Firewood Processor Recommendations

Wesspur
Rugged made
Arborist Forum

Help Support Arborist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
muddstopper said:
I did the math once on how many cords per hr I could produce. my splitter is more than capable of doing a lot more than I can. I had 5 men, feeding, splitting and stacking. We did one cord in right at 15 min. The wood was already bucked to length. That would of been 4 cord per hr. but 5 man hrs of work. That's just over 3/4 cord per man hr. I can about do 3/4 cord in a hr by myself if the wood is already bucked, but I cant keep that pace for more than a hr or two. One thing I have also discovered is that big wood produces a lot of firewood, but a 20 in dia round still produces 10in wide splits whether you use a 4 way, 6 way, 8 way wedge, and every one of those splits has to be resplit. Simply throwing a big round thru a multi wedge machine doesn't produce usable firewood. If you have to resplit a large majority of the wood that comes thru a processor, what kind of time have you actually saved even if the processor can split 3 or 4 cord per hr.
Most of the manufacturers build really good machines, but everything needs to be taken with a grain of salt. They can build a machine that can produce 10 crd per hr. provided you have the crew and support equipment to keep it fed, and deep enough pockets to pay for it. But in all honesty, how many folks here are going to process and sell 10 cord per day. Any size processor that can produce more than you can sell, is a waste of money
Click to expand...

If I had the supply and manpower, I could provably sell 10 cords a day 4-5 months a year.

I do in the 300-400 cord area and I turn away a fair bit of business.
 
To give our input on the Dyna products.

We've done 2 separate rentals of a dyna sc15 each time was at least a week. Once we got acclimated to the controls, 3 guys were only able to produce 2 cords per hour. We had my dad in our excavator sorting through our log pile and loading the live deck, my brother running the controls, and myself either pulling pieces back in to re split or rotate any logs that were twisted enough to skip over the feed chain. Its a good unit and if I can find a used 15 or 16 for 30-35k I would definitely pick one up. We sell wholesale so I have orders where we fill 50 cords at a time. This processor with 6 way wedge needs 8-14" log diameters to run at it's peak. Any bigger and you will have to re split guaranteed, any smaller and you aren't producing enough pieces to stay efficient. We have also ran really large logs that barely fit through the saw opening and it cuts and splits them just fine. It's definitely a well made mid range unit that can produce a decent amount of wood without having to pay multitek, bells, or cord king prices.

I also just received my eastonmade 12-22 yesterday after a 3 month wait. It has the box and 6 way wedge so I'm interested to see how this thing works also. I'd still pick up a used dyna if it comes across and run them together or sell the eastonmade if I found it redundant. There is such a demand for them that I don't think I'd lose much if at all any money on it.
 
ChoppyChoppy said:
I have a setup similar, tried it once. Found it's easier and as quick to empty the bags by hand.
Click to expand...

But that defeats the purpose of the bags which is to not have to handle the wood anymore than you have to. I can load a full cord of wood in 10-15 minutes with the bags. It would take me an hour to throw that in by hand. multiply that the fatigue you get from throwing it in by hand and this system works pretty good for us.
 
Ptsiteworx said:
To give our input on the Dyna products.

We've done 2 separate rentals of a dyna sc15 each time was at least a week. Once we got acclimated to the controls, 3 guys were only able to produce 2 cords per hour. We had my dad in our excavator sorting through our log pile and loading the live deck, my brother running the controls, and myself either pulling pieces back in to re split or rotate any logs that were twisted enough to skip over the feed chain. Its a good unit and if I can find a used 15 or 16 for 30-35k I would definitely pick one up. We sell wholesale so I have orders where we fill 50 cords at a time. This processor with 6 way wedge needs 8-14" log diameters to run at it's peak. Any bigger and you will have to re split guaranteed, any smaller and you aren't producing enough pieces to stay efficient. We have also ran really large logs that barely fit through the saw opening and it cuts and splits them just fine. It's definitely a well made mid range unit that can produce a decent amount of wood without having to pay multitek, bells, or cord king prices.

I also just received my eastonmade 12-22 yesterday after a 3 month wait. It has the box and 6 way wedge so I'm interested to see how this thing works also. I'd still pick up a used dyna if it comes across and run them together or sell the eastonmade if I found it redundant. There is such a demand for them that I don't think I'd lose much if at all any money on it.
Click to expand...

