# What stumps are toughest to grind/



## Mowingman

for you experienced stump grinders. what stumps, (by wood type), do you find to be the toughest to grind? I have about 3 weeks of grinding under my belt, using my new Rayco Super Jr. It seems to me that pine stumps really pull down the engine, and just tear, rather than grind easily into small chips. I really thought the soft pine woods would be easy, but that does not seem to be the case. Good solid oak stumps grind easier than the pines.
Just wondered what other folks find hard to grind.


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## lovetheoutdoors

Mowingman said:


> for you experienced stump grinders. what stumps, (by wood type), do you find to be the toughest to grind? I have about 3 weeks of grinding under my belt, using my new Rayco Super Jr. It seems to me that pine stumps really pull down the engine, and just tear, rather than grind easily into small chips. I really thought the soft pine woods would be easy, but that does not seem to be the case. Good solid oak stumps grind easier than the pines.
> Just wondered what other folks find hard to grind.




I work with some fellas that grind stumps, I asked him what kind of trees were the toughest to grind, and he said Pine was the toughest. Other than that i dont know.


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## lovetheoutdoors

He also said that the stump grinder would jerk huge shavings out of pine making it harder.


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## Plyscamp

Fresh wet Pine, Date Palms, Lemon and a few varieties of Eucaliptus can be as hard as concrete.


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## stumpy66

over here, conifers are sweet to take out, they like being ground out...taken some big sequoia's out and they are good/easy. The hardest (wood) stump i have come up against was an acacia. the teeth needed to be spot on sharp for that one.....other than that it is old stumps that have not rotted. Old oak can be tough as anything.......just get your teeth right and take it slow.....


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## Steve-Maine

Pine was the easier to grind with my 80HP Vermeer. Rotten sugar maple below ground was the hardest. It seems the maple got harder as years went on. Oak was easy with my machine which was an old vermeer 2465 which I install a Deutz Diesel 80HP 4cyl. with Rockford clutch. It was a heavy machine but if you could get to stump you could grind anything even uprooted stumps.


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## Ekka

Mowingman said:


> It seems to me that pine stumps really pull down the engine, and just tear, rather than grind easily into small chips. I really thought the soft pine woods would be easy, but that does not seem to be the case.



If you can leave them a year it helps but if not try this trick, I cut slots in the buggers or checker them up, that way pieces come flying off.

I would say on the "hard" stump side is the Leopard tree, AKA Brazilian Ironwood ... Caesalpinia ferrea, harder than any euc. You better have sharp teeth and even then these just powder up


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## ROLLACOSTA

Pines and Beech [fagus sylvatica] are by far the hardest stumps on your machine over here..


And talk about make a mess,I hate pines and beech


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## Dadatwins

Freshly cut pine, cedar, long shreds of grinding a big mess to clean up. Old sugar maples and hickory that have been baked in the sun and turned rock hard can be a pain also. I will usually throw in a new set of main teeth before hitting one these.


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## Oly's Stump

In my area the hardest stumps to grind/cut are the silver maples. I always make sure I have sharpe teeth on before cutting into one of these. This is also the most common stump in my area. They are almost always monsters and mounded with exposed roots. The wood fiber in this species must make cutting harder. I would rather cut oak all day long then silver maples. You have to have sharpe teeth for those pines also. If you see and smell that you are burning the stump, your teeth are not sharpe enough. Keeping sharpe teeth on the machine makes faster grinding and its easier on your equipment.


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## stumpy66

sharp teeth is where is it......no matter what.....and f**k off horse power....


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## Log hog

*Elm, Spruce,and Rocks!*

I find elms are the hardest especial left to dry for a while, then followed by spruce. Spruce are not that hard of a wood, just more gummier. But I found if you start at a root and work your way straight toward the stump you can cut down the grain and it goes alot easier. It peels of much bigger, longer, chips and doesn't't get so gummed up. I found that greener stumps grind easier, well probably the rotten ones are the best, easy money. I had a good one today, cut down two maples and the deal was to grind those stumps and some smaller ones around the house. Ground out the big maples one 36" the other 48" then the smaller ones. Well it seems over the holiday weekend they got a little energetic and decided to try and dig out one of the stumps by the house. I did'nt pay a whole lot of attention to the stump just started to grind it when some thing that made a lovely noise. You all know the noise I'm talking about the one that makes you pick up the cutter wheel and say M****RF****R. Well the old do it yourselfer took a BIG steel splitting wedge and rammed it down into the stump. I guess he thought he was going to break it up and just get rid of it in about five minutes. But probably tired after a two minutes, forgot about the wedge and left it there for me to pry out, only after I dulled my teeth. Reeeaaal nice!


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## mtcates

I find that the tighter the growth rings in the tree, the harder the stump is to grind. A slow growing tree means tight growth rings and harder wood. 

Amen Log Hog, them elms are very hard to grind compared to others. Elms grow very slow so they have tight growth rings.


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## elmnut

Honey locust, and black locust seem to grind tough.


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## Blake22

Green (just cut) pine takes the most time. As for hard I'd say in my area a cherry or persimon that has been cut for 9 months to a year is as hard as anything. I like to grind all hardwood asap while it's green. On pine stumps the longer you wait the easier it gets. Grain. knots and grow rings cause each stump to be different. There are 2 things you can rely on, sharp teeth and sharp teeth.


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## treesurgeon

elm, pine, and dead sugar maple in that order.


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## JNyz

add beech to that list


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## trevmcrev

Pine (radiata) , the long vertical fiber of this timber makes it shred the way it does and creates so much mulch you have to clear it all the time. Also Sweetgum (liquidamber) do to the butress flare and big roots. Photinia also just because it is rock hard, luckily they dont get very big.

I usually charge these out at about double my usual rate. 

Did an existing stump years ago as an extra for a customer we were doing a lot of other work for. It looked old and rotten so i said no worries just an extra $50. Man this thing was like grinding concrete. After the outer rotten bits ground away the rest was petrified. Dont know what it was other than a waste of teeth & time:bang: 

Trev


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## Arizon Stump Removal

Honey locust that has been left for a few years. Everything else is pretty easy with sharp teeth.


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