Firewood processing charges

[SbTVF]

Very interesting different prices! But I'm thinking how many cubes processed in a day? Mot of the wood I'll be processing will be mainly oak up to 450mm diameter and about 500mm long with an 8 way knife I'll have a log deck and this machine is supposed to do 6cubes an hour with deck, if I was to split for 7 hours and split 5 cubes an hour should have 35 cubes a day split if this how much I did split what should I charge?

 

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Unless it's all identical size and perfectly straight you'll always struggle to get the quoted throughput. Especially if the customer is particular about log sizes.

 

As an example I did a full 18t load of 3m long beech in 7 hours. So about 36 cube from my experience. That was with a few stops for chain tension, lunch, sorting out the ensuing log pile and one chain swap just to maintain cut speed. Pretty good going I felt.

 

 

 

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[Westwood]

I am really intrigued by this thread and others on processor throughput.

 

I have had a Trakmet 450 for a little over a year. It has a log deck is semi automatic with a 25 ton ram. Prior to that I had use of an older Dalen.

 

We split for retail - I have a 75 acre woodland with management plan and felling licence. Most of the wood is ash with some oak and beech. We load direct from the forest after 1 year seasoning and split directly into bags for the next year. I work on 2 bags per solid cube and three bags per tonne.

 

We split as standard to 25cm and try to maintain plus or minus 5 cm. The wood is graded between deck loads of 10-20cm and 20-40cm. We use a 8 way splitter. We find customers have preferences on log size but are pretty adamant about log diameter at 10-12cm max for burners. This is our major market.

 

With two people and the larger diameter logs we can produce about 2 bags an hour - I am saying that because stops to reposition logs, clear dust, clean output conveyor, adjust saw make it difficult to be exact. One guy is loading the deck, repositioning logs clearing rubbish removing oversize for resplit and stacking bags. On the larger logs about 50% is resplit - this is strangely enough the most productive with 2-3 bags an hour achievable.

 

Having done 600 bags in the last year our experience is that to get a consistent product from natural hardwood selected for length and minimum bends from that processor two bags an hour is good. If its arb waste short lengths and twisty budget on one bag. We do not split into a heap because the machine does not remove chips and dust from the conveyor and you get left with a pile of unsaleable stuff at the bottom.

 

I would have thought a hire service would encounter material like ours or worse unless its all larch or straight softwood where much higher rates could be achieved. Equally if you cut to 500mm and don't worry about diameter much higher rates can be achieved.

 

Wish you luch and would be interested in the experience of others.

[arboriculturist]

I am really intrigued by this thread and others on processor throughput.

 

I have had a Trakmet 450 for a little over a year. It has a log deck is semi automatic with a 25 ton ram. Prior to that I had use of an older Dalen.

 

We split for retail - I have a 75 acre woodland with management plan and felling licence. Most of the wood is ash with some oak and beech. We load direct from the forest after 1 year seasoning and split directly into bags for the next year. I work on 2 bags per solid cube and three bags per tonne.

 

We split as standard to 25cm and try to maintain plus or minus 5 cm. The wood is graded between deck loads of 10-20cm and 20-40cm. We use a 8 way splitter. We find customers have preferences on log size but are pretty adamant about log diameter at 10-12cm max for burners. This is our major market.

 

With two people and the larger diameter logs we can produce about 2 bags an hour - I am saying that because stops to reposition logs, clear dust, clean output conveyor, adjust saw make it difficult to be exact. One guy is loading the deck, repositioning logs clearing rubbish removing oversize for resplit and stacking bags. On the larger logs about 50% is resplit - this is strangely enough the most productive with 2-3 bags an hour achievable.

 

Having done 600 bags in the last year our experience is that to get a consistent product from natural hardwood selected for length and minimum bends from that processor two bags an hour is good. If its arb waste short lengths and twisty budget on one bag. We do not split into a heap because the machine does not remove chips and dust from the conveyor and you get left with a pile of unsaleable stuff at the bottom.

