Bilke firewood processor

[County 764]

You could also build something like this

 

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But H&S may disapprove

[john432]

Is anyone using , or have any first hand experience of the Mottimaster, or Klapi tuiko shear type of processor? Not unlike the Bilke, but can be had delivered for notmuch more than £ 3k .less than half thd price of a Bilke. Plenty of videos on youtube, look to me to to a good job and fast.

[skyhuck]

we to had one with the hardox blade if the wood is freshly cut it did a very good job,did not seem to matter what the timber was.But knots are a different matter,had great fun with slow grown Sitka knots.If you cut a lot of short logs any bits can be sold as kindling.I thought it was a good machine,maybe a bigger tractor than our Ford 4000 would be an advantage to keep the momentum up.

 

I think this is key. I first ran mine on the David Brown 885, the PTO had to be running at full 540 to prevent stalling on bigger or knotty stuff, this IMO is way to fast causing a lot of smashed up timber.

 

Running it with the mog on the 540 PTO, but only on fast idle, what a difference!! nice and slow, much less mess and more uniform logs.

 

Its never going to make the kind of logs you get of a processor, but its very fast and makes stuff thats ideal for my boiler and the less fussy log customer

[farmerguido]

We're only a farming business with biomass boiler and woodburners so don't need the presentation quality to sell the logs. We also run a building business and electricians and plumbers tend not to have chainsaw qualifications, but they can use this in complete safety. The little fergie 135 will run it with mild complaints but 65hp is ideal.

 

Not really an issue for most professionals on this forum but I also thought that it was simple and robust enough to lend to my neighbours - you wouldn't do that with a Posch!

 

I was put off the Klapo-Tuiko by the saftey aspect (ie no infeed conveyor). Who wants to spend all that money only to worry about others using it? Having said that, the guillotine looks a better design, more splitting.

 

NB It has a kill cord running along that will go to the decompressor pull on the tractor!?! How many modern tractors have one of those? I have bought an outboard (marine) engine kill cord for a few£ on ebay to wire to the PTO switch but haven't yet got round to fitting ......