer. Between the two, we are going to lean on him good.



Doing the right thing there.



Bigus Termitius said:


> I don't want to lose my job, or the contract, but I'll trade them in for the life and safety of others and myself gladly. I'm set up to go out on my own if need be anyway.



Again good move, I seriously doubt you will loose your job over this. I can not imagine anybody pushing that hard if the manufacturer tells you to do it, the would be foolish in my opinion to do so.


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## TreeClimber57 (Jun 6, 2009)

Bigus Termitius said:


> Yeah...not fun...shrapnel and all. No one got hurt, that's the main thing.
> 
> It's the clearance company's chipper that I've had on the ROW for only 44.7 hours. It supposedly only had 250 some hours on it when we got it.
> 
> ...



Likely as you said incorrect torque on bolts, and likely damage, fatigue and serious issues. Ensure you get everything in writing and well documented. Keep a copy of it all and ensure you boss gets a copy of it all as well. If it is in writing and documented, doubt he will go against it.


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## ClimbinArbor (Jun 10, 2009)

shack said:


> I had a similar problem with my 1000 xl. They wanted $4500.00 for the drum . My chipper is a 05 , it was 2 months out of warranty. Vermeer fix the problem for free.



yeah my vermeer guys are pretty good about stuff like that too. from what i hear most of them are that way.


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## Bigus Termitius (Jun 10, 2009)

ClimbinArbor said:


> yeah my vermeer guys are pretty good about stuff like that too. from what i hear most of them are that way.



The Vermeer guys I've been on the phone with are top notch. For myself, I was wanting to trade up to a bandit eventually, but vermeer is changin my mind.

So far it has been a stand off. I'm talking to some machine shops per the owners request. His attitude is that vermeer is just trying to sell new parts and equipment.

However, I believe the shaft is bent. I'm filming the machine today in action so that everyone can see that it's more than jimmy rigging a few holes back in shape.

Thanks for all the replies...it helped a great deal....as always. It gave me alot to go on during the epic email ordeal involving area managers and company mechanics. 

After all the back and forth and running around, lost production time, and what not, it would have been cheaper just to run it up there to Vermeer and turn them loose.


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## treemandan (Jun 10, 2009)

that is a mess, take it out, throw it away, get a new one and use a torque wrench. If you skimp and shortcut that stuff ... I wouldn't. Used get big chunks of pine wedged in behind the knives of chippers like that. It caused one heck of a vibration but knives flying apart on newer machines really only means one thing: It wasn't right beforehand.


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## capetrees (Jun 10, 2009)

I've posted it before but yes, I was renting a Vermeer bc1000xl and it threw the blades. We were sending 8" oak logs though it when all hell broke loose. The bolts snapped, threw one blade out the shoot in peices and the other fell down under the drum by the bedknife. Once we shut the machine down, we examined the blades to see if we could determine what happened. Turns out the rental company didn't sharpen the blades before sending it out each time. As a result, the blades were no sharper than my thumb. That doesn't chip oak well. And it seems maybe a renter prior to me had put metal or concrete through the machine too. The blades were dull and severely chipped and the deeper chips had rust in them indicating it hadn't been sharpened or serviced in a while. All that dullness put quite a strain on those bolts. In the end, the rental company sent it out to Vermeer to be fixed and they replaced the bedknife, drum, drum bearings, blades and bolts, all around $3500. Later on, after I found out the motor was less than 1 year old, I decided to buy the unit from the rental company considering it was basically brand new and has run great ever since.

Moral to the story, get the repairs done and keep yourself safe. It may cost some money to repair it the right way but in the end, what costs more, a one time fee to repair the machine or perhaps a lifetime of rehab or the cost of a life as a result of using and being killed or maimed by a bad machine? :monkey:

Also, as an aside, as a result of this episode mentioned above, I only use my bolts once and always replace with new every time I swap over or change out my blades.


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## outofmytree (Jun 11, 2009)

capetrees said:


> I've posted it before but yes, I was renting a Vermeer bc1000xl and it threw the blades. We were sending 8" oak logs though it when all hell broke loose. The bolts snapped, threw one blade out the shoot in peices and the other fell down under the drum by the bedknife. Once we shut the machine down, we examined the blades to see if we could determine what happened. Turns out the rental company didn't sharpen the blades before sending it out each time. As a result, the blades were no sharper than my thumb. That doesn't chip oak well. And it seems maybe a renter prior to me had put metal or concrete through the machine too. The blades were dull and severely chipped and the deeper chips had rust in them indicating it hadn't been sharpened or serviced in a while. All that dullness put quite a strain on those bolts. In the end, the rental company sent it out to Vermeer to be fixed and they replaced the bedknife, drum, drum bearings, blades and bolts, all around $3500. Later on, after I found out the motor was less than 1 year old, I decided to buy the unit from the rental company considering it was basically brand new and has run great ever since.
> 
> Moral to the story, get the repairs done and keep yourself safe. It may cost some money to repair it the right way but in the end, what costs more, a one time fee to repair the machine or perhaps a lifetime of rehab or the cost of a life as a result of using and being killed or maimed by a bad machine? :monkey:
> 
> *Also, as an aside, as a result of this episode mentioned above, I only use my bolts once and always replace with new every time I swap over or change out my blades*.



Great practise. Those bolts are much cheaper than people.


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