 

I would have thought a hire service would encounter material like ours or worse unless its all larch or straight softwood where much higher rates could be achieved. Equally if you cut to 500mm and don't worry about diameter much higher rates can be achieved.

 

Wish you luch and would be interested in the experience of others.

 

Some of the output claims posted are ridiculous, unless they are quoting processing softwood.

 

We have a new high spec. processor, 360 grab to load deck and with 1 person and no time spent on housekeeping, we can only throughput approx. 2-3 m3 / hr with hardwood 100 - 350mm diameter - so 16 - 24m3 in an 8 hour working time day.

 

I was also be interested in what others achieve in output.

[R5log]

I am really intrigued by this thread and others on processor throughput.

 

I have had a Trakmet 450 for a little over a year. It has a log deck is semi automatic with a 25 ton ram. Prior to that I had use of an older Dalen.

 

We split for retail - I have a 75 acre woodland with management plan and felling licence. Most of the wood is ash with some oak and beech. We load direct from the forest after 1 year seasoning and split directly into bags for the next year. I work on 2 bags per solid cube and three bags per tonne.

 

We split as standard to 25cm and try to maintain plus or minus 5 cm. The wood is graded between deck loads of 10-20cm and 20-40cm. We use a 8 way splitter. We find customers have preferences on log size but are pretty adamant about log diameter at 10-12cm max for burners. This is our major market.

 

With two people and the larger diameter logs we can produce about 2 bags an hour - I am saying that because stops to reposition logs, clear dust, clean output conveyor, adjust saw make it difficult to be exact. One guy is loading the deck, repositioning logs clearing rubbish removing oversize for resplit and stacking bags. On the larger logs about 50% is resplit - this is strangely enough the most productive with 2-3 bags an hour achievable.

 

Having done 600 bags in the last year our experience is that to get a consistent product from natural hardwood selected for length and minimum bends from that processor two bags an hour is good. If its arb waste short lengths and twisty budget on one bag. We do not split into a heap because the machine does not remove chips and dust from the conveyor and you get left with a pile of unsaleable stuff at the bottom.

 

I would have thought a hire service would encounter material like ours or worse unless its all larch or straight softwood where much higher rates could be achieved. Equally if you cut to 500mm and don't worry about diameter much higher rates can be achieved.

 

Wish you luch and would be interested in the experience of others.

 

 

Hi, if you are only achieving 2 bags an hour for 2 people

These is the reason people say

No money in logs!

[R5log]

Some of the output claims posted are ridiculous, unless they are quoting processing softwood.

 

 

 

We have a new high spec. processor, 360 grab to load deck and with 1 person and no time spent on housekeeping, we can only throughput approx. 2-3 m3 / hr with hardwood 100 - 350mm diameter - so 16 - 24m3 in an 8 hour working time day.

 

 

 

I was also be interested in what others achieve in output.

 

 

Buy a Tajfun 480 😊

[gdh]

We use a tajfun 480+ on our old 35x which just powers it with 2 men and a loader (the big tractor below was a one off for contracting but I deleted all my decent pictures).

 

With that we do 5cube/10 bags an hour into boxes to dry it in. With large diameter straight timber we'll be more and we peak on 50cm softwood on the 12 way splitter which is very rare but we can do 16cube plus an hour.

 

All of those increase if we're just doing it into a heap and it's worth mentioning that we chip anything under 6 inch to save messing about with it.

 

This is it working ; https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=337726996630041&id=260687344334007

 

If that doesn't work just scroll down the page a bit; https://www.facebook.com/hormannsfirewood/

[arboriculturist]

Buy a Tajfun 480 😊

 

Nothing against a 480 except I would hate the chainsaw bar aspect - never say never though!

 

Saying that, do you know the 480 new price at the moment? I recall you have had a couple and I am thinking they compare in price to our 360.

