Bustergasket

Yes i agree the small stuff is painstaking, unless you have some time to kill you are better off chipping or put in the boiler, for me it’s worth paying extra for sorted loads and around the larger dia, but that’s mainly as i don’t have much time, also you get significantly more yield out the larger dia loads provided it’s straight ish, happy chopping

Yes you are right about moving stuff and jiggling pallets round, my mate could not keep it fed we ran out of timber twice, but this is all plus 8inch right upto 14 inch, the larger dia makes a huge difference, if on my own i bet it would be 2-3 bags an hour with the moving and stacking, we are mega impressed with this new 8 way knife, for us it’s a game changer, as is the larger straight timber, i think if we got organised better 10 bags an hour is possible but the timber would have to be straightish and nothing under 8inch dia, which is harder to find, be interested to see what a 480 could do in an hour on bigger stuff at 10 inch long ?

always liked the look of the japa 700 i think on the small stuff it would be quicker than our current set up, i think the bigger processors come into their own on the bigger timber, i only run our processor for a few days here and there, don’t get much time hence need a higher output in order to do a few hundred bags and then leave it alone

Hey Guys i thought it would be interesting to see what real world outputs people are seeing from the processors, i was cutting some ash this afternoon, laser set to 9.5 inch and we were seeing 7 bags an hour 1.2 cube bags, not rushing and that allowed for shacking the bags to settle before stacking on pallet, i had a mate loading log deck and taking bags away, we were pleased with that and could see plenty of ways to speed things up a bit, must say the timber was nice and true, and good diameter no small bits, what do you see with other processors ? i know if i turn the cut length up then output goes through the roof

About to get stuck into this load of ash

maybe not so blinged up, they seem to have good residual but may need a bit of work if 7k

I find if your machine blade is driven on the cutting stroke hydraulically then you can run the blade for an extended time however this is bad as the blade is under huge stress which the operator is unaware of it can lead to cracks and ultimately will scrap the blade, as people have said get it sharpened pretty regularly and it will be happier, i do mine every 200 ton but could prob run it much longer, cost about £40 inc collector and del, ernest bennet saw blades, they cover the country, great service

some great advice, we have had more of a dumping overnight, will definitely leave the trailer and just get a few deliveries done with the pick up [emoji106]

Yes i think you are right, best leave the trailer behind till this lot clears up, thanks

I use a 14ft ifor, loaded fully, we have about 5 inch’s around here and it’s a bit slippery, the Ranger will pretty much go anywhere round here but iam not so sure it will with the trailer att and fully loaded, some of the hill descents have been marginal even with no trailer and i just cannot see it liking a steady push from the rear, and i cannot see the trailer been able to do anything other than lock up and slide as the brakes come on, i can see then me having to come off the brakes to keep it all straight but gaining speed, think it’s best left where it is unless anyone has any ideas ? cheers

I was about to start processing for later in the year, i was also hoping to avoid having to dry timber from the last load which we processed around november, however it’s reasonably dry 28% so the kiln will finish it off, i have 14 1.2 cube loads to get out plus 170 nets to deliver and another 150 to nett up, only got sat and sunday this week, not sure i fancy the 14 ft ifor fully loaded if this snow is still about, i even started sorting out the hilux that’s now off the road and i have little time to get back on that, blew a hose on the log deck so just collected a new set of hoses for that, should all be back sensible in a week or two fingers crossed, keep on chopping [emoji106]

Iam running a transaw 350 xls spec, it’s been faultless, it’s built tough, it has not been paired back to be lightweight like some of the competition, it’s just tough and very well polished, it works with a wide range of timbers, however it has really come into its own the last year since i have been feeding it optimal timber through a new 8/4/2 way knife that fuelwood kindly sorted out, cannot fault the transaw it really is very fast, and is great to use, maintenance is minimal and will last for years, as well as 10 inch logs, also cut the blanks for the kindling machine, and 550mm boiler logs for biomass, service from the lads at fuelwood is second to none, if you take the plunge you won’t look back. i did some posts on here with a load of photos when we did the 8 way knife, let me know if u have any questions, good luck [emoji106]

