Tractor and chipper rates

[Tom M]

21 hours ago, LGP Eddie said:

I had a Farmi 260 with infeed conveyor and no crane, it was purchased for niche work and did me very well, excellent build quality, easy to work on and never had any parts apart from one bearing I put the wrong grease into by mistake.

It would produce an excellent biomass quality chip, being fitted with twig breakers too, and this is really what they’re intended for, chipping smaller roundwood for fuel, and are seriously rapid at it if setup correctly and don’t need much hp to do it.

The downside was anything remotely brash would want to wrap around the feed rollers, and as long as the operator was familiar with reversing the rollers regularly it became very little of an issue.

Had it on tractors from 70 to 250hp and in reality the 125hp Valtra N111 ran it best.

More hp was good, but twisted pto lemon tube isn’t!🤦‍♂️

 

For the intended Massey quoted here, as previously stated, it’ll run the chipper ok, you can even put them on 540 speed if required, but it’ll be too large cumbersome for the actual tractor size, and be a proper tail wagging the dog setup.

 

Don’t let me put you off though, others have quoted a “niche” and there is a place for such setups.

I know of two who have put some thought into it and it seems to work well for them.

Basically reverse drive Valtra with TP Chipper and 3 point linkage crane.

Same crane drops straight onto the bolster trailer for any forwarding duties and a nice Tajfun winch on the front for good measure.

Same tractor is back on all sorts of summer duties in standard form when required.

 

It goes without saying the Heizohack is a fantastic tool and in site clearance has an incredible ability to manage to finish the shift with blades that shouldn’t be able to!

They are literally everywhere and I could get hold of big twin axle units with crane, large hp tractor and highly experienced operators for the rates already quoted here and obviously fuel colour is the main issue for these guys.

 

Thank you to you and everyone else for the feed back,much appreciated,was only asking the question as had a brain wave few days back as I know a few agri contractors etc who do fair bit of shear grab work with there 360 diggers and there always wondering what to do with brash etc I know they don’t chip it 😂 also was thinking of other work for the tractor in autum/winter rather it be sat in shed majority of the time,it’s out most days in the summer round bailing and other agri jobs.yes I know it’s not the biggest of tractors also but she’s a pocket rocket 🚀 having said that it’s quite capable of lifting power Harrow/seed drill combination kit up even with a ton of seed in hopper obviously completely different machine to a chipper/crane combo,she is quite sturdy on front end with weight/tool block on front plus her loader brackets,but reading comment I think I may have to scrap this idea for the time being,not got the money for a bigger tractor or chipper yet,so was just thinking small to begin with cheers 

 

also nice set up with valtra and chipper plus the trailer 👌

[Mike Hill]

I have pretty much the same combination of Crane and Chipper. I run it behind a Valtra N-101.

 

I build it into my own jobs at £1000 per day.

 

Depending on the species being chipped the ch260 will do all right.

 

How much were you looking to spend on one?

[LGP Eddie]

This was my Farmi 260 with Conveyor not crane, so a fair chunk hanging out back of the N series Valtra, but it was for site use and proved a very capable combination on the duals, able to sneak about between piles of material with minimal impact.

Loaded with a low ground pressure machine and the chip ran off with a tracked dumper, it fitted the job nicely.

 

You’d just have to try a 260/crane setup on your Massey, as the crane is well forward and there’s no infeed hopper as such, so everything is tight to the Tractor, and with suitable weight could be fine?

 

Just as an example this is the 260 being fed with an excavator and there’s a well used 7840 New Holland powering it, playing as we were setting it up.

They can rattle it through for a small setup.

 

 

 

 

[John Shutler]

ive run 4 different setups of tractor and chipper. originally i had a valtra 8150 with a tp 250. not setup for crane feeding but workable if you were careful.

moved upto a valmet 8050 and a jensen 141. really good setup but heavy on the back of the 8050. 

 

chopped the jensen in for a heizohack 8-400. great chipper that was addapted to be crane feed.

 

eventually changed up again to the 8-400k. 

 

had a couple of different T series valtra in between but have now settled on the N174 and it runs the 8-400k nicely.

 

id say you’d struggle for the money people are suggesting for the basic setup you are looking at. Also chipping for other people is a pain, badly stacked piles, metal, root balls etc are all the things you will come across and good luck recovering the repair money from people if something hard goes through. last time it cost me 3k in repairs. i’m very picky about who i chip for now 

 

 

 

[Tom M]

3 hours ago, Mike Hill said:

I have pretty much the same combination of Crane and Chipper. I run it behind a Valtra N-101.

 

I build it into my own jobs at £1000 per day.

 

Depending on the species being chipped the ch260 will do all right.

 

How much were you looking to spend on one?

 

3 hours ago, Mike Hill said:

I have pretty much the same combination of Crane and Chipper. I run it behind a Valtra N-101.

 

I build it into my own jobs at £1000 per day.

 

Depending on the species being chipped the ch260 will do all right.

 

How much were you looking to spend on one?

Is yours on the 3pt linkage? Or a trailed one? 
if 3pt linkage one do you get on ok with feeding into chipper? As few people on here keep saying you can’t see when loading hopper with crane.

nothing over 40k been looking at a farmi 260 with crane cheers

[Mike Hill]

18 hours ago, Tom M said:

 

Is yours on the 3pt linkage? Or a trailed one? 
if 3pt linkage one do you get on ok with feeding into chipper? As few people on here keep saying you can’t see when loading hopper with crane.

nothing over 40k been looking at a farmi 260 with crane cheers

 

Mine is on the linkage like the one pictured.

 

Feeding the chipper can be a bit of a pain with short bits, but you will learn to put them aside or piggyback them into the hopper with a long bit.

 

I was looking at putting the crane on a jake plate to bring the weight closer to the rear axel but never got around to buying one.I have my forestry winch on the front end loader to balance the weight of the chipper.