Got about 14 hours on the new Sandvik wheel this week, so far so good. Less chip spread, probably 30% faster, deeper cuts, seems to keep up speed in the dirt better, probably due to less pocket rub. Did chip part of the carbide off 4 of the long teeth in a rocky maple stump. New River is going to replace them free. They said they had had a batch of defective teeth a while ago, bad brazing, but thought they had gotten rid of them. So not sure if it was defective teeth or just rocky conditions. I admit I was disappointed because everyone claims how tough these teeth are, and rocks just dulled the ProSeries teeth from Vermeer, rarely broke off the carbide.
Sandvik wheel is 30 lbs heavier than Vermeer's, so we'll see how the electric clutch holds up. My machine has 2200 hours, replaced the clutch about 1000 hours ago, so maybe due for one anyway. You can hear the difference on engagement, not bad, but you can tell it's working a bit harder to get the 85 lb monster spinning.
I was up for buying a lot of new teeth anyway, so I am glad for the investment. Cost was $1166, shipping was $116 of that. They include a starter tooth kit, 10 shorts, 6 longs, 2 pockets, 2 rock-buster teeth (maybe should have used them on that maple stump, but admit I wanted to see how tough the teeth were). I replaced the cutter wheel shaft and bearings at the same time, took about 3 hours to install.
Teeth are $10.30 each, so will be looking into re-tipping when they can't be sharpened anymore. The other teeth that didn't break seem pretty sharp still, except a couple of shorts on edge of wheel, which the rocks of that maple stump dulled just a little.
Stumper63
Strange thing, engine seems to recover faster with this heavier wheel after getting a bit bogged down in the dirt (I have auto-sleep feature disabled), must be less pocket rub again, because wheel is much heavier.