Interesting reading.........so consider that if you wished to produce the most amount of energy in a given time, let’s say 3 hrs burn time, ignoring number of stokings and volume of wood consumed, then softwood can outperform the hardwood, we see this on our biomass boiler, however the softwood is very very dry and burns with larger flames i think they contact the steel inside to a greater extent and so keep it cleaner, with the hardwood and smaller flames i think the energy is contained within the gases and it’s harder for the boiler to grab the heat from the gas than it is from the flame, especially if it’s got any carbon build up, i think if the hardwood was chopped up as smaller bits ie kindling size it would be a bit more similar, i understand that it’s easy to look in the book and get the kwh/ton ( similar for most species) but i have not seen any ref to burn time, [emoji106]keep on chopping

Thoughts ?

Thanks for that great info, pleased it looks like they are stihl working towards it !, good point re reed valves, i guess when they go injection it will save the cost of a carb and all the associated pn’s, albeit a fancy mtune one, i think reed and rotary valve 2 strokes behave very different to piston port units, and as spud says torque can be beneficial and they seem to be able to achieve higher rpm.

I have heard a few things WRT 500i, similar weight to 462 but more power, it looks like 462 is happening but not so much info on 500i, any ideas ?

might be worth checking that a sliver has not got wedged under the ram sleeve, i have seen that on other models, just a thought

this afternoon

Yes you could be bang on with that, stands to reason that if it gives the water easier then it’s going to take it back on easier as well !

for best results cook from frozen ! i saw a study done on drying logs and there was a section that went through and explained why wood dries quicker if it’s been frozen then thawed prior to drying, something to do with the water as it freezes shattering the cell structure so that it will give its water more readily, worked better on hardwood, it’s not really practical unless you can get mother nature’s help, otherwise think how much energy would have been expended in freeze then force dry, but an interesting thought.

You can run it on your own but it’s twice as quick with two, and quicker again with 3, but i do not have an outfeed conveyor, with an outfeed two people would be all over it if you were organised, you have a lot of stuff coming and going, iam assuming it’s going into bags, if you just wanted a big pile then 1 man is enough, hope that helps

The rings are cut to just under 10 inch, it’s not fussy, it will feed rings through down to about 4 inch as the ones behind will push them through, mines the 360 but with infeed conv. think Fuelwood just do the 400 now, that will take up to 13 inch long rings i think and upto 400mm dia, however if you have 800dia. just knock them in half, they feed through flat side down, you can see from the last picture on my previous reply the stuff that goes through, with the kindling i tend to cut the blanks on the transaw so they are smack on, however the sequoia in the bulk bag was about 5 ft in diameter and ringed to about 8-9 inch and blocked to 360 high, i found it best to split into two as a 5 ft long bit meant it was missing the drive dogs, where do you source your timber ? it it’s arb the you will get on well, if you are buying cord then a processor with deck will be less physical but won’t do kindle, also depends on your vol. once rings are cut you really will be filling a bag in around 4 mins on max dia and there will be no oversized logs, so in a day you can produce quite a bit as the machine is automatic it’s just relentless, you need to get yourselves organised otherwise you will be running all round the place trying to keep up, it makes us laugh though !

Hi Rob, iam running the splitta from fuelwood it has proved ultra reliable and pretty much unstoppable, output is very good, it will split rings into logs or kindling and it infinitely adjustable to any size in beteeen, and it really does take seconds to adjust, the logs on max are big but you have huge scope i run mine in the middle and it produces chunky logs, the kindling is good and iam selling lots, been running this for 3 years now, never let me down, the posch machine looks to me to be a lighter duty machine, where as the fuelwood one looks very heavy duty, quality of product for kindling depends on what you feed it with, logs is a different story, you can feed dirty nasty rings in and get bars out, most we have done on my splitta 360 is 40x 1.2mcube bags in a day, but you know you have done that as it’s all been lifted into machine, that’s with 3 people and about half material already ringed, a good mix of diameter timber, will find some picks of what it turns out

Bennovet is that ash ? difficult to see on my phone ? how long will that last you ?