Bustergasket

I managed to get along to the open day for a few hours, they had some brilliant bits of kit, i took this video of the latest woodcutta and splitta, they had another splitta also feeding into the conveyor but that was not running, i took a few other quick videos will try and upload those too [emoji106]

We have been busy collecting conkers for the annual pub competition, the rules are, health and safety is banned, so no goggles, gloves, or other appendages, you can treat it, but it must be a conker ( no rubber ones or steel ones), stamps and tanglies must be declared at start of game, otherwise crack on [emoji106]

That’s a good temp out the kiln, are you running water to air heat exchangers ? Iam running one but it’s uninsulated, but in a building, and i fully exhaust the warm air as opposed to recirculating, would always like to get higher temps, good job you put that crate in [emoji106]

I do know fuelwood have a hire machine which has its own petrol power pack, it’s a splitta 400 and would really make short work of the arb waste rings, think it has outfeed conveyor too, you would need a good few people to keep it fed but if you get it organised you could do between 30 and 100 cube in a day, 100 would be big timber and running constantly, obviously the real world you have to swap bags, but if you wanted a big pile and have big timber ready prepped and depending on stoppages and timber size it’s possible, but you will need fit lads to keep it fed, i don’t know what they charge but i do know it will make great logs, give pete a call at fuelwood, iam going to try and get down to the open day this sat 13 october they should have the fuel factory running, hope this helps, keep on chopping [emoji106]

What width bagging shute ? i have a few around from my splitta 360 that realistically don’t get used as i random fill the kindling now

Well we have been working on some more tweaks with the woodcutta and splitta, we first noticed that in the morning it was running a bit slow, initially i thought it was the oil, however after a chat with Fuelwood and a flying visit from Pete that same night, we found the voltage was a bit low at some of the solenoids, we think just a bit of corrosion in the terminals of a few connections, a quick reroute and the addition of another relay and the machine has stepped up a gear, been running it today and it’s noticeably quicker, i also adjusted the log length to an inch longer this amounts to about 12 % increase in timber going through the machine in the same time, i would also estimate that the new wiring had made it 5-10 % faster, we really are struggling to keep up with it now, every time we run this machine it gets better, i think it’s the relentless nature that we like, running it on oregon 404 semi chisel chains i can get a day out of them before swapping, starting to get ahead this year for the first time in years, keep on chopping

Ernest bennett saw blades have always done me a great deal and have reps all over, they are based in sheffield, we have done some one off specials and got some great results, seem sensible on price too [emoji106] hope it helps

That looks like you have made that work great [emoji106] nice to see a few mods to. i like the way those greedy boards also flush out the sides so logs don’t get stuck, great idea and i think one of these is going to save me some time and effort, i currently have my logs in large vented bags that i place half on tail and half on the bed, then use the tipping loops to up end, closing the gate as the bag starts to lift and tip.... so i can see it might pull the sheet a bit one way or the other or forward and back, do you know how it deals with wrinkles in the sheet ? do you use a machine to load ? ultimately i think it will work great so gotta give it a try, cheers for the pics, very much appreciated and interesting. cheers

Thanks Woodworks for the kind offer, and good point ref the noise, i think i will try it as it comes and see how i go, must be easier than fetching them out with large hookaroon! will let you know how i get on [emoji106] cheers

That’s great, i think i have got to get one ordered up, do you think the tube would be thick enough to weld a large nut to it in order to use a 1/2 inch impact gun and appropriate socket to unload ?

That rat looks “ready to burn” ! how do you get on with the load handler ? i have seen a few vids but would be good to hear from someone who actually uses it, single or double cab ? cheers

No question, the 480 is right up there, i think it looks a great machine [emoji106]

Do you think it’s getting harder to source processor grade timber ? i have been pretty lucky this year but it did take some forward planning and early commitment to buy all my timber from one source, as you have suggested there is quite a bit of variation even in sorted loads, do you think this could be what is driving the need for ever bigger capacity machines ? have you seen the jappa 435 ? for me i was not a fan as it looked too slow splitting each bit 3 or 4 times, but the more i think about it i can see a few advantages, see if you had a 600 diameter machine that would be great but the hydraulic side of things starts to get out of hand, but with the same principle as that 435 i think you could run sensible size hydraulics but open the machine out so it would handle bendy 400 or straight ish 600, this would also give regular size logs i think if things continue as they are then bigger machines will be more common and if they make them automatic then even better, i to have always run tct, was apprehensive about chain but really it’s not that bad, only takes a few mins and the gain you get is huge over a dull chain just takes the stress out of everything on the machine.

Another vote for Splitta from Fuelwood, we find it so quick and so unfussy it really makes us laugh, we have two of the older 360 models but they do take 400mm rings or 800 mm half rings, knotty stuff is no problem and the quality of the end product is superb, we do our bulk bags and log nets, also we have been selling loads of kindling nets this year which is a nice bonus as all this comes off one machine, before i had the woodcutta i used to ring everything with saw then feed through it’s been my favourite machine for the past 5 years and never ever let me down not even once [emoji106] if you do take the plunge you won’t be disappointed.

This is a slightly different design but i bet it produces huge volumes very easily, thought it may be of use to someone on here [emoji106]

I like the idea of boxes, could be quick to fill and easy to stack, have looked before but i think quite a bit more than nets price wise, would also have to be dry before packing to avoid the mould, still think it could work though

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cheers gdh, yes i agree it’s a completely different method and we are astounded at how well it’s working, and how easy it is, the transaw is an awesome bit of kit but you do have to concentrate constantly checking loads of variables all the time it’s running, with this i look at the timber and if it looks like it will go through then that’s it, next thing i have think is is the bag full ? i also ran some 6 inch through and although slower it just relentlessly plugged away [emoji106]

Before this i have tried quite a few methods, most recently been using combination of Transaw and then Splitta, so all the sub 12 inch through transaw and the upto 28 inch through splitta but knocked in half, the addition of the woodcutta has turned the whole operation into a fully automatic set up, i cannot explain how different it is, it’s surprising how unfussy this old machine is, it genuinely runs on it own, it solves so many issues that you can get with conventional style machines, and iam finding i have more time on my hands, and i don’t miss pulling levers one bit, you are still busy but it’s mainly getting the bags out the way and setting a new one, and a bit of tidying, it produces sawdust on an industrial scale however that does get taken away by the inbuilt conveyor for the waste which runs a few feet each cycle. Iam going to run this for this year then probably look to upgrade to a new machine, we are so impressed and the fact that it does kindle and nets is a real bonus, i think your comments about thinking through the process are very valid, firewood is hard work, iam still thinking of ways to improve but for me it’s pretty close, maybe a better cleaner and bigger conveyor, so the time to get the small conveyor going was time well spent as was all the other little tweaks, the magic finger that touches the log to start the saw has been the best and simplest and is ultra reliable it never fails [emoji106]

Thanks, it’s taken a few evenings but now it’s paying me back, even managed to have a day off on sunday [emoji106] but then sold a load of kindling ! still it’s all good fun

Yes i agree, on the Transaw there is a sliding bar that’s sits sort of behind the ram but on top so it’s easy to get to this allows you to adjust the ram travel and hence auto return to any length, i find on mine about an inch of push into the knife is ideal on 10 inch logs, also have just worked out how to upload the short video on a fresh post, don’t think it’s going to win any oscars but i hope you enjoy [emoji106]

This video was taken at the end of the day and the chain was dull, cuts quicker with a brighter chain but you get the idea [emoji106]

Video of the woodcutta in action [emoji106]