gdh
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Everything posted by gdh
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I thought alder always went more orange as it dried?
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Have you got a dealer who will sell them in the UK? Quality should sell but people usually want a demonstration first. Maybe you could be have one at the APF show this year.
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Been busy on woodchip today, it's nice to be using straight softwood for a change. Some of the wood is slowly drying outside now but the oak we've got to cut next hasn't got enough air flow where it's stacked so that could be fun.
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To me nothing beats a kramer for being compact, powerful and maneuverable. We use a smaller one for loading logs and a bigger 750 telescopic for our box rotator. Admittedly we can only justify that because they have a lot of farm work as well. Picture of our 280:
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Would it pass health and safety in this country if it works without your hands on the controls? Personally I prefer your way, saves having to modify it anyway.
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It's still going well, only issue is that anything under 8 inch diameter seems really slow and splits a bit too small with the 12 way splitter but as long as there's bigger stuff it makes nice quality wood. We cut to keep our drying shed full and replace what we sell but we're selling 30 loads a week at the moment (1.8 - 2.4cube) and we're lambing 450 sheep plus all the other farm work so we're just cutting a few tons every day to try and keep up.
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In case you didn't know if you put the second box on its end in the first and a third upside down on top you can get more on a load.
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Did you want a machine that can do wood and kindling in one or two machines? The best firewood processor for that price is the tajfun 400 (to me). That will take 40cm logs but the downside with it is that the splitter has a permanent back plate so if you want to cut rings you would have to lift them out of the chamber. Maybe you could make a splitter that will split small enough for kindling if you're cutting softwood, it does have a 15ton splitter.
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It all depends on the size of the farm and more importantly which job you would enjoy. Assuming that the farm has no debts (a big assumption these days) you could run it with very low stocking levels and just check on the animals in the morning and do a full day each week for the important jobs which would leave you time for your current business.
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Ah, makes sense the machines hold their value quite well for the first few years. The 480 was out around October.
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A new size and style of kindling net added to the range
gdh replied to gensetsteve's topic in Firewood forum
Mind if I ask what type of machine you use? We used to do kindling with (I think) a kindla machine run off a bobcat but didn't have enough of a market. Do you still drop rounds down a chute to be split repeatedly or have the machines changed? Don't worry I'm just curious, no intention of making kindling again. -
I'm not sure what's on the standard version to be honest. I think the only other extras are a light to tell you if you have the pto is set right and the display for the amount produced also tells a few other things like oil pressure, voltage, temperature and pto speed. The volume counter needs setting everytime you change length so I don't bother with it. Out of interest why did you get a second 400? Did something fail or are you cutting large amounts? I thought they had only come out 4 years ago when we got ours.
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That's a nice video, I've wanted to do something similar with a camera fixed on a falling tree then following it through the process but I don't have the patience. Your wood looks really tidy. My only suggestions would be replace the kiln dried reference with something like 'all our logs are seasoned naturally so they are dry and burn efficiently' and add a bit with you replanting saplings, not everyone understands that thinning is sustainable. Personally I like seeing the wood taken from hedges on a small scale, makes a change from seeing videos of people in the woods.
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It's working well, overall it's just slightly faster than the 400 but obviously the real gain is putting bigger logs through and the 12 way splitter means you don't have to put anything through twice. Having three rollers on the log table is a huge improvement and the hydraulic winch on the conveyor makes filling boxes easier. The chain is slightly easier to access but the sprocket is harder. We've got the plus model and the auto height adjust on the splitter is nice but not important with the 12 way in. The splitter is the same speed as the 400 but slows down if needed on big logs, it does make our massey 35x struggle though.
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That sounds like the perfect job, shame about the weather. We're lambing on the farm at the moment so we're cutting 6 days a week to try and keep up with orders, luckily our new processor is going well and we've got some nice big straight wood to cut. Just struggling to dry it fast enough now because everything's so wet.
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It's hard to tell because we're always expanding but there certainly seems to be more fires around now and a greater demand for dry logs instead of people cutting their own. We've been going about 20 years, it was just my dad doing a bit but since I left school and joined the business 8 years ago we've increased every year. We should hit 1000 tons this year so there's certainly demand. Only problem we have is a lot of new people who sell wood near the start of the winter until they run out of dry stuff which keeps the prices low. It's good for the customers though.
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It's not a big issue, I usually have 5-10 chains and just swap them and sharpen a few when I get the chance. We did ask about harvester bars but they just asked why I would want to waste more wood and I suppose they have a point. There's plenty of space in this model so you could probably run what you want with very little adapting.
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Yes the processors really well made, had no breakdowns with the old one so hopefully this will be the same and they're cheaper than alot of other makes. If you're cutting clean hardwood for 9inch I would expect 25-30cube out of chain and going up to 18 inch length would double that.
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Few more pics of the new machine and a pile of logs the lorry drivers stacked a bit too high.
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3/8, it's a 24 inch bar with a 19 inch cut.
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If it's 0.7cube I would think 250kg completely dry and 400kg wet.
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Tajfun do a simple version, we bought one but ended up changing the logs we cut so there wasn't enough kindling to make it worth it. I think it's £3-400 RCA Tajfun
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Yeah the splitters brilliant, no more putting big bits back through. I'll try and take some more pictures tomorrow, realistically we're looking at 4-6 cube an hour including moving between boxes. That's with 9inch though when we cut 18inch we should easily be 10-15 cube. I think the key will be to get as many 12-18 inch diameter logs as possible.
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We've just built a log table and now we're putting all the big logs that we've left to one side through our new processor. There's something for satisfying about putting big logs through a twelve way splitter.
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We're £65 for a cube of dried hardwood. We charge £110 for 1.8cube delivered up to 20 miles. We also do larger amounts slightly cheaper, woodchip depends on location and amount and 3-4 foot lengths for biomass boilers. Buying in lengths of hardwood is around £55 a ton and heading upwards as always. Edit: That's in mid Wales.