 

In softwood our output is up to 6 m3 /hr, with loading deck and using forklift - just the 1 person.

 

Margins will always be slim in Firewood as you say - that's a certainty!

[Woodworks]

 

I work on 2 bags per solid cube and three bags per tonne.

 

With two people and the larger diameter logs we can produce about 2 bags an hour - I am saying that because stops to reposition logs, clear dust, clean output conveyor, adjust saw make it difficult to be exact. One guy is loading the deck, repositioning logs clearing rubbish removing oversize for resplit and stacking bags. On the larger logs about 50% is resplit - this is strangely enough the most productive with 2-3 bags an hour achievable.

 

.

 

So 2/3 thirds of a tonne an hour. That does sounds a bit slow. I work for one guy on a regular basis and he has each 18 tonne lorry load in a separate stack. At worst we get through half a load and usually 2/3 thirds so 9-12 tonnes a day. No log deck with one guy hand balling the lengths on tractor forks and then putting them on the Farmi's log lifter. He clears chip and the logs are left in a heap to be sorted later. All cut to similar sizes that you mention.

[Woodworks]

So 2/3 thirds of a tonne an hour. That does sounds a bit slow. I work for one guy on a regular basis and he has each 18 tonne lorry load in a separate stack. At worst we get through half a load and usually 2/3 thirds so 9-12 tonnes a day. No log deck with one guy hand balling the lengths on tractor forks and then putting them on the Farmi's log lifter. He clears chip and the logs are left in a heap to be sorted later. All cut to similar sizes that you mention.

 

Sorry that was not a very constructive post

 

Looking at your machine on a video it cuts quick enough but the ram stoke is slow. With 25 tonnes of push would have thought it could do a lot more than a 8 way knife. My little Farmi is only 7 or 8 tonne and handles a 6 way pretty well. Do Trakmet do a 12 way for you machine? Would think this would be when your machine would come in to it's own [ame]

[/ame] Edited June 3, 2017 by Woodworks

[Westwood]

On the contrary it was a constructive post.

 

We have reduced the ram movement to about 32.5cm to reduce the free movement before it hits the log.

 

Trakmet is I think fairly typical in throughput to chainsaw operated processors with a direct drop into the splitting chamber - I would expect machines with a separate splitting chamber and circular saw to be faster. I think the big difference is with these machines that have 12 way or box knives in two ways - the number of logs produced and the consistency of profile but also these splitters tend to operate in a shaft where it is not possible for small logs and debris get wedged underneath. With the Trakmet and the Dalen the 6 and 8 way star splitters cannot produce consistent logs with a variation in input material size. You have to have very consistent sized sorted straight and unbranched material if you are not to get a variation between 100 and 200mm diameter logs. This is not acceptable to our customers. I do quite a few for wholesale to burner suppliers and they check the bag for rubbish and oversize.

 

If we were processing 4 meter perfect logs all 250mm diameter I dare say we could get up to 5 bags (say 5 loose cube) an hour but life is not like that. Remember we do process straight into bags. If we were processing to 500mm length and not worrying about oversize the limiting factors would be loading and stacking.

 

Trakmet do not do a 12 way - we are looking at producing one with a local welding shop.

 

There are so many inconsistencies in comparing operator and machine performance - if you look at the pile above for the burner market there would be a fair proportion of oversize. Its probably fine for the open fire market - I know a farmer who produces huge logs by comparison but does not sell very many! If you are processing into a pile its quicker but we sell in bags because that's what our customers want. How many bags an hour can be produced per man from a pile sorting for oversize and discarding rubbish.

 

If I was looking for product consistency and performance I would choose a machine with a box splitter, and a separate system for removing the rubbish. And I would go out and buy artic loads of specified 250mm logs at 4 meters. Birch is excellent for that. Ash tends to be varied in size and not quite straight but makes fantastic firewood.

 

Interesting stuff . It may be we are too sensitive about product consistency.