FSI pedestrian stumpgrinder

[Steve Bullman]

I got to use one of these little grinders today for the first time. Small grinders as we all know, do the job but can be a lot of hard graft. This machine with its turntable feature made grinding pretty effortless. In addition to that, the breaking system is one of the best I have come across on a small grinder...at least at this point. Will be interesting to see how it holds up over time. Anyone else using one of these?

 

http://www.spectrum-plant.com/sales/fsi-stump-grinders/

 

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[Ty Korrigan]

Yes, had a demo on a decent sized cherry stump.

What would have taken a 27hp HB20 20min took me 60min with this 13hp devil.

I can see it would be good for conifer hedge stumps and the odd smaller/hard to get at stump but the price is just far too high for such low output.

Spectrum quoted £4380+vat. (5000euros+vat)

It's sold for even more here in France where the dealer wanted 7259euros+vat which is the on the road price of a Dacia Sandero.

Oh how I did laugh to see the French rep screw his face up at the U.K quote:001_rolleyes:

Although for me, it's a big NAH!

It is well made and light enough for a big bloke to rag around but I'm a weedy 62kg and after an hour of fighting the machine and stump I was glad to hand it back.

Just too small an engine and too light to bite into the stump.

Also too expensive to easily make back the coin invested.

With such a light machine you really need to use sharp teeth ALL the time.

 

Ty

Edited October 10, 2016 by Ty Korrigan

[Steve Bullman]

Yes, had a demo on a decent sized cherry stump.

What would have taken a 27hp HB20 20min took me 60min with this 13hp devil.

I can see it would be good for conifer hedge stumps and the odd smaller/hard to get at stump but the price is just far too high for such low output.

Spectrum quoted £4380+vat. (5000euros+vat)

It's sold for even more here in France where the dealer wanted 7259euros+vat which is the on the road price of a Dacia Sandero.

Oh how I did laugh to see the French rep screw his face up at the U.K quote:001_rolleyes:

Although for me, it's a big NAH!

It is well made and light enough for a big bloke to rag around but I'm a weedy 62kg and after an hour of fighting the machine and stump I was glad to hand it back.

Just too small an engine and too light to bite into the stump.

Also too expensive to easily make back the coin invested.

With such a light machine you really need to use sharp teeth ALL the time.

 

Ty

 

I think you're missing the whole point though, comparing it to a 27hp machine is hardly fair.

2 reasonably strong men can lift this into the back of a 3.5 ton truck pretty easily, and take it pretty much anywhere.

 

Save

[Ty Korrigan]

No, I am not missing the point at all.

I'm very serious about my grinding.

Yes it's easy to swivel.

It is not easy to move around though in a pile of soft chips so you need to be constantly stopping to rake the ground level.

Plus I watched the FSI Rep and the local dealer lift it out of a pickup, I'll give that a miss thank you, it weighs 125kg.

I had a decent demo of this machine as I was looking to buy another small but efficient grinder that I could easily move on my own and use for those stumps the 4012 couldn't reach.

What I found was that it was simply far too light on the nose and too few hp to take a decent bite out of the stump.

Now I could have been tempted but for the price, which is expensive for the money a 13hp grinder can generate making it harder to repay the investment.

I think the threshold for effective and productive grinders is around 18hp with 27hp really a good power to weight to productivity ratio.

Ty

[Joe Newton]

No, I am not missing the point at all.

I'm very serious about my grinding.

 

Ty

 

 

Your soulmate will be along soon enough.

[skyhuck]

I've done 100's of stumps with a 13hp machine, possibly 1000's.

 

IMO, it no big deal, its hard work, but most tree work is, sure bigger machines are great when there is good access, but when there isn't you make do.

[skyhuck]

Your soulmate will be along soon enough.

 

Chortle:lol:

[Ty Korrigan]

Correction, £3900 Spectrums offer.

The price I gave was the list.

Ty

[Ty Korrigan]

We grind over 80% of all trees felled so it's an important addition to our turnover.

I am well aware of what is viable, what is possible with what machine and what is £4k sat in the corner of the barn.

I had a go, it's not for me, I guess I just don't care for that kind of hard work.

Like when we upgraded from the CS100 wee chipper to a diesel 6".

I thought, I'll keep that wee chipper for all those Mission Impossible jobs...

When those jobs did come up we worked around NOT using the wee chipper instead.

Ty

[skyhuck]

Every one is different, I would never even consider a CS100, it would drive me nuts.