Once you get some seat time on that Eastonmade I'd love a review of the box wedge. If you were so inclined a video would be fantastic! The product has my interest just not in my budget this year.
 
panolo said:
Once you get some seat time on that Eastonmade I'd love a review of the box wedge. If you were so inclined a video would be fantastic! The product has my interest just not in my budget this year.
Click to expand...


no problem, we should be back to running some wood in the next week.

I've been making calls to the local tree guys to let them know we take wood as I'm running low. we usually do a clearing job in the winter and i haven't come across anything so far.
 
What's your normal wood supply? The tree services?
 
Sandhill Crane said:
Questions for T. Mainus:
I see a deck over dump trailer in your photos. If it is yours, do you like it?
Also the JCB 35D, do you like it as well?
Click to expand...

The PJ trailer is a 8x14 deckover. We have delivered a boatload of wood with that trailer. I like it because I can use it for getting other materials for the storage shed side of the business as well. I have a line that runs from the battery on the truck to the back bumper that the trailer plugs in to. I have never had the battery go dead from a day of delivering wood. And I think the battery is the original one to the trailer. That being said we are probably going to get a dump truck this year. I need to hire a delivery guy for next year, it was just to much for me to keep up with the firewood deliveries and the storage sheds this fall. We did about 150 cord this year and the majority of that was delivered between Sept 1st and we were sold out by Nov. 1st this year.

The JCB TLT35D I love. It is a hybrid of a forklift and a telehandler. It will lift 7,000 lbs, it is very small and compact. 55" wide, weighs 12,500lbs so it is light enough that I can move it between our 2 shops with my pick up truck and trailer. It is 4x4 but the machine needs good flat ground to operate on. It has no suspension so if the ground is a little uneven it will high side and you can get stuck. We have spent a lot of money over the past 4 years to get the yard all graveled out so we don't have to deal with any mud anymore. We had a plate made for the forklift carriage to allow us to use bobcat style qwik-tach attachments. We use that mainly in firewood season. Our grapple, bucket and one set of forks is all qwik-tach style. When we are using it after firewood we will keep the standard forklift carriage on the machine. That was the main reason we had that rotating fork attachment made this past year. I can use it for unloading material for sheds, then if we have some firewood deliveries, I just need to add the side panel for unloading bags and then we don't have to switch out carriages.
 
T. Mainus said:
But that defeats the purpose of the bags which is to not have to handle the wood anymore than you have to. I can load a full cord of wood in 10-15 minutes with the bags. It would take me an hour to throw that in by hand. multiply that the fatigue you get from throwing it in by hand and this system works pretty good for us.
Click to expand...
I love the idea of the bags and not having to handle the wood by hand again, but an hour to hand toss a cord into a truck or trailer?
 
The purpose of the bags in my operation is a container to hold wood while it's drying, either outdoors or in the kiln.

The wood is stacked in the truck out of the bags, so it's just as easy to pull it out by hand vs dumping it in and picking it up.

There's no way to be accurate on a cord without stacking it that I've been able to come up with. Plus I couldn't fit 2 cords in the truck if it was loose.

T. Mainus said:
But that defeats the purpose of the bags which is to not have to handle the wood anymore than you have to. I can load a full cord of wood in 10-15 minutes with the bags. It would take me an hour to throw that in by hand. multiply that the fatigue you get from throwing it in by hand and this system works pretty good for us.
Click to expand...
 
Been doing about 1 cord per hour myself with no help. If I was processing soft wood I can see myself doing about 1.25-1.5 cords per hour. So far I have not had an issue with the logs dropping incorrectly into split chamber. And for the final portion of log on the deck it does a full 180° (into split chamber) and has not failed me yet.

The one issue I have with logs that aren't "cut" straight they try riding up the splitter shear or cylinder plunger. I'm thinking about welding spikes or something to give the plunger a good bit on the wood... any ideas? Maybe adding some narrow tack welds will be enough.
 

Attachments

  • 20200104_144934.jpg
    20200104_144934.jpg
    5.9 MB
  • 20200104_144921.jpg
    20200104_144921.jpg
    4.8 MB

Similar threads

hoopersr1977
Bar for firewood processor
Replies
1
Views
822
cantoo
cantoo
A
Wood processor for sale, Brand new Dyna!
Replies
0
Views
2K
Allseasonstumpgrinding
A
H
Advice for homeowner chainsaw
2
Replies
23
Views
3K
babaoriley
babaoriley
B
Hello from Australia!
Replies
2
Views
203
Bludenz
B
E
Husqvarna 592xp blade options for milling/freehand cutting
Replies
5
Views
2K
Coralillo Lo Pro
Coralillo Lo Pro

Latest posts

Back
Top