The Woodsman cometh

[Koa Man]

TreeCo,
When you say sales person, I hope you are not talking about me! I am a dealer for Woodsman in Hawaii, but if it was a POS, I wouldn't sell or use them. You don't need to hesitate buying Woodsman's present product. The 18X I have is a 2002 model and it has run flawlessly, except for the autofeed controller which went bad, but the autofeed is not a Woodsman item. It was a LOR Electric and it was replaced by a new one next day air. But you are right, don't take a sales person's word, try out all the chippers you can in the size you intend to buy, then make a decision. Look at the construction, especially under the feedwheel and anvil, which will take a lot of pounding. Check out the size of the drum bearings and ease of maintenance. I think you will be pleasantly surprised if you take the time to look at and try out a Woodsman.

 

[xander9727]

Thought I'd post a couple of pictures of the beast.

 

[xander9727]

one more

 

[MasterBlaster]

Dang bro, resize those phuggers.

Eh?

 

[xander9727]

I resized the pics.

All the dialer's can see now.

 

[glens]

I'm not too interested in waiting for 280KB images...

You know, the thing of it is, it's not so much being nice to the dial-ups as being responsible with the storage and bandwidth costs for the site.

 

[a_lopa]

woodsman are here in aus now i got sent a letter the other day about them they look ok,more the better bandit/vermeer had it all to themselves for a long time. still at 60k-110k i think ill stick with the altec

 

[xander9727]

Glens,
Rather than talk in circles just tell me if they need to be smaller.

This is a climbing thread, no Merlot allowed.

 

[SilverBlue]

Here ya go Glens

 

[MasterBlaster]

Hahahaaa!!!

That Glen's a card, eh?

 

[glens]

Hey SB, I'd be willing to try that; where do you buy yours?

Xander, it's not so much the image dimensions alone which determine the file size.  The compression level is almost a much larger factor.  The last of your images above takes about a minute and a half to fetch.  It's a nice image, but would you be willing to wait that long for it?  By simply converting it to JPEG format (I know, it already is) using a simple program I have, it defaults to an image "quality" of 75.  Passing it through that program drops it from 295173 bytes to 137218.  Sure, when you compare them both side-by-side you can see some loss of fine detail.  Is it objectionable?  I don't think so; at least not for viewing an image in a web browser.  If you were going to print them, you'd want the best quality, largest image possible, but that's a different ball game entirely.

To answer your question, is the image too large?  Not by dimension, but yes, by file size.  Bytes per second is the way we measure transfer times and the more bytes, the more seconds (and the more paid for serving costs over the month).

Glen

 

[glens]

That was an inadvertent submission.  Here's the image.

Glen

 

[Barry]

Drum vs. Disc Chippers

I've been using a Vermeer 1250 chipper with the 80hp Perkins in my tree service business for several years now. We do mostly trimming and removal work, and 1-2 lot/land clearing jobs - time permitting, per year. The 1250 has been a workhorse for us overall, but it has some very definite limitations.

My Three biggest concerns are:

1.) With the feed rollers mounted vertically and supported only on top by the hydraulic feed motor, material tends to get pulled in behind the sliding feed roller, which causes it to jam frequently.

2.) Knife change out is about a 2 hr ordeal from start to finish and is a pain. The 2 outer knives on the 4 knife disc do most of the chipping, These however are also the smaller of the two. The larger inner radius knives are sometimes fairly sharp while the outers are very dull.

3.) The basic design of the disc chipper means that there is always about a 12" -16" piece of unchipped wood laying in the chamber between the end of the feed rollers and the disc. This occasionally causes the disc to jam during initial startup. This has to be cleared manually by opening the disc shroud and pushing the piece back with a stick or metal rod.

I am in the market for a newer, slightly larger chipper and I plan on starting by looking at drum chippers. Bandit 1290H, 1590H and the Woodsman line are at the top of my list.

I'm interested in any feedback and/or opinions other tree professionals may have regarding these models, as well as any personal experience you have had with these manufacturers.

R,
Barry
S&S Tree and Landscape, Inc.