name_mike

Unless Its kiln dried to lower than atmospheric humidity & it comes out of the kiln that day its no different to properly seasoned wood. Wood will absorb moisture to become ambient with the atmosphere.

I dry my wood in an open ended polly tunnel then store it indoors for about a week before burning it and it is consistently 11% MC.

I have a log boiler so fast burning isn't an issue.

Has anyone ever come across a log deck compatible with a a horizontal log splitter to enable an auto feed into the splitter?

I have a posch splitmaster and the only labour intensive part of the process is cutting the logs and pushing / lifting to the log raising cradle.

Just wondering how many of you guys sell billets?

Whats you customers preferred lengths?

What do you price them at?

1 meter and strait into the boiler.

has anyone ever tried to lift a bundle of billets with a bale spike?

Where did you get them from?

Knoti

I've bought a load of these

[ame]

I built one by bending scaffold poles into two upward facing, half octagons, 800mm internal diameter. Welded them onto two rails with a plywood octagon at one end.

It holds 1/2 cube of 1 metre billets once filled. When filled I tighten them up with an endless ratchet strap made from an old seatbelt. Once tight I secure each end with poly strapping, release the ratchet and roll whole unit over to eject the bundle.

Cheap as chips to make and bundles can be rolled around fairly easily.

A bit fiddly per cube because splitting has to stop to tie up bundles and free up the bundler.

Look up Holzbündelgerät on ebay.de for ideas.

Will try to post pictures of mine if it helps you. (Still new to this caper)

Pics would be good. cheers.

anyone using a posch smartcut 700 to cut billets, is it any good? what sort of money are they.

There was a smartcut 700 on ebay a few weeks ago for 5K. It was used but had hardly been touched.

Any reason to want to have horizontal instead of vertical?

 

For a lot less than the Posch you could have a vertical splitter with winch + tractor and loader to run it

The main reason I'd prefer horizontal is I think its more ergonomic to have the table on the back to pick the billets off when stacking them into bundles. Theres no lifting, more just sliding them off the table into a rack.

there's also multiteks log buster if you don't fancy anything mentioned so far. think it's 100 ton splitting force.

 

This is definitely much more than I need, doesn't stop me wanting one though.

Have just put one on ebay

I've had a look. Its a bit more than I need I think and therefore a bit more expensive.

We have a 200kw log boiler and we are using 3m3 of 20 per cent or less larch wood every 24hrs which registers 3000 kW on the meter.

Do you mean 3 cube bags?

A good operator would of split it so the bottom billets were of good size then the two over size ones back through to split four times that looks like a good machine let down by a crap operator & video.

 

Billets dry quicker bundles take less room and can be cut to size and are Easter to keep dry

And my biomass boiler likes 1m long billets.

Collino 33T Horizontal Splitter 1200mm Long split with Hydraulic log lifter and knife adjustment and folding bench.

See video. Fortunately they make better splitters than videos!

 

 

I think you can get a 6 way knife too...

The bottom billets getting stuck on their own promo video doesn't inspire confidence.

I'm looking at getting a large splitter to make 1m long billets. I'm currently thinking of getting a posch splitmaster. Has anyone any experience of this or other machines?

Can't seem to get a picture up. I dont have ay picture online anywhere.

I have a valmet 860 for sale

07769354118

I think this will be a bit bigger than what I'm after. I should of said forwarding trailer.

Sounds a better idea, you only need a 560xp to chop em up now?

Was thinking a 372xp with a 28" bar to go through the billet bundle in one cut.

Think you may need a rethink on how your going to unload your bundles inside a 20 mtr x 8 mtr polytunnel although it will be fun to watch.

Reverse trailer into polytunnel and stack at the rear of the trailer. Polly tunnel will have additional hight to accomodate the grab.

Forgot to mention, My boiler room is down in my cellar so to move the billet bundles about in the cellar I've bought 32 old woolworths tall wheeled cages which each take 1m3. These are 720mm wide hence the 700mm billet bundles. Two bundles will be lifted into each cage by the forwarder grab then untied. They'll then be taken down into the cellar on a hydraulic lift. Once in the cellar is easy to move wood from the wood store room into the boiler room. The boiler room can fit 6 of the these cages in (6m3) so by the time the wood is burned its been in the warm boiler room a few days so it's really dry (12 - 15% mostly).

I've been doing a bit more thinking and I've come up with our process.

1. transport logs to site on small forwarding trailer with grab. The capacity of this grab is going to be our limiting factor in what diameter logs we can handle. Probably no bigger than 20" so huge saw is no longer required.

2. Cut logs to length on back of forwarder.

3. Pick cut log off the back of the forwarder and place onto horizontal splitter bed (probably posch splitmaster 30).

4. Split log into billets which come out onto splitter 'outfeed table'.

5. Slide billets off 'outfeed table' into 700mm round cradles (probably have three at the back of the splitter.

6. Once cradles are full tie them using "Knoti" - ....binden ohne Knoten ties to make 700mm diamter billet bundles.

7. Pick billet bundles out of cradles using forwarding trailer grab.

8. Once forwarding trailer starts to empty load the bundles onto the forwarding trailer then take them and stack them in a large poly tunnel using the grab.

9. Once seasoned the forwarding trailer will be re-loaded with billet bundles which will be transported to the boiler room.

10. For shorter logs the billet bundles will be dropped into an elevated cradle and cross cut a couple of times. The logs will fall out of the cradle into a bag below.

Theres a few bespoke bits of kit to find or make to make this system work but I think it will be quite time and labour efficient as the logs are handled an absolute minimum.

I'm after a second hand forwarder with a log grab attached. Any size considered at the moment. PM me if you have anything.

Cheers.

Hello mike,

 

We got a local engineer to roll us a couple of half circles which we then welded into a frame made of 60x60x5mm box. Then we use 19mm webbing strapping and a really good tensioner which winds them down pretty tight. We then use log grab to lift them out and stack up.

 

Was less money than buying one, but already got the tools, welder etc.

 

Cheers, John.

I think I'll end up doing something similar. I think make 3 or four side by side so I can fill a few bundles off the splitter before having to stop and tie them.

If the bundle is strapped tight enough to be stable, the saw will most likely bind as the billets move under the strapping pressure on cutting.

Anyway even a single phase rocking cradle cross cut saw is plenty fast at cutting billets, to simply cut to length as needed beside the boiler.Oops, and guessing no dearer than a large chainsaw to purchase, plus chainsaws not best suited to cutting dry timber.

m

1m billets are just right for the boiler. I'd be cutting them for family members stoves. I'm thinking I'll make a jig to drop the bundle into then untie them so they're loose then cross cut a couple of times with a chainsaw and let the logs fall out the bottom into a bag or box. It would only take a couple of 700mm bundles to loose fill a 1m3 bag.