On-Farm Firewood Processor

On-Farm Firewood Processor SPECIALTY/SERVICES Specialty/Services On-farm wood processing is turning into a booming sideline business for Perry Bubnick of Esterhazy Sask thanks to the large one-man self-loading firewood processor he designed and built himself      It s safe and simple enough for my teenage daughter to operate Bubnick says It ll handle a log that s up to 18-in in dia and 60-ft long I actually engineered it to handle trees up to 80-ft long but I have yet to see any that long in this area     He made the unique wood processing machine using common off-the-shelf parts wherever possible and mounted the unit on a 930 Case tractor      Some machine work was necessary but almost all of it was built in my small farm shop with basic tools Bubnick explains I also work fulltime as a millwright and I used to farm so machinery is pretty much my life     He says he designed and built the processor to handle crooked tree trunks that aren t suitable for his home-built sawmill but he s starting to use the rig to get into the firewood production business      The trees are cut limbed and skidded to the processor I run these through the processor and they come out as finished cut-to-length and split firewood Bubnick says The only hands-on part is putting tongs onto the logs to lift them and also pulling levers on the machine Aside from cleaning out screenings and sawdust the rest is done mechanically     The unit is almost maintenance-free he says and does not require the aid of a loader tractor      I use it day after day and do little more than check the oil says Bubnick     To process a log the tongs are attached to the butt of the tree and a winch is used to drag it up over the hydraulic-driven feed rollers     The feed roll frame tilts back causing the entire log to lift in the air and onto the machine Then it s fed into the buzz saw blade opening until it hits the stop which can be adjusted to cut in lengths from 24 to 12 in     The feed rollers have aggressive carbide-tipped teeth which prevent the log from turning while the 48-in hydraulically-driven circular blade is lowered to make the cut     The logs are then pushed into the splitter chamber where a hydraulic splitter is manually-activated pushing the wood through a 10-way closed grate with up to 50 tons of force     Once the log reaches a maximum 6-in diameter another lever manually stops the splitter in the closed position blocking the chamber opening This causes the wood to now bypass the splitter After it passes through or over the grate it passes over a 2-stage clean-out grate to rid it of small pieces of bark and other trash before it s pushed onto the 30-ft elevator which takes the wood up into a truck trailer or pile     The tractor hydraulics run everything except the splitter and blade which have a shared 35-gal pressure-compensated piston pump driven off the pto An oil-bath chain drive boosts the pto up to 2 000 rpm s     This pump automatically de-strokes should something jam or stall and this makes for a very smooth operation with little heat build-up     The blade drive uses two 16-gal piston motors running at about 2 000 rpms which drive the blade through an oil bath chain drive at 800 rpms      I have a 5-gauge set tooth 44-in blade on the machine now which looks like it will last through about 75 cords of gritty logs between sharpenings says Bubnick who plans to eventually replace the blade with an IKS/Simmonds Kodiak 2-gauge inserted carbide tooth blade      The splitter has what I call mechanical automation You pull a lever which locks and the 7-in dia splitter cylinder extends until it strokes to the preset limit and then stops if the bypass lever is pulled It then automatically cycles back to return with no hands on he says There is an emergency stop that halts the cycle at any point and causes the cylinder to retract and wait    The splitter cylinder itself has a 4-in dia piston controlled by “load sensing” valves that cycles it out fast in a single acting mode with the force of a 4-in dia cylinder and then automatically shifts to the power of the 7-in dia cylinder bore as needed A 3 1/2- in cylinder is used for the return stroke to keep it all cycling fast Other valves ensure that both sides of the 7-in cylinder get filled when retracting “One problem I encountered was the weight overhanging the rear of the tractor Although I engineered the framework to handle it I miscalculated the balancing of the tractor which needed approximately 2 750 lbs of front weight to correct ” Bubnick admits The output of this system varies with the size and age of the logs For example 2 or 3- year-old logs go through at a faster rate “I am doing 3 cords per hour of trembling aspen - green 12-in by 40-ft logs - at a leisurely but steady pace Dry burr oak goes through slightly slower If the splitter was in bypass mode and had someone working the tongs I would think production might as much as double in a perfect run ” he says Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Perry Bubnick Box 455 Esterhazy Sask Canada S0A 0X0 ph 306 745-2429; perrys_email@myway com

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